TERENA Technical Committee Meeting 1st July 2014 09:30-16:00 CEST at the TERENA Secretariat, Amsterdam

There will be a dinner for the TTC members the evening before at 19:00 at the Casa di David, Singel 426. www.casadidavid.com

Draft Agenda

1. Welcome and Apologies
2. Agreement of agenda
3. Approval of Minutes: http://www.terena.org/about/ttc/minutes/ttc20140219.pdf
4. Review on minute taking process & notes
5. Review of Outstanding Action Points
6. Re-chartering of TF-Storage (TF-StorageToR4rdterm-v2.pdf)
7. TERENA Small Projects
   1. Proposal re SCHAC (schac-harmonisation-proposal-v1_2.docx)
   2. Clarification of KPIs for OER project (Open Educational Resource Portal pilot#kpi)
8. TERENA Activities:
   1. Progress on TI & TCS tenders
   2. WebRTC
   3. Security/CISO SIG (TERENA SIG-ISM (FORMER CISO))
   4. Performing Arts Workshop
   5. TERENA Greenhouse project (20130919-greenhouse-ttc.pptx) (Differentiating the Greenhouse)
   6. Other issues from TAC meeting in Dublin
   7. Position of TF-EMC2
   8. Review of any issues from other Task Forces
9. Dates of Next Meetings: Mon 29 Sep 2014 10:00 – 13:00 CEST by VC
10. AOB
    1. Issues from other meetings: Inter-NREN IPv4 address space brokerage?
       
       

TTC minutes - 20140701.pdf

 

Notes of meeting

 

 

 

TTC MEETING (1st July 2014, Amsterdam)

 

 

2. Agreement of agenda

SP - changes in TF-EMC2 - chair stepped down - under TERENA activities. No reaction in chair stepping down, initiative needed - leave it to the end of the meeting

 

4. Review on minute taking process & notes

Discussion at last meeting

VN happy with shorter notes, but also make notes of what is discussed - free, not actual formal minutes - this could possibly added to wiki, allowing everyone to edit

Action items could only be changed by Michael

 

6. Re-chartering of TF-Storage

• PS - made substantial changes, had to re-charter on the same lines as did before
• Latest version of the terms of reference (4th) very similar
• Community seems happy with the changes proposed and implemented last time
• Decided to give more interactivity to the meeting, more discussion etc., tutorials on technical issues, small discussion groups, and those type of activities to be kept
• list of work items - changed some of the persons responsible for tasks, one new item included, include smaller group discussions - reporting back to the broader community, more of those needed
• Discussion on the VC, accepted by all the members, next meeting on the day before NORDUNET conference, half-day tutorials postponed, focus on the community building, national updates, latest technologies, etc.
• Update on the … cloud agreement
• GRnet should re-engage, YM will try to make sure that someone from Greece  will attend the next meeting
• PS- when Jan Meyer left the activity, most Nordic people lost interest, that’s why we decided to combine the meeting with NORDUNET conference
•  

 

The discussion digressed to cover communications from Task Forces and SIG to the community in general

 

• YM – users are not engaged, wonder if newsletter twice a year could be delivered for those who are interested but cannot attend? Maybe a blog post?
• PS - there is a blog page, we expected more posts, but not that many were written. Should encourage people to be more active
• YM - to attract people but also to share their knowledge with not their own, but community around
• Notes  not always published, but those documents come up; all that are meant to be public, are uploaded to the website
• VG - very broad, potentially anyone in an NREN, communities from campuses ; an hour or half an hour of reading
• NH - one centre TERENA blog? all in one place, else it might not reach the intended audience
• VN - Laura - PeaR newsletter?
• LD - it would be valuable if staff members would start blogging, there is a TERENA blog space, but it needs to be used and promoted - PeaR could be a way of doing that; we try to think of who are the right people to reach. Maybe every task force has a person who is working together with Laura in getting technical documents translated into easier language
• PS - we can’t document everything, very specific topics - the knowledge is there, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get it, what is the knowledge that needs to be collected and shared unless someone asks
• VC - does it makes sense to give this to one of TERENA support staff to look into the need to create a separate space for the news of a task force? Making sure there is a person who notices something that needs to be known and works with Laura. Could be a PDO?
• VN - area of interest for many people at NRENs and universities, the knowledge would be very valuable for many people, are they aware that the task force is what can be contacted
• PS - we regained some interest in the past few years, activity revitalised, managed to get back the interest; in general - coming up
• VN - Vincent, should this be added to the terms of reference or as a separate item?
• VG- this has to be a commitment for the task force, in a better position to do that - someone following the list, summarise monthly the most interesting topics - to keep the outsiders of what is happening
• SP - very general discussion, not only applicable for this task force
• VC - some want, some don’t, don’t want to impose that all should do that - propose this as an opportunity
• VN- TF-storage as a pilot? But applicable to most (maybe not TF-CSIRT)
• VN - minutes: we encourage the task forces to produce meeting reports
• VC - suggestion - staff of TERENA get together and address this issue - who has blogs, including TERENA social media to this, leave to the Secretariat to come up with a proposal for the next TTC meeting - premature to come to a detailed conclusion
• VN - agree, leave it up to TERENA secretariat, and follow up on the next meeting
• SP - needs to be more than just encouragement, its hard work, unpaid for, no incentive to do it - has to be more than “we invite you to …”
• VN - reluctant to add requirements to task forces, would leave it up the secretariat (maybe even do a bit of summarising)
• VC - that’s what I was suggesting as well … suggest that we deal with this internally at first, and then present at the next TTC meeting, come up with a more general recommendation
• VN - encourage the TF to share information, TERENA secretariat responsible to come up (work on a solution) with ways of sharing information - TFs and maybe including other activities
• Understand that writing a summary takes a lot of time, but let’s see

 

TERMS OF REFERENCE approved as they are, no changes starting from the 1^st of April

 

7. TERENA Small Projects

 

a. Proposal re SCHAC

The schema requires work, in order to codify and harmonise several aspects. It is a useful tool, several organisations feel that this is a tool that they depend on, well worth updating it and bringing it back into one schema and one place. Need a governance committee/management to support this.

 

Still in use in some communities (Spain, Finland), good intentions and ideas implemented in different places - collection of things, everyone can register their own, no one definitive version of SCHAC - not practical

Short time fix - make a consistent version, the content is the same

Long term goal - take a closer look and remove some items

SCHAC seems to be very popular in Spain, Finland and Greece

 

• VN - back to the proposal - long term sustainability (let’s not address this today), money - TTC has some - agree to do this as a small project and tackle the big questions later on? Agreed.
• Task 2 - are we paying 14 000 euro for “consulting the community”?
• VC - I would like to see this clarified what is going to be delivered by task 2; question about task 3 - what does it mean to the service?
• SP - work plan needs to be refined, has been created on wiki, living document - final work plan needs to be more precise
• VC - doesn’t make any difference, it is a small amount of money, but need a clear description of what is going to be done and what do we get out of that and what we do after that
• SP - no governance, for that more than a consultant is needed
• VC - consultant is a pre-condition in order to get a result? Maybe we need to establish an editorial board so that there is someone making the needed decisions?
• VN -approve in principle, but before signing off we need an updated work plan?
• VC - TTC approve in principle, leave it up to the secretariat to get an improved version of the work plan before finalising it
• VC - numbers do not add up, need to be revised

 

 

b. Clarification of KPIs for OER project

 

PS - suggestions on the wiki, we are going to approach a couple of content repositories managed by NRENs the target number - 3-5 friendly repositories (know them, work with them, good quality metadata)

• Pilot progressing quite well, two contracts in place (with Israeli NREN coordinating the study and with GREN - will adapt the harvesting engine)
• Already contacted 15 NRENs and other asking to make their content available for us - some positive response
• One missing bit - the third contract for the web content, working on it
• 15^th  August - study completed
• Face to face meeting in September in Amsterdam
• All promising, all participants are happy with the contracts, all on the same page
• Some questions - value to the target user groups and portal - will be covered in the initial study

 

• Similar projects all around, so the question remains whether this initiative will break through, the EC is keen on NRENs taking initiative on this
• VN - how do we measure break through?
• PS - two main target groups - end users (professors and teachers) and system integrators (software or service integrators) - see how these types of people engage
• PS - those are the final targets by the end of this year; 13 are already invited, progress done, should be ok to get the needed ones, but data needs to be analysed, only good quality metadata
• Languages - English and Spanish for sure, maybe other language groups
• New metadata schema, not too different from the current one
• VG - number of visitors of the pilot at the measurement of success - getting the critical mass is a problem - cannot give recommendations, need to start creating awareness
• VC -assessment of longer term impact - follow up included in GN4 year one project, assessment could be taken up in this context, if approved as an GN4 project, gets more money etc. - need to aim for this
• PS - plus you can use the instruments of the GN4 project
• PS - value added components, you can link content together, special search engine for related material
• Collecting para data (ratings and comments) - single place, value added component
• PS - measure click rate menu

 

 

8. TERENA Activities:

 

a. Progress on TI & TCS tenders

 

Due to the sensitive nature of the discussion, all information in this session was considered as commercial in confidence.

 

The TTC were briefed on the progress, had several questions which were answered and the members requested that they be kept up to date with any progress.

 

 

b. WebRTC

• SP - important thing to keep going. We should communicate a request for feedback, volunteers?
• VN - agree. Did anyone came up with a proposal to do something?
• PS - there is a proposal submitted by Jan Meyer, which is a good description of the work they are suggesting to do. It is not included in the 1st year of GEAN4 proposal, so there might be a gap. TAC meeting discussion - how urgent is it to bridge the gap, small pilot before its adapted?
• VN - it was to be adopted in the following years of GEANT4. Somebody said it would be too late. My take is that people there felt that this work is relevant and interesting for many members of TERENA - wrong to wait until 2016.
• The TTC role is to interpret those messages that come from the community, should send a (strong) message that the importance of this cannot be underestimated
• If it’s happening under GEANT4 - TERENA doesn’t have to do anything, but if not - should take action
• VG - a year ago a meeting took place fostered by Jan Meyer about building a community. At that meeting some tasks were formulated. Maybe we can try to talk to Jan
• SP - the current state means that it would be the time to get involved, we could still be represented there. Two years later might not be the case anymore as it will be implemented and shipped. We need to have the right people involved in the right places.
• BS - development happened, technology identical to eduroam, but doesn’t work exactly as we need - we didn’t have people going to those sorts of meetings, so maybe we should invest in someone who is willing to go to those meetings
• VC - maybe people who submitted the NIFs would participate? It is risky and not granted
• PS - recollection from the TAC meeting - WebRTC shows the sign of disruptive technology, …, it’s important for our community to be engaged and do something, to be among those who develop the standard - written well in the NIF document, summary of the workshop
• There are tangible things in hand, the question is whether we should jump on this
• YM - second the thoughts on urgency, we cannot postpone it anymore, all the browsers include WebRTC if we need to do something, now is the time
• VN - everybody is saying that this is a very important thing, unsure what are we waiting for, not sure how to organise ourselves
• options:

-pushing the blue proposal to become green

-Strongly encourage Jan and Michael (?) to step forward and to create a task force?

• VC - at some point we took note of the fact that TF-Media had ended, one of the reasons for me to introduce the special interest groups was to support communities that don’t have a compelling list of work items that they want to work on actively - another option to investigate to establish a special interest group, continuing the work or bringing the people in from the media together and trying to get this work going irrespective of whether it will be part go GEANT4; that wouldn’t start until April 2015, so maybe TERENA should stimulate some activity that starts earlier
• Act on both sides - start something now (convince individuals that they can start putting things together with TERENA support) and lobby for GEANT4 to take this activity up for the future
• VC - f we start a TF now, that would be automatically part of GEANT3Plus, would give a wider visibility for the community; we need to go back to the people who were advocating for this work to happen.
• VN - happy to de work in parallel, TF up and running after talking to Jan
• VC - if we have tangible evidence that something is happening in the community it’s easier to get it done
• VN - encourage a creation of TF, Peter and Vincent in charge
• PS - need people who usually attend this TF and talk to them

 

 

c. Security/CISO SIG

 

• Discussion of how this should look like, went very well at TNC2014. Members are happy to collaborate; conclusion:  let’s have a dedicated meeting, which happened during TNC, all the GA members are invited, more than 20 relevant people
• Some NRENs already have a CISO, some are thinking about it, others not interested, three different stages. Need to get those in transition to convince the others who are not there yet.
• SURFnet are happy to chair the group. SURFnet meeting in September - security strategy workshop, dates and location set; emphasise the importance of having someone who takes care of security, legal issues, etc.
• The proposed workshop matches with overall feeling of this moment in time. There is a page on the TERENA website, information about the workshop.
• NH - relevant to the security work, the group is growing, not sure where it’s going to end up, but overall well
• Joint Task Force meeting showed that different groups are talking to each other but not enough coordination; we also discussed some training actions
• DG - the NRENs should invest a bit of money into security software that we could use split it into mini projects
• SP - not sure that’s the same what we discussed at the TAC

 

d. Performing Arts Workshop

 

Happening at the Royal Music College of London, Dates agreed on, programme committee “refreshed”, hoping to attract more people from the US, JANET will contact the community in the UK, Danish Royal Academy interested in collaborating in the future.

 

Usually a 3 day workshop, might be longer, plus a public concert/evening entertainment - if it goes ahead, need to decide who will participate from which countries.

 

PR strategy, showcase for our technology and the role of NRENs behind

 

Will try to combine two venues, also joined performance between London and NY; around 25 people used to attend in the past, but we hope to double that

 

e. Position of TF-EMC2

• VN - important that the communities decide what needs to be done, so we discuss only different possibilities and ways forward, but the final decision is up to the communities;
• The chair stepped now and there has been limited interest on the mailing list
• SP - I explicitly said on-list that this could be an opportunity to discuss the future of TF-EMC2, and restated that sometime later, but there were only a few people interested
• Also, if nothing happens, in September it will be finished?
• VC - you can’t have a TF without a chair, it's essential.
• SP - we can have an interim chair, or wait until September and it will be finished. I can tell that to the list
• BS - people fought not to merge TF-MNM and TF-EMC2 to keep their own identity
• it took long from first e-mail to comments;
• the TF is very valuable (meetings), getting people to do any work packages - not a lot of interest
• people are busy, do not have time to commit to things outside of their regular work
• we haven’t done a lot to grow regular attendance numbers, the same people turn up
• VC - clarifies that it didn’t really work out, what SP said it is correct - if community does not come up with the substitute, the TF has to be resolved, it is also too late for them to come up with new terms of reference
• PS - what will the community lose? The mailing list will be there
• SP - meetings won’t happen because there will be no money for traveling to meet a “discussion group” or similar
• VC -special interest groups are part of the GN3Plus work, in theory that could help people to travel to meetings;
• But what does the community want? the trend is that it tries to redefine itself somehow, discussion in the list in decreasing, not much work done, lively discussions on the meetings - but what is the impact on the community? Does it makes sense to continue? this is the right moment to do something
• SP - if this doesn’t ring a warning bell, then…
• VC - 2 years ago we were facing the same issues already, issues of identity and effort to merge activities; it’s important to figure out what the community wants
• BS - interest group requires a group of people to want to keep it going
• SP - it will go there anyway
• NH - interest group requires interest
• PS - experience in other group - other group leaders taking charge, act as a team, stimulate discussions - improvement, instead of having one chair, but the community has to stand behind it
• VC - keeping supporting a task force with little participation is not the best way of spending money
• NH - might seem as if it failed.
• BS - what drives it is Roland - maybe that package within GEANT needs to have “town hall’ meetings where they spread what they are doing and get input form the community, which is what it is now anyway
• SP - many levels on which you can discuss this; Roland had in mind that GEANT and TERENA TFs can have different effects; Roland using this TF for his own work - without the community TF (and TERENA) is nothing;
• there are problems that are not on NREN level  no fresh ideas, no fresh water coming into the community
• we are not out of problems, but we control fewer and fewer parts of the community(? of the eco-system?)
• DG - plenty of NIFs submitted, why not take those?
• VC - I wouldn’t focus on those NIFs; there is much more in the middleware area than that keeping it alive could keep us from seeing new things to do, it might be best to conclude that this is history and see new opportunities
• PS - influential chair steps down - people might stand up and try to continue
• VC - meeting to discuss the future of the TF?
• SP - many didn’t show up because there were other meetings, not so attractive
• NH - maybe a separate meeting?
• SP - what does it prove if people show up?
• LD - SIG would be provided as one of the options
• SP - the obvious suggestion - will prolong the suffering
• NH - find a new discussion space
• PS - should not keep the TF just to keep the community
• VC - define a few things that should still be discussed on the mailing list (Brook should identify those and let people know “the rules of the game”);
• if the same people are on the REFEDS list
• if there is no continuation, maybe next year some new activity will start bottom up
• DG - University level interactivity - empty - how to communicate that?
• DG - there is a gap, nobody is filling it in
• SP - NIFs that failed? Talk to the people who proposed them and ask to bring them into the community
• NH - I talked to them, but they were not so much interested
• VN - Brook, figure out the framework of how to move on
• VC - stimulate a discussion on the mailing list? let’s use the next couple of months to figure out what people want
• BS - we need new terms of reference then maybe we can find a chair
• VC - you and Roland knew already that this TF would possibly end in a few months
• PS - I would have felt the responsibility to find someone else
• VN - Roland stepped down because his manager (?) at the University suggested that this is a good time to do it
• VC - everybody knew that the terms of reference were expiring
• BS - people thought that it’s my job
• VC - it’s your job to ask;
• AS - focus has to be on the community, if it doesn’t come, it’s not worth it
• VC - you might manage to get another community to step in
• AS - you can’t impose that.
• VC - people on the mailing list should know the rules of the game
• SP - the meetings are being perceived as highly useful, but there is nothing but the meetings.
• VC - thematic workshops to build a different community?
• VN - problem of getting new people into the community? Problems with outreach, a bit of work coming from Brook - inform the community about the “rules of the game”. When people start to realise that there will be no space to discuss things, maybe?

 

f. TERENA Greenhouse project

 

• NH - talking to Wilma and Bert about finances (VAT) - will change again with the NewOrg
• Some work has been done looking at agreements of other similar initiatives
• Meeting with several people at TNC discussing the next steps - difficulties deciding what we want it to be
• Could help projects distribute money or advisory project
• Interested in how can we do it in such a way that it can support itself?
• Trying to scope down what it is, what is needed in the community?
• Setting up more meetings, getting more feedback
• SP - urgency - so urgent that others have been going elsewhere, we are not moving (fast enough)
• Channelling, man in the middle, it is difficult to "give" money (projects want this to be as easy as possible!)
• Very valuable activity ("passivity") - there are projects that are in need of this
• SP - can we start with something simple? Not solve the whole problem?
• NH - we need to fix one thing that is needed by people now
• VC - issue of resources, this idea was mentioned 2 years ago - it looked like something that could be put in place quickly, but we had resources issues in TERENA, but it’s being resolved
• VN - if possible, give it prioritisation, but the ongoing activities are important too

 

g. Issues from TAC meeting in Dublin

 

• VC - thinking made in this room didn’t make it to the room in Dublin, topics should be presented by the TTC members; discussion was not wrong, got input, but wasn’t what we expected to be discussed there
• not talking about the failure, but how to do it next year
• VC - next year maybe - it’s not a body, it’s a meeting, it’s not clear why and whom they are representing, but we take that discussion seriously
• LD – Suggest holding the TAC meeting after the conference to discuss the most up to date things that were presented on at the TNC?
• VN - excellent solution, but there are practical problems
• LD - maybe somewhere in the middle then?
• MN - Technical people of the TAC meeting should be aware of what is going on without the presentations, they should be ahead of the key-note speakers
• PS - TNC programme committee is more influential than the TAC itself
• VC - premature to think about what to change, but time to keep in mind that there has to be changes. maybe the TAC should be a permanent body that understands the activities of TERENA and can provide better input
• BS - there is no continuity - they give some input but they don’t get to see the results; programme committee did not see the added value of TAC
• VN - creating a permanent TAC body might be a good idea

 

 

9. Dates of Next Meetings

 

29^th September - 10 o’clock

Next physical meeting in November - Michael will distribute potential dates/times via Doodle

 

10. AOB

 

Inter-NREN IPv4 address space brokerage?

 

• SP - is there something we can do for the benefit of this emerging market, risk - you don’t know what you’re getting back, likely IPs used for illegal purposes and you won’t recognise it (in time). Idea - can we still have the benefit without the risk? Only dealing among NRENs (TERENA members to make it larger).
• VN - haven’t seen any requests that are out of … addresses. Is there a market demand?
• DG - most of the NRENs have loads of space, institutions have run out of space; there is a market on the institutional level, not NREN level
• VC - should we get them together to figure out whether there is a need for TERENA to do something? TTC could be the right place to have this kind of discussion; what would be the right community to ask? TAC could be, but it’s too far away
• SP - I meant from institutions to institutions (SP: Unsure I meant/said that)
• VN - let’s encourage this to happen to see if there is a need and demand
• SP - I’ll ask Christian to write something and someone will circulate it to potential candidates
• VN - action item not raised today - Task Forces in the future, item will be raised
• NewOrg is coming, proposal in October, after the voting it will still take some time
• LD - communication teams of TERENA and DANTE started looking into that already, update on what will be discussed
• VN - Esther’s position and another position - replacement needs to be found, a few names in mind, maybe will be settled in September meeting
• Need to be filled in despite on what is going to happen with the NewOrg