Innovative projects using state of the art electronic infrastructures are bringing real benefits to the Mediterannean region and are vital to accelerate ICT development, agreed participants at the recent EU-Med Event 2 in Amman, Jordan, on 4 November.
Around a hundred high-ranking public officials and specialists from 20 countries in Europe, the Mediterranean region and Middle East attended the day-long event, which highlighted ongoing projects that have benefits for the health, environment and education of people living in the Mediterranean region. The day culminated in the launch of EUMEDCONNECT2 – the high-capacity data communications network that links the research and education communities of the Mediterranean region with those in Europe. The launch celebrated the confirmation of two further years of European Union funding for the network, which builds on the achievements of the EUMEDCONNECT project.
A well-balanced programme that focused on practical issues made the recent TERENA EuroCAMP (European Campus Architecture Middleware Planning) workshop the most successful to date, according to organisers and attendees. Around 60 participants from almost 30 organisations across Europe took part in the lively event in Athens, 5-6 November 2008.
This workshop returned to ‘basics’ and the original aim of EuroCAMP, to develop middleware awareness at grassroots level and present some of the various identity management (IdM) and authentication mechanisms available. The focus was single sign on (SSO) systems and the event was mainly aimed at people who operate directories and identity management systems within campuses.
CESNET hosted a meeting of 70 specialists participating in the European Grid project EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-Science in Europe).
During the October meeting of Internet2 consortium, CESNET presented the UltraGrid technology enabling high-speed videoconferencing. Data packet distribution between the three participating sites (New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Brno) was performed by the UDP reflector - a device device developed by CESNET.
The Danish Research Network launched its new 20x10 Gbit/s network in connection with the national user conference on Tuesday 11 November 2008.
GIdP (GÉANT Identity Provider), the precursor service to the developmental GÉANT2 service eduGAIN, has been issued. It enables safe, secure access to a number of GÉANT2 and related network services and will provide a federated Authentication Service across the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) that serve Europe’s research and education community.
For the first time, Japanese and South African participants attended a TERENA Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) training course, joining the event in Roztoky u Prahy (Czech Republic) last week from 23-24 October 2008.
30 trainees from 14 countries took part, including representatives from both the commercial and non-commercial world. They completed exercises, heard presentations and joined in discussions about the legal, technical, operational and organisational aspects of CSIRTs, as well as the role of CSIRTs in working with vulnerabilities. The training materials used were developed originally in the TRANSITS (Training of Network Security Incident Teams Staff) project.
Promotion of services offered by National Research and Education Networking organisations (NRENs) was the topic of a two-hour brainstorming session at the meeting of the TERENA General Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria on 24 October 2008. Joint work on GN3 services promotion is one of the new tasks in the GN3 (GÉANT3) project proposal that was submitted to the European Commission in September. The GN3 project, which is expected to start in April next year, was a recurrent theme throughout the agenda of the GA meeting, because GN3 will have a big impact on both the Activity Plan and the budget of TERENA in 2009.
In addition, GA members received an update on the activities in the TERENA Technical Programme, on the work of TF-PR (the task force on public relations and information dissemination) and TF-MSP (the task force on management of service portfolios), and on the preparations for the next TERENA Conference, which will be held in Malaga, Spain in June 2009. It was announced that the TERENA Networking Conference 2010 will be hosted in Vilnius by LITNET, the Lithuanian member organisation of TERENA.
TRANSISTS CSIRT Training takes place in Roztoky u Prahy in October 23 - 24. This two-day workshop is designed for CERT/CSIRT team newcomers and persons interested in creation of new security-response teams. It is organised by TERENA, an association of European national research and education networks, in cooperation with CESNET and CSIRT.CZ.
The unique photonic multicast demonstration received exceptional response from participants of the 8th Annual Global LambdaGrid Workshop. CESNET presented a multipoint uncompressed HD video transmission based on the CzechLight Multicast Switch (CLM) 4×4 device developed by CESNET.