2018 was another strong year for the Shibboleth Consortium, with membership growing at a steady rate of a new member each month on average. This took total membership from 40 to 52, with the milestone of 50 members being celebrated in a press release.
With membership continuing to grow, the Consortium has been able to maintain its fee structure since its increase at the start of 2017, and is pleased to be in a position to keep this the same, offering core development team support as a key benefit of membership. 2018 also saw the introduction of a new fee category for multi-site academic organisations, under which multiple campuses sharing the same Shibboleth system can join under a single membership rather than each campus individually. This brings significant cost and time savings to these organisations whilst maintaining the benefits of Consortium membership across the whole organisation.
With a stronger financial footing the Consortium has also expanded the development team, welcoming Phil Smart from Jisc. With a background in identity and access management systems development and web development, Phil adds to the varied skill-set of the development team and is making great progress.
2018 also saw increased collaborative work between the Consortium and the GÈANT Project, with the development teams working closely together on an OIDC extension to the Shibboleth IdP. This significant piece of work reached its first official release in April 2019, and the collaborative relationship continues with GÈANT in the latest cycle of their project, GN4-3. We are also very pleased to have further expanded the Shibboleth development team at the start of 2019 with one of the lead developers of the OIDC extension, Henri Mikkonen, joining the team. The development team now has 8 members, whose skills and dedication ensure that Shibboleth remains supported and maintained, whilst also developing the suite to remain fit-for-purpose.
None of this would be possible without the generous support of every single member, donor and partner of the Consortium. We are grateful to each and every one and look forward to working with you in the coming months and years.
For information on the Consortium, please email justin.knight@jisc.ac.uk or contact@shibboleth.net
