TF-EMC2-SCS project

Server Certificate Service Project

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Server Certificates News

The Server Certificate Service, also known as SCS, goes live on Thursday 16 March 2006!
The project is the result of one year of work and negotiations to get in place a service that suits the demands of the NRENs.


Signing certificate request	Certificate request verification	Certificate issued

The certificate	The toast

More photos.

Special thanks to: Kaspar Brand (SWITCH), Milan Sova (CESNET), Florent Guilleux (CRU/RENATER)and Jan Meijer (SURFnet) for their work during the deployment phase.

Aim of the project

NRENs are witnessing an increase in the need for SSL server certificates in their own organisations and within their user communities, due to both an increased awareness for the need of encrypted channels (https, secure email etc.) and to the rollout of authentication and authorisation middleware.

Although many NRENs have set up a Certification Authority (CA) they are not able to roll-out server certificates due to the well known 'pop-up' problem, that occurs using server certificates issued by a CA whose root is not listed among those recognised as trusted by web browsers.

The project aimed to solve the pop-up problem, contracting via TERENA a commercial CA provider to issue server certificates to the NRENs involved and their user communities either by establishing and running a dedicated CA or by whatever other means might have been proposed.

The project is funded by the following NRENs:
ACONET, CARNet, CESNET, RENATER(CRU), RedIRIS, SURFnet, SWITCH and UNI-C

Call for Proposals

To assure transparency in the procurement, in September 2005 TERENA issued a Call for Proposal and it was decided to:

send this Call for Proposals to all established CA providers which are currently known to TERENA;
publish the Call for Proposals on the TERENA website;
publish the Call for Proposals on the Official Journal;
and apply the procedure as described in the call for proposal.

TERENA emphasis that the procedure does not classify as one of the award procedures laid down in the Services Directive and that such was expressly not the intention of TERENA.

Project Important Deadlines

15 September 2005: deadline to request clarification on the Call for Proposal
24 September 2005 : deadline to provide answers to the questions.
A document with all the questions received and with the related answers has been compiled and it is available for public information.
30 September 2005 (11:00 hrs Dutch local time): Deadline to submit the proposal
19 December 2005 : Preferred Suppliers appointed
9 January 2006: Signed Contract with GlobalSign
10 January - 15 March 2006: Delivering Phase
16 March 2006: Service Operational