Representative Council: Meeting Minutes

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Contents

[edit]

2008

[edit]

September 24, 2008

Attending:

  • Brien Waage, University of Missouri – Columbia
  • David Johnston, University of Missouri – Kansas City
  • Neal Hodges, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
  • Denise Stephens, University of Kansas
  • Bob Zimmerman, University of Arkansas
  • Greg Monaco, GPN


  1. New names and faces around GPN (all members):
    • KU: Dilawar Grewal, Director of Research IT Services; Rick McMullen, Director of Research Computing
    • Arkansas: Mike Abbiatti, Executive Director of AREON the state regional optical network and Amy Apon, Director of Research Computing
  2. Upcoming Shibboleth Training in Kansas City, Missouri (http://collaboration.greatplains.net) with 12 registrants from South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas (KSU), UMKC and Arkansas (UALR). Training run by Denis Hancock and Brian Dourty of MU.
    • MU System and KU are already up and running regarding Shibboleth.
    • It appears to be on the radar for all the other campuses.
    • Greg recommended prototyping a Shibboleth identity provider at each institution to help ease the transition to Shibboleth. MU could be of assistance since it currently has the most expertise.
    • Denise said that she will forward the name of the person handling Shibboleth at KU so that we could add the person to the list of expert contacts in the region.
  3. Proposal for a Regional Cyberinfrastructure Brainstorming Summit was attached. Greg was asked about the number of expected attendees and suggested a limit of about 40. The format of the meeting was discussed with breakouts around various GPN member interests.
    • Timing: Greg suggested several dates and Denise noted that preferred dates for her would be in November (e.g., 7 or 14). (Note: Faculty members on recent calls noted that the December time frame, after classes were over, tended to work better for them.)
    • Objective: It was pointed out that participants should have a clear sense of what will be accomplished by the time they leave the meeting: What we can do collaboratively to facilitate CI across the GPN institutions was one suggestion.
    • Planning: If you would like to be on the planning committee for the CI Summit, please let Greg know. Members needed.
  4. Proposal for Greg to visit GPN member universities was attached and discussed.
    • Neal said he thought this would work well for SDSMT. Plans are proceeding there. Denise also expressed interest.
  5. Greg made a presentation at the Quilt Meeting on GPN Research Coordination Efforts and the final presentation can be found at http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/images/1/16/2008_Quilt_Research_Collaboration.pdf.

The consensus seemed to be that having an agenda and items ahead of time to discuss was the preferred format for the meeting.


[edit]

March 26, 2008

Some ideas for GPN Annual Meeting topics that were discussed at today’s Representative Council Meeting.

  • VMware - virtualizing servers on campus – Suggestions for a speaker???
  • DCN – What it means, how to use it (I contacted Dale Finkelson to see whether he might be interested)
  • Regional Network Management – Carol Farnham
  • Emergency Notification – UALR had a shooting on campus last month
    • delivered 45000 messages in x minutes
    • voluntary registration of phone numbers – any number
    • David Johnston (Jim Hisle), Rogers Davis, someone from KSU
  • Service Oriented Architecture – Speaker???
  • Research VPs and IT – A Conversation
  • DWDM Fiber Optic Technology – Presentation by members from GPN region
  • Community Networks: DWDM Fiber Optics for Rural Areas – Rogers Davis, Janet Poley?
  • Health Care to Rural Areas: PIs from successful FCC proposals?
  • GPN Network: GPN Networking Committee
  • GENI Side Meeting with Chip Elliott, GENI Program Manager
[edit]

January 23, 2008

Topic 1: Outcome of GPN Strategic Planning Session

Group 1:

  1. Pick a project, grant, etc., that includes multi-state/multi-institution involvement, and GO FOR IT.
    • Agree upon one project leader.
    • Time Frame: 6 months for decision
  2. Restructure: redefine Councils
    • Roles and who should be the designated representative…

Group 2:

  1. Change current committee structure and replace it with one that facilitates and ensures GPN’s goals and objectives
  2. Win a major multi-state, multi-institution grant/award consistent with GPN objectives

Topic 2: Greg updated the group on the GENI project and the Virtual Organization Bioscience project.

GENI

  • Current participants: UNL, KU, KSU, UMKC
  • Intended to be extensible to involve other sites
  • Meetings in December and January involving researchers and technical folks

VO for Bioscience

  • Current participants: UM, UALR, KSU
  • Pre-proposal stage

Topic 3: Discussion of the annual meeting

  • Possible topics (e.g., middleware), discussion groups, GENI, KC POP, State and Regional Networks.
  • Start midday on Day 1 and end at 3PM on Day 2.
  • 2 tracks.
[edit]

2007

[edit]

November 28, 2007

Topics discussed include

  1. Campus Issues/Updates;
  2. Recent FCC awards for rural health care networks;
  3. Upcoming GPN Strategic Planning session;
  4. EPSCoR Cyberinfrastructure Workshop: Recent document from John Connally.
  5. Next Meeting: 1/23/2008.
[edit]

September 26, 2007

The GPN Disaster Recovery meeting, hosted by CIENA, was held in place of the regularly scheduled meeting:

Details here.

[edit]

August, 2007

No Meeting

[edit]

July 25, 2007

The GPN Representative Council met by teleconference at 10 AM on Wednesday, July 25, 2007, for approximately one hour.

Attending: Tom Hart, UAMS; Neal Hodges, SDSMT; Del Johnson, SDSU; Eric Sigler, UM Rolla; Greg Monaco, GPN

The following matters were discussed:

  1. Distinction between and organization of GPN Representative Council and GPN Executive Council.
  2. Upcoming Disaster Recover Meeting
    • Greg has been in contact with Scott Silverstein from Ciena and they will be participating;
    • Dates: Before Thanksgiving and not overlapping with either the Internet2 or Educause Meetings.
  3. Educause Cyberinfrastructure Summit: Greg elaborated on the document he sent out summarizing the summit.
    • Key points included research driving IT in 10 years and need for a close relationship between the research and IT sides on campus.
    • Attached are two versions of the Peter Siegel slide depicting the transition of information technology from research to production services that was requested.
  4. GPN Strategic Planning: Greg outlined the plan for GPN strategic planning and invited the group to think about a representative to the process.
  5. Update of contact information for members: A form to update contact information from each member will be circulated to the Institutional Representatives to fill out and return to Greg.
  6. The request for comment on NIH’s NCRR (National Center for Research Resources) strategic plan was mentioned and the email from NCRR circulated. NCRR has infrastructure programs for computation and networking. NCRR funded the LARIAT program, an eleven state biomedical networking initiative.
[edit]

June 27, 2007

Brief review of Globus tutorials at GPN2007 by Greg and Neil

Overview and Discussion of upcoming GP Grid School at University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Discussion by Del Johnson on the Disaster Recovery Roundtable he facilitated at GPN2007

  • There were more topics to discuss than time to discuss them
  • There was interest in remote disater/data recovery sites
  • Seems to be a logical use for new bandwidth to provide dr across campuses
  • There is a great deal of potential for future discussion
  • Scott Silverstein of Ciena was at the roundtable and Ciena has purchased a company to provide dr
  • Recommendations
    • Ciena meeting for GPN on DR
    • This meeting would provide an opportunity for interested parties to make a recommendation to GPN
    • Meeting timeframe:  ??????? Late Fall
    • Next steps: Greg will follow up with Scott

Greg mentioned that he has brought up the concept of DR for research data with the Research Advisory Board and they showed interest in continuing to pursue this idea.

[edit]

April 25, 2007

Discussion:

Internet2-NLR Greg reported from the I2 member meeting in Washington that Jeff Lehmen (chair of Internet2) and Tracy Futhey (Chair of NLR) jointly presented at the first general meeting that they were progressing according to plans. The proposed goal is one organization by July, 2008, with, perhaps, a hybrid name such as Internet2-NLR. A further consolidation will occur by July 2009 into one name. Currently, the network planning committee is preparing a report that will go to a merger planning committee. The network planning committee report took a little longer than expected due to the confidential nature of some of the information and the need to first sign nondisclosure agreements.

At the Community Leaders Forum, Charlie Catlett, a member of the network planning committee, discussed the information he could share without violating nondisclosure. Essentially, the NPT analyzed both organizations as having a community of customers, and a community of corporate affiliations, and providing production IP and additional waves to the customers. The goal is to have one production IP network rather than two. The NPT is examining the lifetime of assets (equipment) and IRUs on fiber, potential R & E need, and will make recommendations accordingly. The footprints of the two networks are substantially the same.

When asked about the possibility of level (3) compromising on agreements, I believe that Jeff said that their discussions with level (3) have been quite cordial and he felt they would be flexible.

Annual Meeting We discussed having a security roundtable at the annual meeting.


[edit]

March 28, 2007

Discussion:

  1. Crossbeam (www.crossbeamsystems.com) for 10 gig optical switch with software capabilities and Force10 for a similar product without the software capability. (Rogers Davis)
  2. GPN SEGP/K20 group and that, for SD, the group to involve might be at Dakota State University (David Zolnowsky, CIO). (Neal Hodges/Del Johnson)
  3. Blown fiber and FutureFlex--been used at the Pentagon, MGM Grand. Could be useful on campus--you can blow in a few fibres at a time. You can also replace/upgrade the fiber in the future. (Rogers Davis) [Greg spoke with several vendors the next day at the Missouri Higher Ed meeting about this.]
  4. Telcove: A fiber company which was recently purchased by Level3 and has some useful assets.
  5. Usefulness of a Calea -- "OK, so you've made your decision, now what?" presentation at GPN2007.
  6. Disaster Recovery Roundtable at GPN2007 to be moderated by Del Johnson.
[edit]

February 28, 2007

Discussion:

  1. Recent KC Networking meeting (Michael Ruhrdanz)
  2. New GPN affiliate member.
  3. GPN Annual Meeting: May 30, 31 and June 1.
    • Group would like to see cable TV and VOIP presentations at annual meeting
    • ACUTA group is having session on VOIP
      • From Michael Ruhrdanz: ACUTA (Association for Communications Technology Professional in Higher Education - www.acuta.org). I have attended many of their meetings (normally 4 per year), and have almost always found them to be worth our time. UNL is a member.
      • ACUTA is hosting a "Summit on IP Communications in Higher Education" that will be held in Baltimore from April 1-4. For anyone interested in the general topic of IP Phones within Higher Education, this should be a good event.
    • Disaster Recovery panel – perspectives on DR e.g., remote disaster recovery, current practice – commercial providers as well as university folks, e.g., Del, Michael, someone from Indiana University
  4. Potential opportunity for May 30 pre-meeting workshop on DR or other topic.
  5. Cable TV over IP - Who's doing it and who's interested?
    • Umkc multicast 32 channels over IP – all “educational’ (e.g., history channel, discovery channel, cspan, cnn, weather, courtTV) including local affiliates and umkc channels.
      • Brings the IP solution to locations on campus where cable is expensive.
      • From Tom Brenneman at UMKC: You can see it at http://www.umkc.tv Select the Classic Arts Showcase or NASA channels and you can see the quality of the broadcasts. Most of the other channels are only viewable from a computer on the campus network.
    • Sending to other locations might infringe with local cable company.
    • But satellite can compete—what about bringing in satellite feeds and then pushing them over IP.
  6. GPN Members Only WIKI -- coming soon -- ideas for use?
    • email addresses
    • disaster recovery documents
  7. Last mile issue
    • 98% of campus needs, internal networking is handled internally: Nebraska, UMKC, SDSMT
[edit]

January 24, 2007

  • Tom Hart, UAMS
  • Rogers Davis, UALR
  • Del Johnson, SDSU
  • Neal Hodges, SDSMT
  • Greg Monaco, GPN

Updates, issues:

  • Discussion on WebCT: some campuses will retain version 4.1 until new Blackboard version is debugged and stable.
  • ARE-ON kick off in Fayetteville in December
  • South Dakota funding for networking connection to KCMO and across state
  • With changes in the network, the GPN Newnet/I2/NLR workshop will be postponed
  • Suggestion: More webcasting of gpn meetings
  • GPNgrid meeting, Feb 2-3:
  • Disaster Recovery at Internet2
    • There was a new working group and Greg sent out the minutes of that meeting to the Representative Council members
    • Communication – email - was a huge issue
  • GPN Annual Meeting, May 30, 31 & June 1, are there topics we might like to include in the program:
  • Use of wide area network in disaster recovery?
  • Other Business
    • Disaster Management and Communication: Disaster recovery checklists: Any out there? Can we/should we develop one? What would be the scope?
    1. Preparation checklist
    2. Checklist once disaster happens

Adjourned shortly after 11AM.

[edit]

2006

[edit]

November 22, 2006

Attending:

  • Rogers Davis, University of Arkansas Little Rock
  • Michael Ruhrdanz, University of Nebraska
  • David Johnston, University of Missouri Kansas City
  • Neal Hodges, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
  • Del Johnson, South Dakota State University
  • Greg Monaco, Great Plains Network

Discussion

  1. Campus reports
    1. Arkansas Bond Issue passed for higher ed with implications for several campuses.
    2. Arkansas' unveiling of the AREON network is now scheduled for Dec 20, 2006.
    3. SD is hoping for some funding for fiber.
  2. Educause Identity Management Summit – Greg summarized some takeaway points from this meeting, which involved ID specialists, end users who had no idea about identity management, and folks in between.
    1. End User Involvement: End users who had not previously known about identity management expressed that preparing for this meeting made them more aware of the impact of IDm for their work. The concensus of the summit was that end users needed to be owners of the IDm process.
    2. Rogers Davis said that he has been looking at OneCleveland as a potential model for unified identity management across various organizations.
  3. Shibboleth Update based on discussion with Ken Klingenstein of Internet2: Ken spoke to the Middleware group about new developments in federating various campuses and entities.
    1. The Shib project is testing interoperability with NSF's Fastlane. Greg pointed out that applications like Fastlane might put downward pressure to adopt Shibboleth.
    2. Most campuses do not have Shib on the horizon but seem to be carefully watching.
    3. GPN is pursuing working through the trust agreements which might be needed to enable campuses to permit sharing of resources via Shibboleth across campuses.
  4. GPN Mailing List
    1. In order to more effectively reach campus folks who might be interested in upcoming GPN workshops and in sharing GPN resources, one of Greg's student assistants began assembling email addresses of faculty in order to invite them to join the GPN mailing list.
    2. It was suggested that emails be sent individually to each faculty member rather than a spam mailing. Greg will handle it that way.
  5. NewNet/Lambda Rail Meeting planned for January/February Timeframe
    1. We would like to discuss both the national and regional picture and involve as many folks from each campus as possible.
    2. February seems to be a better time.
    3. Beth Chancellor was going to circulate some dates.
  6. New Information
    1. Rogers mentioned a company which specializes in fiber via sewers as a solution. There was interest in contact information, which follows: 
Cable Runner
7620 NW 6th Avenue
Boca Raton, Fl 33487
Phone 561-997-7767
Fax 561-997-2714
Leopold Zeindlhofer
President and CEO
Email    l.zeindlhofer@cablerunnerusa.com
Web     http://www.cablerunnerusa.com/

Next meeting: 4th Wednesday in January (January 25, 2007) at 10AM.

[edit]

October 25, 2006

Attending:

  • Rogers Davis, University of Arkansas Little Rock
  • David Swanson, University of Nebraska
  • Beth Chancellor, University of Missouri Columbia
  • Brian Buege, University of Missouri Rolla
  • Neal Hodges, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
  • Del Johnson, South Dakota State University
  • Greg Monaco, Great Plains Network

Discussion:

  1. Morgan received some disaster recovery documents. They will be ultimately be placed at the GPN web site and all will be notified. Concern is to make them secure.
    1. Not everyone has DR documents for IT
    2. It was noted that sometimes there is a disconnect between DR planning for IT and DR planning for buildings and facilities.
  2. The GPN Wiki is available at collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki. Members are encouraged to add information, add links and names and documents as you care to. If you would like us to carve out a piece of the Wiki for you, just let Greg know. If you would like help with deciding on or setting up your own Wiki, Rahul Deshmukh can assist.
  3. Status of interest in Shibboleth was assessed. Currently,
    1. Many campuses show interest but it’s not a priority, sometimes due to lack of an application or lack of available staff.
    2. Please rely on GPN to assist if you want to deploy Shibboleth.
    3. UM Columbia & UM Rolla: are using Shib for a particular application by Cdigix which provides video (?) to students. Cdigix is currently a member of InCommon.
      1. Note: UM has system-wide ID management system (origin is managed by central IT group)
    4. UALR & UAMS – joint degree program – are considering Shibboleth
  4. Discussion turned to identity management
    1. Thanks to Rogers Davis for forwarding these identity management links discussed at this mornings meeting. The idea is that they may be helpful in making decisions about selecting an ID management solution. They are also at the WIKI: http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/index.php/Portal:Representative_Council
      1. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/its/group/PMO/Projects.FY2007/Funding%20Request%20-%20Directory%20Changes%20080806.doc
      2. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/its/group/PMO/Projects.FY2007/Funding%20Request%20-%20Directory%20Changes%20080806.doc
      3. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/its/vision/identity-management.html
      4. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/its/projects/
      5. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/its/group/architecture/process/app_arch_security_v1.0.pdf
      6. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/its/group/networking/sunetview.html
      7. http://www.stanford.edu/dept/its/vision/index.html
  5. Greg is checking with KU and KSU regarding their experts in ID management.
  6. David Swanson described the changes going on with the larger pipe into the Abilene network and how that began to be driven by the CMS collider project and UNL as a Tier 2 site. There was some discussion about a workshop on NewNet/Internet2/NLR and the “new GPN” following the I2 Meeting in December. The workshop will be held in KC in January or February. Beth Chancellor will pick some tentative dates and Greg will arrange speakers.

Next meeting: 4th Wednesday in November (day before Thanksgiving) at 10AM.

[edit]

September 27, 2006

  1. Introductions
    1. Beth Chancellor, University of Missouri, Columbia
    2. Jason Erickson, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
    3. David Johnston, University of Missouri, Kansas City
    4. Greg Monaco, GPN
    5. Tim Stoddard, University of Arkansas, Little Rock
  2. Time and Date for Meeting
    1. 4th Wednesday of each month at 10 AM.
  3. Research Advisory Board
    1. Additions have been made from South Dakota State University and University of Missouri, Columbia
    2. Greg intends to contact representatives to the Board and initiate advisory meetings. Please let Greg know who will serve on the Board from your university.
  4. Disaster Recovery
    1. Discussed this as one area of need that GPN could coordinate in terms of
      1. Working group, if there is sufficient interest, and teleconference, workshop or meeting
      2. Assembling information and locating it at GPN ConneXion on
      3. DR specialist at each university—contact information
    2. DR sample plans and how they are tested
      1. It was pointed out that communicating with a GPN colleague about this issue was preferred to emailing a listserv.
      2. GPN staff will begin contacting Council members to see about compiling a list of relevant DR documents.
  5. Action Items
    1. Next meeting October 25, 2006 at 10AM.
    2. We would like to know, in the meantime,
      1. Who from your institution will serve on the GPN Research Advisory Board.
      2. Whether you or someone from you group is interested in serving on the GPN Annual Meeting Planning Committee.
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