Print full report (pdf)

9. Development

9.1 Federated Access Management [more information]

This area is now reported on as part of 4.10.

9.1.1 Federation Expert Group on Portal Design [more information]

After a good response to the call for participation for the project in August, a team of 12 members representing all sectors of the community, including service providers, has been assembled from those working within, or supplying access management and/or portal services to, the education and research sectors. At the first meeting several areas of web portal discovery for Federated Access Management were identified which the team felt they would be able to provide best practice and guidance on, and these will now be discussed and commented on in detail in the coming meetings. The next meeting for this group is 10 November 2009.

9.1.2 WAYF Interface Development [more information]

Consultants have carried out initial usability and accessibility testing in the current WAYF. Their report is to be presented at the next meeting in November 2009.

9.2 Roaming & Mobility [more information]

9.2.1 802.1x Supplicant [more information]

The latest supplicant version following the feature freeze is 2.1.9.704. Although available for download from Sourceforge.net, there has been no official notice of this release but the aim was to fix any existing bugs from x64-based Linux distributions.

9.3 Network Access [more information]

9.3.1 Mobile IP [more information]

The project participants completed their work during the last quarter. The final deliverables from this project are available at: http://www.ja.net/development/network-access/mobile-ip/.

9.3.2 Local-Loop Unbundling [more information]

Significant work has been underway during the last quarter to produce a Local Loop Unbundling Technical Reference Document. This document will be published during November 2009.

9.3.3 Location Aware Wireless Infrastructure

The project participants completed their work during the last quarter and the final deliverables are available at: http://www.ja.net/development/network-access/location-awareness/. JANETUK) is currently consulting with the participants, the wider JANET community and European stakeholders in defining future work in this area.

9.3.4 Mobile Broadband

JANET(UK) seeks to build knowledge of community demand, use cases and market capability to deliver mobile network broadband access to off-campus learning centres. Technologies to be addressed will include commercial WiFi hotspots, 3G data telephony and WiMAX.

During the last quarter, JANET(UK) appointed a consultancy firm to assist in developing a representative sampling of community needs in this area. Over the coming months the consultancy firm will be making contact with various sectors within the JANET community.

9.3.5 Southampton Group Design Project

In September 2009, JANET(UK) agreed to support a group of MSc Students on a group design component of their studies at the University of Southampton. This 10-week project involves design of a prototype system for the visual display of anonymised JANET Roaming service data. Their deliverable will be assessed for implementation on the national JANET Roaming service and offered to other National Education and Research Networks participating in eduroam.

9.3.6 Network Access Control

During September 2009, JANET(UK) issued a call to the JANET community to write case studies on their experience of deploying Network Access Control on their campus infrastructure. A small number of sites responded to the call and work is currently underway to produce these case studies.

9.4 Network Engineering [more information]

9.4.1 IPv6

The structure of the IPv6 course has been defined and work is progressing to complete the training material with an aim to delivering the course during the early part of 2010.

9.5 Voice [more information]

9.5.1 JANET Voice Advisory Group (VAG) [more information]

A review of the current voice strategy is under way. It is envisaged that any new voice strategy will look to enhance and support current voice activities within the JANET community.

We continue to monitor developments in ENUM to identify any potential JANET can offer within this space. Early work to understand any potential synergy with the mobile telecommunications industry is under way: the main aim is to identify whether it is possible to introduce any cost savings to the JANET community.

9.7 Measurement & Monitoring [more information]

9.7.1 Netsight [more information]

See section 3.4.

9.8 Support for Research [more information]

9.8.1 JANET Aurora [more information]

The Fourth Aurora community meeting was held at UCL in October. Following a status update on the infrastructure, discussion was mainly focused on a potential bid to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for future funding of a dark-fibre platform as a mid-range facility. A tour of the research laboratories highlighted a selection of the interesting projects being undertaken.

9.8.2 JANET Lightpath [more information]

This area is now reported on as part of 7.7.

9.9 Optical Networks [more information]

9.9.1 Technology Tracking

A document "Carrier Ethernet Emerging Technologies: Technical Overview" was written and published on the JANET website in September 2009, aimed at technical specialists and describing the details of Ethernet over MPLS, PB, PBB and PBB-TE technologies. It also has two Appendixes: MEF specifications of Carrier Ethernet as a service and Glossary.

9.10 Schools Services [more information]

9.10.1 Content [more information]

Membership of the UK federation has increased substantially within the Schools sector, where secure access is fast becoming established as a necessity.

The NEN Services Group has been working in collaboration with South East Grid for Learning on the Film Education NEN Pilot, and with North West Learning Grid on hosting the National Digital Resource Bank. The team has also continued to work closely with the NEN community and Becta on a National Digital Learning Resource Strategy.

9.10.2 Videoconferencing [more information]

The take-up of videoconferencing by schools continues to grow. By the end of October 2009 the total number of schools sector endpoints registered with JVCS was just over 4000 (as compared with just under 3500 at the end of October 2008). Over 2300 videoconferences were undertaken this quarter (as compared with just over 2000 in the same quarter last year), approximately half with national content providers. Over 75% of the conferences continue to be for teaching, tutorials and related educational activities; other purposes include administrative meetings, system testing and quality assurance. The growth in schools videoconferences, managed by JVCS throughout the last five years, is illustrated below.

9.11.3 Connectivity [more information]

The NEN Services Group is working closely with a number of NEN Providers to explore new approaches to regional networking.

9.11.4 Collaboration

Following a very successful pilot project the JANET Collaborate prototype is to be retired. Members who are signed up will still be able to access details of videoconferencing Content Providers and the VC Partners feature via www.ja.net/schools.

This retirement has come about as a result of difficulties in maintaining the prototype beyond its intended lifetime. We are now looking at how to add the functionality into the JANET service portfolio in order to provide an improved feature set based on the requirements gathered in the pilot. In the meantime we thank all the users of the prototype for their strong, enthusiastic support during the pilot.