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May 2009 Internet2 Newsletter

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Internet2 Calendar

- Headlines -

Internet2 Governance Update

Board of Trustees Update: Internet2 Board of Trustees met on 19 April. Board Chair, Jeff Lehman, introduced the newly elected members of the Board: William (Brit) Kirwan (University of Maryland System), George Loftus (AOAC chair), Michael McRobbie (Indiana University), Alan Whitney (MIT) and Steve Wolff (Cisco). The Board received the unqualified 2008 Audit results and began discussions about the 2010 budget process, which is being linked to the Strategic Plan implementation. Internet2 CEO Doug Van Houweling reported on the executive searches in progress; ARRA opportunities; and the plans for the 2009 Spring Member Meeting. The Board was presented with updates from the council chairs regarding ongoing activities, and an update on the Strategic Plan implementation process. The Membership Committee presented a draft membership model. With the Board's endorsement, the model was presented at the Spring Member Meeting to solicit community input. More information, along with an opportunity to provide additional feedback on the model, is available online. The next Internet2 Board of Trustees meeting will be held on 8 July.

AOAC Update: The Architecture and Operations Advisory Council (AOAC) held calls on 22 April and 13 May, and a face-to-face meeting at the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting on 27 April. Based on a report by the Wave Pilot program task force, the AOAC endorsed their recommendation to approve seven requests to allocate unused wave capacity to connectors. Wave requests will continue to be accepted and, as necessary, the task force will be reconvened to analyze future requests. The AOAC has requested a six-month report on the program to be delivered in September. At the 27 April meeting, George Loftus of OSHEAN transitioned to become the AOAC Chair and Dave Lois of WISCnet became AOAC Vice Chair. The Council expressed its gratitude to Dave Jent for his leadership as the first AOAC Chair serving since the Council was formed in 2007. At the 27 April meeting, implementation of the Strategic Plan was the primary topic. Internet2 staff reviewed the six AOAC tasks and provided some recommendations for implementation of the tasks. The AOAC asked that the staff to prioritize the recommendations and bring issues back to the AOAC, when needed, while also making progress on more straight-forward issues. During the 13 May call, the AOAC agreed to a new format for their calls that will focus one call each month on strategic issues, and focus the other on a brief Internet2 staff update and continued discussions of future plans for Dynamic Circuit Network services.

AMSAC Update: The Applications, Middleware, and Services Advisory Council (AMSAC) agreed to support the request for special "opportunity" funding from the K20 Initiative to support further development of the MUSE collaboration platform, and conveyed this to the SPEC for their consideration. AMSAC reviewed the Strategic Plan implementation plan developed by Internet2 leadership, and the draft middleware implementation plan, including how the Internet2 middleware efforts align with related work underway by other organizations. It also has been following the InCommon future planning activity, including how it fits into the momentum for national R&E federations worldwide, the growing need for formal interactions between federations (interfederation). At the Spring Internet2 Member Meeting, the council heard briefings from all of the active middleware and security working group chairs about the activities of their respective groups.

Welcome New Advisory Council Members

Newly elected and appointed Advisory Council members began their service in conjunction with the Spring Member Meeting. Internet2 welcomes:
    • AMSAC Members: Bob Collie, Noshir Contractor, Mark Johnson, Mike Nelson, Jack Seuss, Randy Stout, and Shel Waggener.
    • AOAC Members: Roy Campbell, David Gift, Dave Jent, Brian Savory, and Paul Schopis.
    • ERAC Members: John Evans, Mark Luker, George Thoma, Donald Welch, and James Williams.
    • RAC Members: Dave Farber, John Kolb, Prem Paul, Dave Pokorney, and Ananda Rajagopal.

    Internet2 also thanks the following outgoing council members for their service:

    • AMSAC Members: Jim Bottum, Parvati Dev, Bill Mitchell
    • AOAC Members: Diane Barbour, Ron Johnson, Dan Blumenthal, Wes Kaplow
    • ERAC Members: Gary Auguston, John Killebrew
    • RAC Members: Guy Almes, James Hilton, Sandy Fraser

Fall 2009 Internet2 Member Meeting Call for Participation

The Call for Participation for the Fall 2009 Internet2 Member Meeting, 5-8 October in San Antonio, Texas, is now open. This Call for Participation includes a Call for Proposals, Call for Side Meetings and Call for Posters. Details for each of the calls as well as the individual submission forms are all linked from the Call for Participation.

The overarching theme for this fall's meeting is: “Collaborations and Resource Sharing in Research and Education: How the economic crisis is fueling the expansion of networking technology, fostering global communities, and driving social change.” Presentations that focus on the elements of network-based collaboration, including--but not limited to--virtual organizations, social networking, and software collaboration tools are encouraged. Additional information about specific session content is provided in the track descriptions.

The Program Committee is also introducing a new track at this meeting, dedicated to late-breaking topics or information. This new track will include one "Lightning Talks" session where presenters provide short talks on interesting or timely topics. Submissions for these talks will be accepted through the end of the first day of the Member Meeting. Full details on this Call for Participation, as well as the proposal submission forms, are available online.

Thanks to all who attended the Spring 2009 Internet2 Member Meeting last month! The meeting evaluation and netcast archive are available online.

InCommon Reaches 3 Million Milestone

Just six months after reaching the milestone of 2 million end users, InCommon has announced that its community now includes more than 3 million end users. The federation now includes 101 higher education participants, six government and nonprofit agencies and labs, and 34 sponsored partners. InCommon started as a pilot project in 2004 with 10 participants. In the last two years, the federation has doubled in size, from 72 participants in 2007 to 141 today.

In one significant highlight, all of the members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation--which includes all of the Big Ten schools and the University of Chicago--are now members of InCommon. The CIC plans extensive use of the federation as its member institutions greatly expand opportunities to collaborate, and develop and share digital resources.

Additionally, InCommon Future group presented its draft report at the Spring Member Meeting and is on track to deliver a final report in time for the July Internet2 board meeting. The group is charged with developing a three-year plan to address the InCommon Federation’s scope, services, and finances. With a doubling of the number of participants since 2007, InCommon's leadership seeks to ensure the federation has the necessary governance structure and resources to support this continued growth. The report is available on the InCommon Collaborate wiki.

Submit your Proposals, Register & Reserve your Room for Summer 2009 Joint Techs

The Call for Proposals is now open for the Summer 2009 Joint Techs, 19-22 July in Indianapolis, Indiana. This event will focus on three areas: Security, RONs (to Campus) Issues, and Campus Networking, with emphasis in each area on performance and IPv6 issues. Included in the registration for Joint Techs are two 4-hour tutorials, which will be held on Sunday afternoon, one on BGP, and the other, a Mini Network Performance Workshop. Two Internet2 Hands-on Workshops (separate registration required), Dynamic Circuit Network and IPv6, will also be held in conjunction with this Joint Techs, in addition to the usual working group meetings, BoFs and side sessions. Please note, there is a city-wide event in Indianapolis through duration of Joint Techs; lodging will be in short supply. The Joint Techs room block closes on 24 June, so please reserve your room early! Submit your proposal or register now.

Register Now for Workshops in Access Management and Identity Services for Open Source Projects

Have you been exploring solutions to your access management problems? Attend the CAMP: Practical Building Blocks for Access Management, 15-17 June in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Developed for this workshop, the program will offer a way to design and implement a coherent, incremental approach to authorization.

If you wonder why each new open-source package or service brings a new integration challenge, or are interested in working with the projects that make sense of the IAM space, register for the follow-on workshop Advanced CAMP: Identity Services Summit for Higher Ed Open/Community Source Projects, 18-19 June also in Philadelphia. Architects, developers, and deployers of higher ed open-source software projects and campuses will come together to explore identity and access management issues and challenges and work to identify common approaches to creating a more coherent environment across these projects.

Offered twice per year, CAMP workshops provide guidance on identity and access management topics. CAMPs feature case studies and discussion sessions for the purposes of informing practical campus implementations. Advanced CAMPs are futures-oriented discussions on emerging trends.

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- Internet2 Calendar -

Internet2 Events

Spring 2010 Internet2 Member Meeting
  26 - 28 Apr    Arlington, VA

For a complete listing of Internet2 events see http://events.internet2.edu/
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