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InCommon will kick off IAM Online, a new monthly series delivering interactive education on Identity and Access Management (IAM), on Friday, February 12, at 1 pm (EST). The first session will focus on leveraging an identity management infrastructure and the value of InCommon Federation participation. IAM Online is sponsored by InCommon in cooperation with Internet2 and the EDUCAUSE Identity and Access Management Working Group. For more information, see www.incommon.org/iamonline.html

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Please take a few moments to complete this short survey, prepared by MAGPI, Internet2, and the Association of African Universities.  The data collected will provide a snapshot of current and proposed activity between institutions around the world and their collaborators across the continent of Africa.  We will then use this information to make government and telecommunications providers aware of the need to build low cost infrastructure across geographic and political boundaries as a means of fostering development in research, education, and the global economy. Results will be shared during the Africa Regional Interest Group at the Spring Internet2 Member Meeting, 29 April 2010. 

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The Internet2 Governance & Nominations Committee is pleased to declare the 2010 Advisory Councils election officially open. The election period will conclude on Friday, February 19 at midnight Pacific time. To obtain additional information and to view the ballot and the candidate's bios, please visit www.internet2.edu/elections.

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Internet2 together with 27 national, state and regional R&E network organizations, filed comments to the FCC on January 27, 2010 to help inform the development of its National Broadband Plan. The filing recommends that the plan build on the extensive investment the R&E community has already made in national network infrastructure, leveraging the human expertise and collaborations they have developed to bring advanced broadband connectivity to the nation’s "community anchor institutions."

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The U.S. Departments of Commerce and Agriculture have released Notices of Funding Availability in the second and final round of ARRA funding for national broadband expansion under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and Rural Utilities Services (RUS) program. An additional $4.8 billion has been made available to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, and create jobs. Application processes have also been simplified to ease application and better target program resources.

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John Gillispie has been hired as the executive director of the Missouri Research and Education Network (MOREnet), an Internet2 member and one of the nation’s first and largest statewide research and education networks. Prior to joining MOREnet, Gillispie has served as executive director of the Iowa Communications Network, as the chief operating officer for the Information Technology Enterprise of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services and as the designated chief information officer for Iowa.

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Grouper version 1.5.0 is now available for download. The Grouper Groups Management Toolkit enables project managers, departments, institutions, and end-users to create and manage institutional and personal groups. The new version features a Lite user interface, audit and notification, capabilities, support for roles and permissions hierarchies, support for custom attributes, and more. Listen to a chat about Grouper and the new 1.5.0 release with Grouper Working Group Chair Tom Barton, of University of Chicago.

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Two Tutorials are being offered on Sunday, January 31 as part of the Winter 2010 Joint Techs; at 1 pm, John Graham (Indiana University) will present a Back-to-Basics Tutorial on Circuit Switching Principles and, at 3 pm, Eli Dart (ESnet) will give a Tutorial on Campus Network Design for High Performance.  

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Thank you for your support in 2009. Together, our community has achieved some great successes. As we turn the page to a new decade, we look forward to collaborating with you to achieve even more. Happy holidays to you and yours.

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The Internet2 community will come together from April 26-28, 2010 in Arlington, VA for its annual Spring Member Meeting to explore our accomplishments, discuss the challenges we yet face, and share the tools and solutions we are using to move our aggressive cyberinfrastructure development agenda forward. The following focus areas will be highlighted across the various meeting tracks: Identity Management Federations, Collaboration Tools, Cloud Computing, Green Technologies, Economic Sustainability, Health Care Networks, and how the Internet2 community plans to take advantage of ARRA stimulus funding. Registration will open in mid-February.

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New World Symphony chief technology officer, Tom Snook, has been named by Computerworld as a Premier 100 IT Leader. To win the honor, an IT leader must be "someone who guides the effective use of information technology to improve organization…performance." The New World Symphony is a long-standing Affiliate member of Internet2, and the two organizations have partnered for nearly a decade to provide graduate-level music students with mentors at the world's best symphonies and universities. Read the Computerworld announcement for more details.

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Submit a paper by 20 December, or propose a panel by 24 January for the 9th Symposium on Identity and Trust on the Internet.  Topics include federated systems like Shibboleth, authorization and group management for grid computing, and usability studies. Deployment reports, user experiences, protocol analysis, and new ideas for public-key mediated authentication and access control are welcome. Sponsored by NIST, the OASIS IDtrust Member Section, the Federal PKI Policy Authority and Internet2, IDtrust will be in Gaithersburg, MD, from 13-15 April.  See the Call for Papers for details.

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The focus is on state-of-the-art cyberinfrastructure as Internet2 participates in the 23rd Supercomputing Conference in Portland, Oregon. At SC09, Internet2 hosts four ongoing demonstrations (booth #1355) highlighting the new Internet2 ION dynamic circuit network service, breakthrough tools for the diagnosis of end-to-end network performance issues, and pioneering network research. The services are also key enablers of SCinet, the massive network built each year to support conference exhibitors and attendees.

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Ana Preston has been named Internet2's new Executive Director for Member Relations and Communications (MRC). In this role, Preston will manage the organization's member engagement and communications activities, evaluate and promote advanced cyberinfrastructure services and initiatives, and work with executive and governance teams to coordinate member outreach and communications.

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EchoDamp is a multi-channel audio mixer and echo controller designed  for high-bandwidth, musical videoteleconferences, that is now available free for educational use. It was created by Dr. Brian K. Shepard of the USC Thornton School of Music, a pioneer, and one of the earliest proponents of high-bandwidth videoteleconferencing for musical purposes. Unlike other echo cancelers, EchoDamp maintains the full frequency spectrum of the audio hardware used to capture the sound, and echo is damped without interfering with the desired audio.

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The Internet2 Governance and Nominations Committee (GNC) is pleased to announce the call for nominations for open positions on the Internet2 Advisory Councils. The open call for nominations for the Advisory Councils and GNC has been extended to 9 December 2009. The GNC will finalize the Advisory Council ballot in January and the election will open on or about 1 February 2010. Additional information and links to the nominations forms are available at internet2.edu/elections.

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Be sure to catch the Internet2 Update at EDUCAUSE 2009 on Wednesday, 4 November.  The  Update will provide an update on the Internet2 community involvement in the Rural Health Care Pilot Project, the ARRA stimulus activity, and support of international programs, as well as how the community is developing, deploying, and using various technologies to enable research, education, and collaboration.  In addition, the EDUCAUSE 2009 conference features numerous sessions on identity and access management and InCommon.

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The annual Winter Joint Techs will be held from 31 January to 4 February in Salt Lake City, Utah, hosted by the University of Utah. The meeting's focus areas are Performance Measurement & Monitoring, Support for Big Science/Computing, and Campus Networking.  Registration is live and a general schedule of events has been posted from the event home page along with detailed descriptions of the focus areas and a link to the online proposal submission page. 

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Thank you to all who attended the Fall 2009 Internet2 Member Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Be sure to fill out the meeting evaluation for an opportunity to win either a $200 Best Buy Gift Card, or a $200 Amazon Gift Card. Winners will be selected on 6 November. If you  presented at any session during meeting, please send  your slides for posting to the event website to: presentations@internet2.edu. Finally, if you were unable to attend, please visit the Netcast Archive to see some of the outstanding program.

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Internet2 is pleased to announce our newest international partnership with the Nepal Research and Education Network (NREN). NREN was established as a knowledge center to support advanced research and education in Nepal. The network covers challenging terrain and extreme temperatures, and is already assisting in research such as the monitoring of glacial lakes and altitude sickness.  We look forward to future collaborations between our organizations!

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Internet2 Congratulates New NLR CEO
Internet2 would like to congratulate Glenn Ricart on his recent appointment as the new CEO of National LambdaRail.  Glenn's long history in pioneering the development and advancement of higher education Internet networking make him an excellent choice for this important position. Internet2 looks forward to working with Glenn and National LambdaRail and is excited by the potential for collaboration.

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The theme for the Fall 2009 Internet2 Member Meeting is: “Collaborations and Resource Sharing in Research and Education: How the economic crisis is fueling the expansion of networking technology, fostering global communities, and driving social change.” Internet2 welcomes General Session speakers Gary Forsee, President of the University of Missouri System and former chairman and CEO of Sprint Nextel, and Gwen Jacobs, Professor and Assistant CIO at Montana State University and Board chair for the iPlant Collaborative.

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The new late-breaking topics track at the Fall Member Meeting will include one “Lightning Round” session where presenters provide short talks on timely topics. Submissions for these talks will be accepted through Wednesday; please submit topics and speakers to: mm-lightning-talks@internet2.edu. Each submission will be reviewed by the Program Committee, and submitters will be notified within 24 hours if their topic has been accepted. Each slide-free Lightning Round topic will last 5 minutes; handouts are permitted.

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The pS-Performance Toolkit, now available as a live CD download, can be used to turn any Intel-based computer into an active network performance node.  Researchers and network engineers can both monitor and debug their own networks, and access information from external networks. For more information, come to the pS-Performance Toolkit session at the Fall Member Meeting on Wednesday, 10:30 am CDT in Maverick A.

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Discover the rich selection of identity-related sessions at the upcoming Internet2 Fall Member Meeting. The Middleware Track topics range from campus experiences with vendor solutions to identity in the cloud. Learn about work with NSF and NIH and new developments with InCommon. And don’t miss the Middleware working group discussions on Monday.

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