OECD BEREC workshop on Internet peering - how R&E networks can help community broadband

[Here is a great set of slides put together by Rudolf van der Berg of the OECD on IP interconnection.

Revolutionary developments in on-line education - the role of R&E networks

[In the past couple of days there was a number of interesting announcements in the world of on-line education.

My top 10 predictions for Internet and R&E networks for 2012

[Well folks its that time of year again when self professed pundits make their various forecasts and projections on technology trends on the coming year.

How clouds are transforming education, research and libraries

[I recently the great pleasure of visiting JISC and JANET in the UK and was very impressed on their understanding of the potential of commercial clouds to radically transform education, research and libraries.

Internet bigger than agriculture or energy sectors - importance of R&E networks

[Several months ago McKinsey did a very interesting study on the economic value of the Internet.

Open Lightpath Exchanges, The Data Deluge, Software Defined R&E Networks

[Several readers of this blog have pointed to the article in last week’s NYTimes on the genomics data deluge.

Named Data Networking - how LTE networks will soon be extension of enterprise WiFi

[It amazes me how still many people think that the Internet network architecture is a variant of the telephone system.

OECD report: Internet Traffic Exchange Points

[Here is an excellent report on IXPs recently released by the OECD.

Forbes: Cloud Computing is Fueling the Next Startup Boom - role of funding councils and R&E networks

[Here is a great article from Forbes on how cloud computing is fueling the next startup boom.

A wider role for National Research and Education Networks?

[Here is a great blog on a topic dear to my heart that I have been blogging about for some time. National R&E networks I believe can play an important role through disruptive innovation in a number of ways:

SURFnet and KPN to collaborate on next generation mobile networks, Internet and IPv6

[Kudos to SURFnet on an exciting new initiative between SURFnet and KPN (Dutch incumbent telephone company).

The role and purpose of R&E networks

[Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, recently received the GEANT Expert group report with its views on the future of the pan-European research and education networking.

How university IT departments can make money selling spare compute cycles through SpotCloud

[A very innovative  Canadian startup called Enomaly is offering a service called SpotCloud that allows IT departments to sell spare compute cycles into the global cloud market.

Commercial cloud services for universities and HPC gain momentum - Internet 2 announcement

[Today’s Internet 2 announcement of brokering commercial cloud services from HP, Box and SHI is the start of a major trend that will transform computing at universities and eventually businesses.

IPv6 Transitional Uncertainties and the role of R&E networks and universities

[Here is an excellent article on the uncertainties of IPv6 transition. R&E networks and universities probably have the single largest number of unallocated IPv4 address space.

Very cool project between SURFnet and Ericsson for LTE on Dutch universities

[I am always astounded and amazed how a small R&E networking organization like SURFnet has become such a powerful engine of innovation, not only for Dutch universities, but the Dutch economy in general.

R&E networks once again revolutionizing Internet through content peering

[I recently attended the annual GLIF meeting (Global Lambda Integrated Facility) in Rio de Janeiro where there was a lot of buzz and excitement about recent developments in lambda networking and new transformative business models for R&E networks.

Apple May End Mobile Phone Contract Era - NREN opportunity

[More evidence that Apple is working on software configurable SIMs that will eventually will break the Homer/Bart Simpson stranglehold the carriers have over consumers.

Cool new app to protect on line privacy - Unhosted with Federated Identity

Whenever you post content to the web (images, text, video, music...), it is kept on the servers of that particular application. This means that your online data is stored in centralized servers belonging to various companies, meaning it's not really yours any more.

Open Flow in the real world: Carriers, clouds and follow the sun/wind networks

[It is exciting to see the concept of software controlled networks pioneered by CANARIE and CRC (UCLP) and other researchers such as Nick Mckeown at Stanford starting to gain momentum.

Apple's strategy to bypass carriers - opportunity for R&E networks to build their own national wireless broadband networks

[Telcos and cablecos are probably the most conservative and least innovative companies in the world.

The future of university CIOs and IT departments

[In this age of financial crises and shrinking budgets, universities and research institutes are going to be under increasing pressure to reduce costs.

So long computer overlords - how clouds can liberate research and transform discovery

[Here is an excellent presentation by Ian Foster on how clouds and grids can liberate researchers from traditional IT research tasks.

Internet 2 project to broker commercial cloud services to universities

[Here is an excellent presentation by Steve Wallace on an Internet 2 pilot project to broker commercial and private cloud services to universities.

Great example of commercial cloud for research - research data lifcycle management as a service

[Here is another great example of how the research community can leverage commercial cloud services to develop pressing solutions for the preservation, archiving and provenance of scientific data.

Should funding councils mandate the use of commercial clouds re: - white house announcement

[The recent press release from the White House Office Science Technology Policy highlghts an important and growing trend in research and science around the world.

Wifi - the cell network for the rest of us

[Universities around the world continue to face a financial crunch as governments slash funding  in order to restrain huge debt loads.

The network as a service - why bandwidth on demand is not enough

[Inder Monga, Guy Roberts and Tomohiro Kudoh recently gave an excellent presentation at the Terena conference on abstracting network functionalities as services

How collaboration works or does not work on the Internet - Open Science

[Great TED video on open science and what kinds of open collaboration work - BSA]

Open Science on the Internet

How can the Internet help spread scientific discoveries?

R&E network JANET to broker cloud services for research at UK universities

[I am pleased to see that JANET and SURFnet are once again at the forefront of some very innovative new services such as national wireless and now brokering cloud services.

Some excellent papers on Future of R&E networks

[Here are several pointers to some excellent presentations and papers on future of R&E networks.

NLR to provide national personal genome health services - exciting new opportunity for R&E networks

[It has been rumored for months, but yesterday’s announcement from NLR is a real game changer. Personal health services, in particular personal genome sequencing and data storage are going to generate huge volumes of data for R&E networks.

Overview of national wireless network strategies for R&E networks

[Harold Teunissen of SURFnet gave an excellent overview of developing a national wireless network strategies for R&E networks at the NORDUnet conference this week.

Momentous changes for R&E networks world wide

[As I have blogged a couple of times in the past few weeks there is a growing momentum among the major R&E networks around the world to move to Open Lightpath Exchanges (OLEs).

Will next generation of high performance computing and clouds go the way of telescopes or particle accelerators?

Will next generation of  super computers go the way  of telescopes or particle accelerators?

My talk at TICAL 2011

http://tical_2011.redclara.net/en/index.html

Open Science, Science as a Service and Open Lightpath Exchanges

[As I mentioned in my previous blog there is a growing world wide momentum of new R&E network architectures built around open lightpath exchanges (OLEs) also referred to as GLIF Open LightPath  Exchanges (GOLEs).

New Developments in R&E network architectures

[Over the past several weeks there has been a lot of exciting developments in the R&E network community at the Spring Internet 2 meeting and more recently at the Terena meeting in Prague about new Internet architectures built around GOLEs – GLIF Open Lightpath Exchanges.

UK R&E network JANET 3G service integrated with eduroam with their own SIM card

[Here is an exciting new service offering by the UK R&E network JANET.  Not only will this meet the need of mobile researchers and students it will provide a new revenue stream for JANET.

Hot News -Internet 2 network annoucement on OS3E, open exchanges and UCLP

[At the this weeks spring Internet 2 meeting there was a major announcement on Internet 2’s new Open Science, Scholarship and Services Exchange (OS3E) initiative. This could be a real game changer.

Royal Society - Knowledge, Networks and Nations - open exchanges and future of R&E networks

[I highly recommend a recent report from the UK Royal Society called “Knowledge, Networks and Nations” (http://royalsociety.org/policy/reports/knowledge-networks-nations/ ). The Royal Society which is fellowship of some of the world’s most eminent scientists and this report strongly endorses the importance of international collaborative research.

Why America should be very worried about what is happening in Canada with caps and usage based billing

[A decade Canada was second only to South Korea in terms of broadband deployment and adoption. But unfortunately due to a number of factors including unrestrained market concentration, lack of foreign competition and regulatory capture Canada has fallen to the middle of the pack in terms of broadband deployment. 

Broadband and Economic Development - a hard look at job creation from all angles

[A very timely and important issue – BSA]
http://www.bbpmag.com/2011s/11economic-dev.php

Dear Colleagues,
Of the many great challenges that the United States faces today, none is more important or urgent than spurring robust economic development in our communities across America.

Three leadership opportunities for R&E networks to Live in the Future

[Dr Larry Smarr, Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technologies,  recently gave an excellent talk at Microsoft on “Three leadership opportunities for Washington State to Live in the Future”. 

The answer to Network Neutrality, data caps and Usage Based Billing lies with Google, Amazon, Netflix, Apple

[There has been a lot of noise in the blogosphere recently about usage based billing (UBB) and price caps coming to the US. Something I warned would happen based on the Canadian experience. 

How R&E networks and universities can earn revenue from their WiFi networks

[As I blogged several times before I believe there is a  significant revenue opportunity for R&E networks and universities by integrating their campus Wifi networks with commercial 3G/4G networks.

Relocating data centers to colder climates can reduce energy costs by up to 75%

[At the recent On*vector workshop in San Diego, Dallas Thorton of the San Diego Computer Center (SDSC) gave an excellent presentation on CANARIE funded UCSD-McGill project looking at the energy savings by relocating a facility like the SDSC to Canada.

Financial sustainability for UCAN and R&E networks

[ I am pleased to see that UCAN has established a committee to look at the long term financial sustainability of UCAN (http://www.usucan.org/) . The deliberations and output of this committee will not only benefit UCAN but R&E networks around the world.

A new generation of Research and Education network architectures

[The future of R&E networks around the world is always under constant review.

Could Apple Be Your Next Phone Company?

[These intriguing rumors emanating from Apple could have profound consequences for R&E networks and connected institutions.

The History of Usage Based Billing (UBB) and why it will almost always fail

[The recent brouhaha of usage based billing (UBB) in Canada is not a new phenomena.

Why the US should be very worried about Canada's debate on Usage based billing

[In many ways Canada is seen as a test market for Internet business concepts that will eventually appear in the US.

Examples of research and education applications for a national R&E wireless network

[I have blogged many times that I think the next major step for national R&E networks is to deploy national wireless solutions integrated with their optical backbones to support numerous eScience applications in sensor networks, environmental modeling, personal mobile health etc.

New developments in partnership between R&E and community networks

[I am pleased to see that Mark Johnson, of the North Carolina R&E network has been appointed by Internet2 as the interim head of the  United States Unified Community Anchor Network (U.S. UCAN) initiative.

SURFnet aims to have a national wireless hybrid network by 2015

[Once again The Netherlands is showing global innovative leadership in the development of a national R&E wireless network integrated with their optical backbone.

Excellent article on integration of 3G, LTE, Wifi and land lines - 5G networking

[Excellent article on integration of 3G, LTE, Wifi and land lines i.e.- 5G networking.

Marriage of Facebook & Telcos - and why we need a National Public Internet (NPI)

[One of the most powerful features of the Internet was that it allowed anyone to establish a web page, or other type of content and make it instantly accessible to anyone in the world. Thanks to the early design of the Internet, specifically the end to end principlel, the smallest web portal, on the most distant point on the planet was on equal footing with the biggest content giants.

That model is now under serious threat by the oligopoly of telcos and cablecos

International Conference Emerging Standards for the Educational Cloud and importance to IPv6

[Many R&E organizations are wrestling with issue of clouds in terms of adoption and deployment.

R&E networks and universities can once again revolutionize Internet and digital society

[Few people realize that Internet and many of its fundamental applications such as the web were created by the university and R&E network community.   Innovation and fundamental economic transformation by R&E networks  continues to this day in all sorts of related  fields.

Eduroam the key to a National Public "IPv6 only" R&E Internet

[As many have you seen in the press there has been a lot of discussion on overloaded 3G/4G networks and the need for WiFi handoff to handle the huge data volumes now flooding 3G/4G networks