GEO Connected Community: Advancing Communication Infrastructure and Services

The GEO infrastructure will be essential for promoting full and open access to Earth observation data, supporting GEO’s mission to facilitate data and knowledge sharing. The GEO infrastructure needs to be accessed by the Earth observation community in a unified, reliable, and trustworthy way. GÉANT and the Regional and National Research and Education Networks can play a crucial role in ensuring that the GEO infrastructure is accessible to the Earth observation community worldwide. 

In the context of this proposal, we will keep GÉANT’s commitment to supporting National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in continuing their collaboration with GEO and exchanging information about existing services, communication infrastructure, and requirements, and to developing relevant activities together. This proposal also continues the engagement with AfriGEO and AmeriGEO, as well as with GEO community data providers to ensure the exchange of information and to seek potential cooperation in supporting this community. There will also be activities planned to reach out to the Asia-Oceania region through AOGEO and engage our partner NRENs within that region to further integrate them with GEO activities. 

While connectivity has been supported by dedicated links, networking services, and NREN collaboration, there is a growing need within the GEO community to address effective data access across diverse organizations, stakeholders, and geographic boundaries. In response, this proposal aims to foster collaboration between GÉANT and the GEO community, specifically around trust and identity services, to support the design and implementation of secure and efficient authentication and authorization processes. 

GÉANT’s trust and identity services portfolio includes services such as eduroam, eduGAIN, and MyAccessID. These services facilitate the federation of identity providers across research and education institutions, enabling single sign-on (SSO) access for users from over 6,000 organizations in 78 countries and regions. By leveraging these solutions, researchers and users can securely access federated services using their institutional credentials, streamlining access to Earth observation data. 

One of the objectives of this proposal is to work with the GEO community to understand their specific needs regarding single sign-on and assess the potential use of these services within the community. This effort will support the GEO infrastructure’s goal of making Earth observation data more accessible, secure, and integrated across diverse user groups.