TTC Minutes 2015-07-08

Attendees

Valter Nordh, VN (Chair)

Rob Evans, RE (JISC)

David Groep, DG (Nikhef)

Peter Schober, PSc (ACONET)

Yannis Mitsos, YM (GRNET)

Vicente Goyanes, VG (University of Vigo)

For GÉANT:

Valentino Cavalli VC

Alessandra Scicchitano AS

Nicole Harris NH

Licia Florio LF

Michael Enrico ME

Peter Szegedi PSz

John Dyer JD

1. Wecome agenda bashing and Approval of last meeting minutes - Valter

Valter welcomed the participants.

A review of the actions  of the previous meeting followed. The updated list of actions is shown below.

2. Report from the Advisory Committee Meeting held during TNC and on TNC in general  - Valter,Licia and Peter

VN reported about the last TAC meeting. The meeting was not very interactive, despite some efforts to involve the participants. Clearly a different format is needed to make these meetings more effective. VN noted that the format and the existence of the TAC are being considered as part of the revision of the whole former TERENA Technical Programme.

There were two take away from the last TAC meeting:

• No objections were raised toward the greenhouse project. Plans are to continue this project in a partnership with an existing company that can provide the necessary infrastructure to maintain open-source product.
• Afrodite’s  talk about the lightweight adaption of operations / business support systems (OSS/BSS) architecture developed at GRNET provided some interesting inputs for discussion.  There was some interest although no concrete follow up.

VN asked whether there were other interesting outcome from TNC.

The general feeling was that side meetings are very valuable to TTC members and to many community members. TNC format could be changed to accommodate this need better.

ACTION: The TTC recommends TNC to consider a format where more side meetings are possible. Options could be to close the formal conference one day earlier and use the Thursday for WG meetings only.

Michael Enrico reporter about his conversation with Florence Hudson, the new I2 Chief Innovation Officer, and the innovation package she is working on. I2 seems to be more interested in the Internet of Things (IoT)  compared to the GÉANT community. ME noted that the EC has also allocated significant funding to develop IoT; several EU cities have benefited from that and have become ‘internet ready’.

ME feels that some of NRENs are potentially interested, and that it is still an area to monitor as far as GÉANT is concerned. It is difficult to say which aspect is really relevant for our community, as IoT covers a broad spectrum. There is potential for service offering in the future, maybe related to mobile services (i.e. wide sensor networks based on GSM) and data collected via them.

YM noted that there is a lot of interest in SDN; it is up to GÉANT to implement the recommendations in this place. 

RE noted there is a sufficient interest for next generation network discussion that could justify a SIG-NGN.  In light of the new H2020 a SIG could also be useful to spin off discussions on the preparation of open calls proposal (which are expected to become much more cross e-Infrastructures than what happened in the past) or other community projects.

3. Updates on GEANT (the association) work

• TFs/SIGs updates
  • TF-MNM - NH noted that the Task Force is running out of enthusiasm; when this charter expires we should think of moving tf-mnm to a SIG which would fit more the way the current group operates. The current charter is still the reference under which the group operates, although there is no real concrete output.

    The TF is working closer to eduroam global governance committee and this has provided useful feedback to both groups; it brings the GeGC closer to more concrete aspects of the operations of eduroam as a global service.

    There are less face-to-face meeting lately and more topic-based videoconference, for which there is a lot of enthusiasm.  

  • TF-CSIRT/TI - NH noted that TF-CSIRT is different type of task force, in fact the name task force is probably not really fitting this group. The trusted introducer service and transit report to this TF.

    There is a review ongoing of Trusted introducer, to evaluate if it is still offering the right services to the community  as well as the way in which the service is procured.

    NH reported on the feeling (only shared by some of the participants) that TF-CSIRT can operate independently from the GÉANT. This seems to reflect more the underestimation on what GÉANT offers and the support provided in organising the meetings (which are mini-conferences).

  • TF-MSP - JD reported on the work of TF-MSP. One of the main area of work is the aggregate procurement approach that is gaining significant consensus; there is already collaboration with the service activity in the GÉANT project that procures clouds services. Plans are to expand the framework beyond clouds.

    Another aspect of interest is NRENs Acceptable Use Policy, which is covered for the network services, but it should be expanded to encompass all other services.

    The task-force is healthy and there is still significant attendance and participation during the meetings. There is a lot of interest in the output but not a lot of engagement from the whole group to work towards these outputs. Most of the work seems to fall on a few people. This seems to be a trend in many other activities.

  • TF-WebRTC - PSZ reported that one of the main area of work is the aggregate procurement approach that is gaining significant consensus; there is already collaboration with the service activity in the GÉANT project that procures clouds services. Plans are to expand the framework beyond clouds.

    Another aspect of interest is NRENs Acceptable Use Policy, which is covered for the network services, but it should be expanded to encompass all other services.

    The task-force is healthy and there is still significant attendance and participation during the meetings. There is a lot of interest in the output but not a lot of engagement from the whole group to work towards these outputs. Most of the work seems to fall on a few people. This seems to be a trend in many other activities.

  • TF-STORAGE - PSz The task force is business as usual. There was a gathering at TNC targeted at both the industry and the GÉANT Community. OwnCloud and Zettabox (they work similarly to dropbox but they are EU-based) attended the meeting and presented as well. Aconet, University of Vienna and SWITCH seem to be interested in Zettabox . The plan is to offer that under the  GÉANT cloud service catalogue: https://catalogue.clouds.GÉANT.net/#/cloudservices . 

    The TF-Storage is moving more and more towards cost effective storage. Things like the OwnCloud Agreement and FileSender are out of the task force.

  • SIG-ISM - AS reported that the SIG-ISM has accepted to reopen the group to all interested in ISM, which makes the group to operate beyond the NRENs.

    In the last months the SIG has been particularly active. On the 12th and 13th of May the 1st official workshop was held at the Imperial College in London which was both well attended and received.

    Collaboration with REFEDS has been established and an ongoing one has also started with SCI ( Security for Collaborating Infrastructures)

    The two groups are organizing a joint workshop about security for the 2nd half of October in Barcelona.

  • SIG-NOC - PSz highlighted the SIG-NOC charter the TTC was asked to approve. The aim of SIG-NOC is to create a forum where experts from the community exchange information, knowledge, ideas and best practices about specific technical or other areas of business relevant to the research and education networking community. The group has been shaped following TF-CSIRT model and TRANSIT (train the training), but follows a more light-weighted approach.

    There are a set of KPIs included in the charter to evaluate the performances of the group in one year time.
    RE commented to break out the specific SIG content from the more general part of the SIG template. DG was pleased by the involvement of other networks together with the NRENs.

    The TTC approved unanimously the charter.

• Services updates
  
  • Open Cloud mesh (PSz) - Owncloud is active in the Open Cloud mesh, the initiative to interconnect different owncloud instances. OwnCloud has promised to realise the code very soon to the TF.

    Q; Is anyone tracking installation for OwnCloud?

    A: OwnCloud has an agreement with GÉANT but they have bigger customers that are handled independently. We do track the installation that are under the agreement. There is also a closed OwnCloud developer group, for those that are doing development on top of OwnCloud.

• TCS - TCS is since the July 1^st in production.

AS noted that DigiCert collaboration is working smoothly. There a was a meeting during TNC to present the new system, which went well. Although the current DigiCert managed portals uses the same attributes that were released before to confusa, some people feel uncomfortable releasing attributes to DigiCert now.

AS, with the support of the PMT, is working to make it clear to federations and IdPs that the legal framework in place is legally sound for them to release attributes. The service work very well, the support is very good.

• Trusted Introducer (NH)

4. Global initiatives and Projects - For INFORMATION

• • AARC, SGA1 (GN4), MAGIC, REFEDS, GLIF
    
    

5. Events

• • EWTI, and others relevant events coming up

6. TTC Members updates (check whether to move this)

• • Round table from the TTC
  • Presentation from Peter Schober 

Review of Outstanding Action Points