SERENATE Final Session Structure

Chair: Ian Butterworth

Overall

 General Discussion (14.00-14.45) – Give people a chance to pass to everyone here what they regard as key messages for the SERENATE project  Plans for follow-up actions (14.45-14.55) – – – Coming workshops Are there any issues which specific people (or one or more NRENs) would agree to address and write up?

Web site discussion groups??

 Summary of the outcome (14.55-15.30) – – Very personal review Chance for comments

General Discussion

 General Discussion – Give people a chance to pass to everyone here what they regard as key messages for the SERENATE project

Plans for follow-up actions

   Coming workshops – – – – Operators’ views on infrastructure status and evolution (8 Nov 2002, Amsterdam) Research user needs and priorities (17-19 Jan 2003, Montpellier) Possible models for the future (4-5 Feb 2003, Noordwijkerhout??) Final workshop (~May-June 2003) Work packages – Not just a talking shop Are there any issues which specific people (or one or more NRENs) would agree to address and write up?

– – Case studies on “new” communities Pros (& cons?) of NRENs per se

Summary of the outcome

    Clearly very personal impressions Personal thanks to the speakers, and to the participants I feel the need to go away and read the mass of information that we have been presented with, and try to digest it Will put all presentations onto the SERENATE Web site as soon as possible

STRONG GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

From hardware to services

 Networking is (still) evolving FAST  And going more into the mainline of ICT  It’s not so much just getting “hardware connectivity” to the researcher’s desk, but it’s increasingly about delivering a set of services needed by researchers (and others) Information access, collaborative tools, “disciplinary grids” are what the user wants. AAA and Web/Grid services will be part of the delivery mechanism

NRENs as a resource

    Lots of expertise Growing understanding by government of the importance of ICT as a driver for economic prosperity Growing understanding by government of the value of their NREN expertise Increasing requests to capitalise on that expertise

Europe (subsidiarity etc.)

   What should SERENATE try to generate Recommendations?

Guidelines?

 Basically we all have to try to work by persuasion

PER BREAK-OUT GROUP

Technology

   We certainly need to try to find a coherent approach to the “steadily increasing amplitude” of optical networking I retained that it’s going to take some time But it seems a powerful wave   What do we mean by a “hybrid solution”?

Interaction with “ubiquity” is important  I guess that we need a model where communities with special needs (de Laat Type C) can inject appropriate funds into a common (hybrid) infrastructure

Economics

   Study on regulation Study on costs We do need a clear understanding of any regulatory barriers that we could face in deploying pan-European fibre  I personally guess that it does not matter whether you actually own fibre, or merely lease it on a long-term basis, or maybe even lease wavelengths. We should try to quantify this.

Geography

  Obviously needs interaction with the politicians But we had better have our ideas rather clear first  It seems to me that there may be a conflict between two fundamental European concepts: – the “ERA view” – offer equality of research opportunities across the continent – “subsidiarity” – the EU only helps with funding at the pan-European level, not nationally or on the campus  In FP5 we “integrated” the present accession countries into GÉANT. I don’t see any similar target as part of FP6.

“New” user communities

    I found the discussion very interesting Hard to see what the recommendations might be – situation is very different in each country Compendium should develop a set of questions around this And we should think about whether “ e Europe” style benchmarks could be a useful output of SERENATE – – – – – Schools Libraries Research hospitals Healthcare Etc

Research User Needs

     ???

As much as they can get (and their govts can afford) AAA Working grids Ability to inject funds for Type C (few to few) connections as part of the common infrastructure

The need for NRENs

    Extreme economic liberals sometimes wonder why we need NRENs They see them as some sort of competition for ISPs If I ever needed convincing that this is a false argument then this meeting convinced me.

I would like the argument written up well

The need for politics and funding

  We probably are going to have to make sure that we keep a dialogue with the politicians Both MEPs and national ones  And with our funding agencies

Reactions and Discussions

 I surely forgot something?

 And got something the wrong way around