Support Services (SLA J2.4)
(a) Documentation
(b) Workshops and Conferences
(c) Network User Groups
(d) Security, Regulation and Policy
JANET(UK) has published its Corporate Plan for the period 2010-2012. The period that the Plan covers will include increased financial constraints, planning for the next generation JANET backbone, and an increasing awareness of environmental standards. The Plan lists the four strategic objectives that will direct all JANET(UK)'s activity between now and 2012, and against which its success will be measured.
Network Access Conference, 3 November 2009
At the JANET Network Access event in London, delegates came together to focus on ways to extend the reach of their networks outside the normal campus perimeter and make them more responsive to changing usage patterns within it. As well as benefiting from feedback on the existing programme of activities, delegates were invited to impart their experiences and influence JANET(UK)'s future network access strategy.
John Hagerty from Forescout outlined the differing approaches to Network Access Control (NAC) and how organisations need to take a wider view of this, from identifying potential threats to securing their LAN, modifying user behaviour and deploying techniques to control and manage networks. Stuart Bailey from Infoblox continued the focus on secure access control, with a fascinating introduction to IF-MAP, a protocol initially designed to enable 'next generation' NAC but increasingly finding a wider range of applications. Mark O'Leary gave a taste of the results from recent JANET network access trials in Local Loop Unbundling, Mobile IP and Location Awareness, providing an overview of JANET(UK)'s position on these various technologies and showing how these very different technologies all contribute towards a unified approach to network access. In the second part of his talk, Mark set out the planned future activities in this development programme: a major theme to emerge from this was the potential value of ubiquitous mobile broadband off-campus.
The Irish education and research community is a step ahead in delivering mobile broadband to staff and students: Nick Murray from HEAnet shared his experiences of creating a subsidised national wireless broadband service based around 3G dongles by partnership with a major telephony provider.
Overall, the event offered a balance of reporting current experience, discussing future directions, and encounters with some novel technologies that may impact the future development of network access. Videos of the presentations, and technology overviews, case studies and reports from trials referred to in them, are available on the JANET website.
Strategic Briefing, 30 November 2009
Over 110 delegates attended JANET(UK)'s Strategic Briefing day at the Institute of Physics on 30 November, and
a further 10 watched the event over the
videostream. The day comprised a number of
presentations with plenty of discussion time
throughout.
Roger McClure, the chair of JANET(UK),
opened the day by reminding the audience of
the constraints
that the whole
community is
working under
in this difficult
economic climate. Tim
Marshall, Chief
Executive
Officer, followed
with a stimulating
talk on
JANET(UK)'s Corporate Strategy for 2010/12,
detailing the changes which would have to take
place as the company goes forward in what
will be challenging times in the future.
Jeremy Sharp, Head of Strategic
Technologies at JANET(UK), gave an update on the JANET Backbone changes to extend the SuperJANET5
contract to 2013. Mark O'Leary then updated
the audience on mobile networking while Dan
Perry, Head, Strategic Business, presented the
current status of JANET's work in shaping a
sector-wide strategy for shared data centres.
The afternoon session was devoted to
Regional Network delivery in the UK. A
consultation paper had been distributed to the
audience the week before the event. Bob Day led with a presentation on "Improving the Regional Network Delivery
Model" which was followed by a panel session
with discussion. The audience was given the
opportunity to discuss the planned model in
groups before the general discussion.
Copies of the presentations can be found
at: http://www.ja.net/services/events/2009/strategic_briefing/programme.html.
BETT Show, 13-16 January
JANET(UK) used its stand at the BETT Show to highlight the new JVCS Desktop feature (see section 4.1). This is a new software client for use with JANET Videoconferencing Service bookings that lets users of JVCS (who can be staff at any School, College or University in the UK) add a guest to their videoconference even if that guest does not have any videoconference equipment. By simply adding their email address a guest can be emailed a link that lets them download and activate the videoconferencing client on their Windows PC, and then fully join the conference using a webcam, at no extra cost.
Two standard classroom laptops were set up on the JANET stand in addition to the normal videoconference system. The simplicity of JVCS Desktop was immediately apparent to anyone who stopped by to watch videoconferences with the Beamish Museum or the National Space Centre and saw teachers using the laptops to join in by clicking on a URL. The response was very positive and teachers instantly saw the potential and the new freedom in being able to videoconference to any PC in the world simply by sending a link.
Business and Community Engagement Workshop, 19 January
Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is increasingly important for Universities and Colleges at a local, regional, national and global level, and it is important that JANET both enables and continues to support this area. To help inform strategy a JANET Stakeholder Group BCE Workshop was held in January, chaired by Professor Di Martin and attended by 25 representatives from Government departments, Research Councils, HE, FE, schools, funding bodies, sector membership organisations and JANET(UK). Presentations, discussions, comments and suggestions for future JANET strategy were given and formed a valuable element in understanding this complex partnership environment.
The funding bodies recognise that every sector in education is better served by a single homogenous network rather than having separate links and arrangements. For HE the provision of JANET is seen as a supplement to the universities grant and there is no wish to see restrictions placed on the network that will be a barrier to future growth.
Comments and suggestions from delegates will help to shape the future JANET strategy to ensure that the BCE activities are both enabled and supported.
Notes and presentation slides are available for download at http://www.ja.net/company/stakeholders.html.
(c) Network User Groups
JANET(UK) attended the UCISA Network Group meeting on 16 December. The SWERN User Group met on 27 January 2010 and heard about the latest service updates from JANET(UK), including the recently launched JANET Certificate service.
(d) Security, Regulation and Policy [more information]
The Digital Economy Bill, containing the Government's response to the Digital Britain Report, was published in December and debated in the House of Lords throughout January. Two aspects of the Bill concern JANET(UK): on DNS Registries and online copyright enforcement. Both parts of the Bill suffer from unclear definitions which we have been working to try to improve. On DNS registries, the Government has now amended the original definition of a 'Registry', which formerly captured any organisation running its own nameserver. As operator of the .gov.uk and .ac.uk domains, JANET(UK) will still be included within the new definition but most JANET-connected organisations should not.
The Bill also introduces a new legal regime for dealing with online infringement of copyright. ISPs will be required to pass on a subset of the infringement notices they receive, first informing their subscribers that this is unlawful, then increasing the seriousness of warnings and possibly imposing technical measures such as protocol and website filters, bandwidth restrictions or disconnection if these reports are ignored. Subscribers will be held responsible for all use of their connection, unless they have taken appropriate measures against misuse by authorised and unauthorised users. At first sight this ISP requirement appeared to be less than JANET-connected sites are already required to do to comply with the JANET Acceptable Use Policy; however it was then discovered that the definitions of 'ISP' and 'Subscriber' could actually mean that a university or college was a 'Subscriber', with their JANET connection being treated in the same way as a domestic ADSL service. E-mail and face-to-face discussions with the Bill Team have taken place to explain that this would actually harm our current measures against copyright infringement (JANET-connected sites need to receive all copyright notices in order to deal effectively with their users) as well as being harmful to education and research if technical measures were imposed on a whole university or college. This seems to have been accepted and our current policies and practices judged satisfactory though continued discussions will be needed, if the Bill becomes law before the general election, to ensure that this is recognised in the eventual Code of Practice. An article on this was published in the Times Higher Education Supplement on 28 January.
JANET's Chief Regulatory Adviser was also invited to give evidence, to the Home Affairs Sub-Committee of the House of Lords European Affairs Committee, on Commission plans to improve network resilience by enhancing the role of Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs). A JANET response was submitted to the European Commission's consultation on revising Data Protection law.
JANET's Chief Regulatory Adviser has been elected Chair of the Funding Council of the Internet Watch Foundation.
Within JANET(UK), discussions have taken place on regulatory and policy issues of federated access management, the videoconference recording service and the use of website cookies (following a change in European law). Discussions have also taken place with the Cabinet Office on Public Sector Networking and with the JANET Stakeholders Group. JANET's course on Computers, Privacy and the Law has been presented three times, in Glasgow, Llandrindod Wells and Loughborough, and the course on Managing IT Security once in Llandrindod. Presentations on regulatory developments and JANET's approach to content filtering were given at the London Internet Exchange meeting and a talk on the JANET Acceptable Use Policy to a webinar organised by RSC South-West.
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