The InCommon Discovery Service is officially a production service. The wide-area deployment of the Discovery Service (based in Ann Arbor) includes a hot spare (in Indiana) to minimize disruption during scheduled and unscheduled maintenance windows. Visit the new Discovery Services web page (http://www.incommon.org/discovery.html) for background information and links to other resources.

Note well that the InCommon WAYF will be taken out of service on February 2, 2011. ALL InCommon service provider deployments currently relying on the InCommon WAYF should reconfigure their software to point at the InCommon Discovery Service instead. Since the Discovery Service is backwards compatible with the WAYF, the new configuration should work exactly the same as before. If you are using the Shibboleth Service Provider software, visit our Shibboleth configuration page (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/VgQjAQ) for specific instructions.

Unlike the old WAYF, the InCommon Discovery Service supports SAML V2.0. For those service provider deployments that support SAML V2.0, and who wish to take advantage of new SAML V2.0 features, the first thing you need to do is update your InCommon Federation metadata. Visit the InCommon Discovery Service technical page (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/FgEFAQ) for a general description of what's required. Again, if you are using the Shibboleth Service Provider software, visit our Shibboleth configuration page (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/VgQjAQ) for specific instructions on how to upgrade to SAML V2.0.

Also on February 2, we will deploy a new user interface with incremental search, the #1 requested feature. Any metadata or software configuration changes made between now and then will be preserved, so please schedule your metadata and software upgrades NOW. If you have have any questions, visit our FAQ at https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/SAQjAQ or send e-mail to incommon-participants@incommon.org.