InCommon Launches Certificate Service for U.S. Higher Education Institutions

[Valerie Vogel <vvogel () EDUCAUSE EDU>]

InCommon Launches Certificate Service 
Service to Provide Unlimited Certificates for Higher Education
Institutions

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -  September 13, 2010 - The InCommon Federation has
launched the new InCommon Certificate Service, with 10 campuses and
higher education systems already subscribing. 

The new service provides the U.S. higher education community with
unlimited server and personal certificates at one fixed annual fee. An
institution can acquire unlimited certificates for all of its domains,
including those hosted for professional societies, athletics, or other
campus-based organizations.

This service, conceived and governed by IT leaders in higher education,
provides a cost-effective means of deploying and operating a more secure
and authenticated online environment. In addition to the already low
fee, Internet2 members receive a 25 percent discount (Internet2 is
InCommon's parent organization). Details are available at
www.incommon.org/cert.

According to John Krienke, chief operating officer of InCommon, "This
service is not only cost-effective, it is innovative. We will soon
provide unlimited personal certificates, which will set the stage for
campuses to more easily adopt important services like signed email and
second-factor authentication."

InCommon is offering this service through a partnership with Comodo CA
Ltd., a major certification authority and Internet2 industry member. 

"We're particularly grateful to the University of California Berkeley
for testing and troubleshooting this program over the last two months,"
Krienke said. "They've helped to streamline the process, which will help
ensure a positive experience for the community."

Any higher education institution with its primary location in the U.S.,
and qualifying for an "edu" domain name, is eligible for the program.
Institutions must also participate in or join InCommon to take advantage
of the Cert Service. 

More information is available at www.incommon.org/cert or by emailing
incommon-info () incommon org.

CERT SERVICE SUBSCRIBERS

University of Alaska
California Institute of Technology  
Carleton College
University of California Berkeley 
Indiana University 
Iowa State University 
University of Minnesota 
Penn State University 
University of Virginia
University of Texas System (includes nine campuses and six health
science centers)

ABOUT InCOMMON
InCommon facilitates collaboration through the sharing of protected
network-accessible resources by means of an agreed-upon community trust
fabric. The InCommon Federation, operated by Internet2, provides a
privacy-preserving, secure method for higher education institutions and
their partners to offer single sign-on convenience and standards-based
security to their faculty, researchers, students and staff. Through
InCommon, individuals no longer need to maintain multiple passwords and
usernames and online service providers no longer need to maintain user
accounts. The educational institution manages the level of privacy and
security for its constituents. For more information, see
www.incommon.org.

ABOUT INTERNET2
Internet2 is an advanced networking consortium led by the research and
education community. An exceptional partnership spanning U.S. and
international institutions who are leaders in the worlds of research,
academia, industry and government, Internet2 is developing breakthrough
cyberinfrastructure technologies that support the most exacting
applications of today-and spark the most essential innovations of
tomorrow. Led by its members and focused on their current and future
networking needs since 1996, Internet2 blends its human, IP and optical
networks to develop and deploy revolutionary Internet technologies.  For
more information see www.internet2.edu.

Media Contact:

Lauren Rotman                           
lauren () internet2 edu                                 
+1-202-331-5345