Attendees

Valter Nordh, VN (Chair)

Rob Evans, RE (JISC)

David Groep, DG (Nikhef)

Peter Schober, PSc (ACOnet)

Yannis Mitsos, YM (GRNET)

For GÉANT:

Valentino Cavalli VC

Nicole Harris NH

Michael Enrico ME

Peter Szegedi PSz

Brook Schofield BS

Laura Durnford LD

Apologised: John Dyer , Alessandra Scicchitano , Licia Florio, Vicente Goyanes (University of Vigo)

1. Welcome, agenda bashing and approval of last meeting minutes

Valter welcomed the participants to the last TTC meeting.

Steve Cotter joined the beginning of the meeting to introduce his background, get a short update on what TTC was focusing on in the past and the type of work was done, share his ideas and inquire about the expectations of the TTC group. He elaborated on the importance of establishing good dialogue with the users and understanding what they do. What they want is often not what they need. We have to co-work with users and sometimes co-develop to get their engagement. The TTC members echoed the importance of community engagement. Users do not always look for funding opportunities and money in the first place but often for added-value and greater benefits.

Agenda changes: in absence of Alessandra, DG will update the TTC about the WISE workshop.

VC presentation on the GEANT Community Committee moved from the end of the meeting to the beginning.

AoB: VN would like to add a discussion about Ideas on community building - combining mailing lists, etc.

Minutes from the previous meetings approved.  All open actions were done or included in the agenda.

The updated list of actions is shown below.

2. Short Updates 

• SIG-NGN progress - Rob Evans and Brook Schofield
  

  RE: Dubrovnik meeting was not very productive - not enough time to come up with good agenda, difficult location. However, ideas on the SIG were presented and got a lot of interest and discussion. Support to go forward was expressed, but there is a need to have another meeting next year with more time for preparation - good agenda and carefully selected time and location. Anyone who is interested can participate.

  BS: RIPE liaison must be restored. Co-locate with FOSDEM workshop in January, covering some SDN/NFV topics - proposals can be submitted, but also a meeting can be hosted by BELNET, as the people interested will be there.

  VC: could host a stand-alone meeting at the GÉANT Amsterdam office - that would signal the intention of the community. STF meeting is expected in Amsterdam, option for co-location. 

  
  
• Implementation considerations to the GEANT Community Programme - Valentino Cavalli
  

  VC presented the latest developments on the GEANT Community Programme (GCP) Terms of Reference, to be voted on by the GA at the next meeting. GÉANT Community Committee (GCC) would replace the TTC. Executive, having listened to the GCC, would make decisions. GCP would mainly focus on Task Forces, SIGs, Workshops, and Collaborative projects. GCP would be an advisory body, formed by 6-8 members appointed by the board and a Chair elected by the GÉANT GA. Meetings would take place minimum 3 times a year, and once a year the GCP would hold a meeting with the board.

  If ToR is approved, GCC Chair will be elected online. Chair then would identify the potential members of the group and make suggestions to the board.

  VC proposed to expend the existence of TTC until the new group is established to assure continuity. 

  VN announced that he will be a candidate for both the Board position and GCC chair and would be looking for new people for the Committee and organize the first meeting early next year. 

  LD suggested that perhaps there is a possibility of formalizing the online platforms as a new thing that GCC could focus on. VC explained that ToR won’t be changed at this time, but it can be done later.

  BS asked about the relation to internal and external advisory committees to the project. VC explained that there is a possibility to migrate the existing project advisory groups to the Association - that remains an open question. ME added that every EC e-Infra project has an advisory body.

  TTC is happy with the new GCP ToR proposal.

• SIG-Greenhouse approval - Nicole Harris
  

  A meeting was held in Amsterdam to discuss the SIG-Greenhouse in more detail.

  Two main proposals:

  1. Proposed initial pilot to work with NLNet who has experience. First trial with filesender - if that is successful, MoU with NLNet could be proposed.

  2. Set up the SIG to be a sounding board, suggesting ideas, encouraging good practices

  Charter is put together - it was agreed to keep it small and focused for the time being. SIG-Greenhouse has enough NRENs to support the SIG (a few statements of support), also a steering committee is formed.

  GÉANT would remain involved by providing continuous support and monitoring. NLNet and GÉANT would agree on a common brand for the work.  

  TTC approved the SIG Charter, SIG can be established. News item will be published.

• DDoS workshop information - Nicole Harris
  

  DDoS Workshop was organized following a request from the community. Members of SIG-ISM, SIG-NOC, TF-MSP, TF-CSIRT participated at the event, which was very well attended (24 different organizations). In addition, RNP from Brazil shared their experiences and would like to be involved in activities like this more in the future.

  Report is written but not yet published due to security issues (linked to the agenda). The report contains 6 recommendations:

  1. Closed mailing list for the attendees of the workshop to continue discussion

  2. Explore the need for joint procurement for commercial DDoS mitigation solutions (Jisc is already doing that - NRENs might want to join that or request GÉANT to initiate a separate one)

  3. SGA2 paper on security review

  4. Look into the solutions that DFN is already working on

  5. Look into the work of other organizations (Radically Open Security, Team Cymru) who already have working tools

  6. SIG-NOC survey should include more questions about DDoS 

  Overall a very successful workshop.

  
  

• WISE workshop information - David Groep 
  

  Highly successful event, 50 attendees from the global attendance, including the key infrastructures. Wide range of topics were discussed: formal standards, information sharing, trust groups, threat intelligence, training, etc. A lot of interest in engaging in shared activities was expressed, including higher level of data infrastructures, community structures, doing prediction of incidents. Some of the possible shared actions were identified, such as shared training, shared use of information security standards (network and e-infrastructures globally), marketing some training materials as "best WISE recommend training". On the managerial level more work needs to be done, mainly to allow the technical staff to collaborate and share information freely. There is a need to create a persistent structure (perhaps REFEDS-like structure or similar). Steering committee is already elected. WISE will need to get funding, but even in the absence of funding people are convinced that it should go forward There is a difference between TF-CSIRT and WISE: TF-CSIRT is an organization based group and WISE would bring more different institutions and individuals who want to collaborate. 

  The next possible step now is reaching out to Asia Pacific organizations and get them to participate. Alessandra will attend the APAN meeting and other meetings in Asia. 

  
  
• EGI Conference information - Open Science Cloud discussion - Valentino Cavalli

  At the EGI Conference there were a few sessions related to AAI - including one AARC organized outreach event. GÉANT, EUDAT and EGI co-organized a panel discussion, divided into 3 sessions addressing different aspects. The workshop was meant to get various actors to get together and agree on common way of working. It was successful in getting different people to express their view and ideas, but more work needs to be done to get to a coherent vision of where it needs to go.

  Open Science Cloud - highly politically charged concept, DG-Research and DG-Connect are keen on supporting it. The work in the area of Open Science Cloud done up to now includes establishing a high level expert group on the European Open Science Cloud and a work programme for 2016-2017, which includes two calls for a pilot: the first is mostly for the user led initiatives and the second - to build services to support the OSC.

• GÉANT OER update and ICT-22 call proposal - Peter Szegedi
  

  PS informed the TTC about a new call under the ICT programme (deadline - April next year), which is highly competitive, but relevant to possible continuation of the work that has been done so far in OER. At first, OER was a 9 month pilot that lead to a development of the aggregation engine and a portal, later picket up by GN4 - it is now a separate activity (SA8). It is expected to launch the OER portal by the end of the project. This area will not be funded in the 2nd phase of the GN4, but the service has more potential than a GN4 activity, so there is a need to look for funding elsewhere. PS is now working on creating a strong consortium, including commercials, libraries, universities that would create proposals - broader community needs to be involved. ICT is the closest opportunity to receive funding, however, there are other calls that are relevant and will be looked into. 

  VN suggested to get to know the reviewers and previously successful applicants. 

  VC: reminded to bring it to the attention of the GPPC.

• TF-CPR update - Laura Dunford
  

  Task Force meeting was held in Cambridge in October. The members requested to have a clearer overview of other TFs and SIGs, on which LD gave a presentation. There was a brief discussion about a possibility that TF-CPR might have to become a SIG. Other discussions included Cloud Services (what is it that they need to know in order to be able to promote those services), raising the visibility of the training, maintaining websites and blogs, and the future of the PeaR community news (still generated in the old TERENA way).

  One of the issues raised was user outreach - Cambridge office described some of their work, which made it clear that there are too many projects for a few people to cover. TF members took a tour of the NOC to better understand what they want to promote - Connect magazine article about NOC inter-operation is planned. 

  Reporting mechanisms of the work should be more coordinated in the future. Some of the ideas: 5 min update, quarterly reports, thematic updates, etc.

  
  
• REFEDS Update - Nicole Harris
  

  REFEDS SC had a discussion about the VAT issue - due to REFEDS being recognized as a separate entity from GEANT, the Dutch tax authorities require REFEDS to pay VAT retrospectively. That leads to the cut of 20% and therefore a smaller work plan with less MM. 

  REFEDS SC are trying to look for ways to bring more sponsors in - Jisc and CESNET agreed to contribute, but more financing still needed. There is a possibility to move REFEDS to Kantara - this is also where the industry is sitting. Idea has been circulated for a while, but that never happened. 

  PSz: Could GÉANT look into possible solutions? Perhaps change the status of REFEDS like GLIF has requested (for example, become a TF or SIG)? 

  NC: SC wanted more information why it was decided, but GÉANT only provides a service for REFEDS, it is a separate global initiative. No intention to be 

  
  
• TF-MNM - Nicole Harris
  

  Decision has been made to let it run out next September, as the TF is effectively dead and the Chair has no time to do it.

  
  

• Review of the slides on the Middleware issues - Peter Schober 

  PSc reviewed the work on open Middleware issues (action item 20150708-03). The issues generally fall into 4 categories:
  - tried but didn't work
  - given up on (for now, may revisit)
  - currently being worked on (authorisation, e.g. operationable def of "academic"; entity categories; harmonisation of identifiers, attributes, data release, etc.)
  - potential new/future work items
  An example of "we tried this but didn't go anywhere" was the application domestication effort led by SURFnet, which proved to be not successful - perhaps the aims were not clear or it failed due to a general lack of interest. As for "given up on for now" maybe federated provisioning could be named, even though (partial) protocol and software support exists. Newer projects like eduID.se and Swiss edu-ID (expanding the reach of federations to also include schools/K12 and lifelong learning) have aspects of data aggregation and provisioning across federated institutions (though not across federations). PSc will possibly follow up with SWITCH and SUNET about extracting "lessons learned" from eduID-style efforts.

  For potential work items: Question of the right layer, e.g. institution (were we're not represented nor visible) vs. NREN. Multi-factor authentication area as an example - can it be brought to Campus Best Practice? (Unless you're SURFconext where you can do things "in the hub"). Another idea is remote identity vetting for distant education, creating a framework that allows other academic institutions (located close to the distance leaners) verify identity. Guest accounts remains a problem for many (develop new technology or use existing one? Mention shutdown of the popular FEIDE OpenIDP per Jan 1st 2016). New issues are e.g. proper authentication to mobile devices (where entering complex passwords is hard and highly inconvenient). Their role as second authentication factor also has to be reviewed in cases where the mobile device is "all the factors" (i.e., it's being used as primary device to access resources, not as second factor to aid with secure authN on a PC/desktop/workstation).

  VC: Campus Best Practices are funded under GN4-1 and will not be continued in SGA2 as of today. A concrete proposal could be picked up by the GCP. New training coordinator has been hired to increase the outreach and training within GÉANT.

  VN: There is a need to discus these open issues somewhere. Vetting is for institutions and REFEDS is higher up on the abstraction layer (federations), so no intention to discuss vetting there.

  TTC will pick up the slides from Peter Sc.