JANET Research Requirements Workshop
23rd - 24th June 2010
Kavli Royal Society International Centre – Chicheley Hall
Workshop Briefing Note and Agenda and Travel Information
Presentations: Jeremy Sharp, David Salmon, Richard Hughes-Jones
Introduction
JANET(UK) wishes to bring together a representative cross-section of the UK research community at a workshop to discuss research-driven requirements for the JANET network with a forward-look over the next decade.
The workshop will be for invited participants, with an upper limit of around 70 delegates, and JANET(UK) is making an open call for people to request invitations to attend. The people we would like to reach would typically be established researchers or people with responsibility for research programmes who have a knowledge of the significance of computer communication networks, and JANET in particular, to their area/s of work.
Selection of delegates will be made to achieve a balanced representation across research disciplines and stakeholder groups, and although JANET(UK) may not be able to accommodate all requests, there will be other mechanisms for people to provide input on future research requirements.
The workshop will run from mid-day on Wednesday 23rd June to mid-day on Thursday 24th June, and will include lunch on both days and a drinks reception and evening meal on the 23rd. JANET(UK) will fund the workshop programme outlined above, including residential accommodation, for all delegates selected to attend.
A full agenda will be circulated to delegates closer to the time. This will include an introduction from JANET(UK), together with a structure for the workshop and a selection of potential topics for discussion. Further background information on the motivation for this workshop can be found below.
Invitation process
Anyone who would be interested in receiving an invitation to this workshop is requested to send an e-mail message to workshop@ja.net, with “JANET Research Requirements Workshop” as the subject title, and marked for the attention of Wendy Salmon. Please also include full contact details and a brief note of the research areas where you have expertise. JANET(UK) aims to confirm attendance during May 2010, and anyone requesting an invitation is asked to reserve the workshop dates in their schedule until this date.
Background
The contracts for the provision of the JANET network infrastructure are renewed every few years. This provides an opportunity to assess future network requirements and to review the fundamental network transmission services to make sure that they provide an appropriate foundation for all the higher-level services and applications which the network must support.
The current contracts will end in October 2013, and prior to making new arrangements JANET(UK) will be conducting a broad-based requirements gathering process across all sectors of the JANET community to inform planning for the new network.
The period between successive network procurements has tended to become longer as JANET(UK) has taken more direct control over the transmission infrastructures, and the new provision is likely to extend to around 2020 so it is important to take a strategic view at this point to make sure that the communities’ requirements can be met over this period.
The meeting discussed here is specific to the research community, and a similar workshop was held in 2003 near St. Neots (Robinson Executive Conference Centre, Wyboston Lakes, Wyboston, Bedfordshire) as part of the preparations for the SuperJANET5 project. Several of the requirements expressed or confirmed at that meeting subsequently became major projects or programmes of work for JANET and JISC resulting in the provision of new services or features such as:
- JANET Lightpath
- JANET Aurora
- Access to JANET Traffic data for network research
- The UK Access Management Federation (JISC & Becta supported)
The SuperJANET5 project resulted in a new JANET backbone network based on dedicated optical fibres and associated data-transmission equipment, and this foundation has enabled the JANET network to evolve naturally to the higher data transmission rates which have been required as the community has expanded and traffic volumes have increased. It has also enabled the scope of the JANET Lightpath service to be increased within the UK and to continue support for international collaboration where projects have needed dedicated network links to partners in other countries.