ANSP IMPLEMENTS NETWORK CERTIFICATION AUTHORITY (CA) FOR COMPUTATIONAL GRIDS
After two years of development and testing, the ANSP network, in collaboration with NCC-UNESP, officially deploys the service of issuing digital certificates to science.
After five years of administrative, scientific and operational work, ANSP (an Academic Network at São Paulo) and the NCC-UNESP network (Center for Scientific Computing at the "Júlio de Mesquita Filho" São Paulo State University) have, this December 2013, officially put into full operation the Certification Authority (CA) for computational grids in the State of São Paulo: ANSPGridCA (ANSP Grid Certification Authority).
Computational grids are distributed and interconnected data storage and processing resources, designed to meet the needs of geographically dispersed groups of users. The management of this cooperative environment involves security issues that require mechanisms for authenticating users and resources in order to establish priorities and levels of access. In academia, the architecture of grid computing has become a major tool for collaboration on large projects of national and international research.
A major advantage of this architecture is the availability of large computing resources for researchers and their acceptance into the international community of grid users. In the academic area, the security grid is regulated by GSI (Grid Security Infrastructure) which uses public key cryptography, also known as "asymmetric cryptography" as a basis for its functionality. Each user, service, and each grid server is identified by a digital certificate. The issuance of these certificates is undertaken by a Certification Authority that follows the guidelines set by IGTF (International Grid Trust Federation).
The creation of a Certification Authority in the State of São Paulo has been a longstanding demand of the scientists engaged in grid computing, who until now were obliged to obtain their certificates from authorities in the United States or Europe, via a lengthy administrative process.
The ANSPGridCA (ANSP Grid Certification Authority) was recognized by TAGPMA (The Americas Grid Policy Management Authority) in the first half of 2012, and by TACAR (TERENA Academic Certification Authority Repository) in the second half of the same year, and began to issue certificates in March 2013, initially only for GridUNESP. After nine months of testing and learning, the certificate production regime has now been opened up to the entire academic community of São Paulo.
The cryptographic security module, HSM (Hardware Security Module), which generates the cryptographic key used for signing digital certificates, is manufactured in Brazil using Brazilian technology, and it is installed in the NCC-UNESP data center, in the city of São Paulo.
Prof. Luis Fernandez Lopez, Coordinator of the ANSP network, says the goal now is to serve the entire scientific community of São Paulo: “We invite the researchers from São Paulo, requiring grid certificates, to avail themselves of the services of ANSPGridCA.”
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Read more:
The Academic Network at São Paulo (ANSP) Grid Certification Authority
The Academic Network at São Paulo (ANSP) Grid Certification Authority. "Certificate Policy and Certification Practice Statement" . v. 1.0. 18 April 2012.
http://gridca.ansp.br/media/ca/cpcps.pdf
The Americas Grid Policy Management Authority (TAGPMA)
International Grid Trust Federation (IGTF)
