SERENATE

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SERENATE

• David Williams
• CERN, also President TERENA
• TNC 2002, Limerick
• June 2002

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Topics

• What is SERENATE about?
• What are the strategic questions?
• Structure and timescales of SERENATE
• How can you participate?

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What is SERENATE about?
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The acronym

• SERENATE Study into European Research and
  Education Networking as Targeted by eEurope
• Funded as an EC project FP5
• Looking at our strategic needs, say up to 5 years
  ahead
• NOT making detailed plans

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Who are the partners?

• Academia Europaea
• Centre for Tele-informatics (CTI), Technical
  University of Denmark
• DANTE
• European Science Foundation
• TERENA (coordinating partner)
• We also anticipate considerable involvement from
  the NRENs, and hopefully of other actors,
  including industry

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Strategic assumptions

• Three-level model
• Campus
• National (and sometimes also regional and metro)
  infrastructure
• European interconnect
• inter-continental connectivity

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What are (some of) the strategic questions?
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Strategic questions (1/3)

• What should the nature of NRENs be how much
  technical expertise? how much direct
  responsibility for operation? More crudely and
  the question is sometimes posed to some of our
  members why cannot commercial ISPs do
  everything?
• Now clear that we are moving from best efforts
  IP to multi-service networking with a huge
  number of end-to-end services going across
  multiple organisational boundaries. How can this
  be handled? Remember the three layers (campus,
  NREN, European interconnect) it is hard to
  balance the need for local autonomy
  (subsidiarity) with the users need for
  coherent high-quality end-to-end performance.
• From TAC discussion NRENs cannot only provide
  low layer services - urgent to develop coherent
  infrastructure AAA (for example), but thats
  across the campuses, the NRENs, the national
  university system(s) and international users
  communities (such as grids). How?

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Strategic questions (2/3)

• Are present economic assumptions likely to evolve
  smoothly, or be disrupted?
• Optical fibre developments ? much more bandwidth
• Turbulence in the bandwidth market
• Several examples of NRENs moving to own their
  own fibre infrastructure is this a good idea or
  not? As far as I know at least Czech Republic,
  Poland and Switzerland have that as a declared
  goal, maybe others.
• NRENs traditionally worked with tertiary
  education to what extent should they become
  involved with primary and secondary education?
  And what about 168/7 coverage (student lodging
  and week-end coverage) for higher education
  students?
• And what about libraries and healthcare/hospitals?
  

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Strategic questions (3/3)

• What are networking needs of FP6 and the ERA?
  Are we addressing the proposals made in the
  Harbour Report?
• How should NRENs react to eEurope Action Plan?
• Council requested Commission to study higher
  speeds and connecting schools and libraries
  SERENATE is part of that work
• In general - keep proposing ambitious goals
• What is the proper geographical extent of the
  Europe that the NRENs should feel concerned by?
• eEurope and ERA looking for equality of
  opportunity for researchers across different
  countries in Europe
• Should people with (much) higher costs have to
  pay higher charges?
• How could we alleviate discrepancies?
• What cost-sharing models can be recommended?

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Out-of-scope strategic questions

• We should not try to tackle everything
• I believe that connectivity to neighbouring
  countries, such as Russia, NIS, SEE,
  Mediterranean, Caucasus, is very important
  politically. Actually trying to get to grips
  with the issues in each area is beyond the scope
  of SERENATE (IMO). Could eventually be done with
  more resources.
• I also believe that the issues of proper
  intercontinental connectivity are being handled
  effectively in the GEANT context, and do not need
  further attention here.
• Maybe need to keep some focus on the
  end-to-end service issues?

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Structure and Timescalesof SERENATE
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The EU project

• Runs from 1 May 2002 for 15 months, so until 30
  July 2003
• Total cost 960 kEUR
• Comprises 14 areas of work, of which some
  workshops, some studies and some report writing

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Workshops

• Initial workshop (17-18 Sept 2002 in La Hulpe,
  close to Brussels)
• Operators views on infrastructure status and
  evolution (Nov 2002)
• Possible models for the future (Dec 2002)
• User needs and priorities (Jan 2003, probably in
  Montpellier)
• Final workshop (May/June 2003)

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Initial Workshop (La Hulpe)

• By invitation. Mix of NREN staff, NREN funders,
  campus responsibles, real end users, some
  suppliers
• Interactive. To discuss and define scope and
  working approach.
• 150 max attendance so a few per country
• Five break-out groups-
• Technical evolution
• Economics
• Other user communities (schools, libraries,
  healthcare/hosptials,..)
• Geography
• User needs

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From the Web page

• Technical perspectives
• LAN, WAN, switched circuits vs QoS bandwidth,
  optical networking
• Economic, commercial and financial perspectives
• including telecommunications regulations
• Needs of the research community
• for all disciplines of science, technology and
  the humanities)
• Needs of the education community (from
  Kindergarten to university education) and other
  user communities (libraries, museums, healthcare,
  etc.)
• Geography
• the borders of Europe, the digital divide
  inside Europe, connectivity to other continents,
  organisational issues).

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Workshop participation

• We have some funding for each workshop
• In general you will have to cover your own travel
  and accomodation costs
• We do have some funding to support some
  participants who would not otherwise be able to
  attend

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Reports

• A report will be generated after each workshop
  (see previous slide for list)
• PLUS
• Deployment and trends in transport and
  infrastructure market (Jan 2003)
• Regulatory situation, especially for alternative
  approaches (Jan 2003)
• Equipment trends (Feb 2003)
• Telecoms market and infra deployment forecast
  (April 2003)
• Possible infrastructure scenarios (April 2003)
• Overall strategic plan input to Final Workshop
  (May/June 2003)

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Other areas of work

• Education and other fields (libraries,
  healthcare.)
• Geographic coverage
• Equality of opportunity
• Connectivity to neighbouring regions
• Intercontinental connectivity

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How can you participate?
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NRENs

• This is your project please participate
  actively in all workshops
• Especially the initial workshop to give your
  input
• Your experts ? regulatory evolution
• You technical staff ? equipment evolution
• Your users ? user needs and priorities
• Your local experts ? extension of NRENs to early
  education, libraries and healthcare
• Your local experts ? geographic coverage
• Many of these bullets are also directly
  applicable to ENPG members and potentially to
  members of other interested national bodies

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Network and Infra Service Vendors

• Submit thoughts to Steering Committee
• Participate in operators workshop its
  especially for you

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Equipment vendors

• Submit thoughts to Steering Committee
• Participate in the equipment trends activity

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More info and contacts
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Steering Committee

• Bonac - ARNES - chairs geographic
• Butterworth - AE
• Davies - DANTE
• Jaume - RENATER - chairs education and other
• Liello - chair NREN Consortium
• Mayer - ESF
• Skouby - CTI
• Vietsch - TERENA
• Williams

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Addresses

• http//www.serenate.org
• mailtoinfo_at_serenate.org

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SERENATE

• David Williams
• CERN, also President TERENA
• TNC 2002, Limerick
• June 2002