I want to draw the attention of every InCommon participant to a set of expectations we all will be required to meet and the proposed processes for meeting them. The goal is to reduce the considerable variance of current participant operating practices and ensure that the InCommon Federation exhibits a baseline level of trustworthiness that enables its strategic value to Research and Education to continue to grow.

Dear Colleagues,

I’m pleased to announce that Tom Barton now has an expanded role with Internet2, working on trust and identity research engagement, while also remaining at the University of Chicago.

Four InCommon working groups are asking for feedback on their charters, seeking members to participate, or are beginning their work. Anyone from the trust and identity community is welcome (and encouraged) to join and contribute. Working groups are a key mechanism for the community to accomplish its work and move various initiatives forward. A list of these working groups and links to their respective wikis are at https://spaces.internet2.edu/x/poNRBQ. Here are summaries of the new working groups.

This year’s Trust and Identity sessions at the annual Technology Exchange will include the traditional track sessions and unconference Advance CAMP. But our program committee members can’t resist making some tweaks to keep things interesting.

Announcing the entry of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) into NET+ Service Validation, led by Michigan State University. Service validation is a rigorous, community led process to customize and enhance a cloud service for use by Internet2 members and our extended community.

After addressing the 5 Things to Consider When Deploying High Performance Computing (HPC) to the Cloud, it may be helpful to consider cost and benefits of running HPC workloads in the cloud versus running them on premise. This post will discuss costs for an on prem data center in the Southeast, and instances running in NET+ Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NET+ Google Cloud Platform (GCP), currently in NET+ Service Validation. This is the second of two posts on the HPC in the Cloud BoF from Internet2 Global Summit.

A recap of the first NET+ Box community summit that took place at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., on June 1 and 2, 2017.

In today’s educational market, a cloud-based video conferencing service can really help to stretch limited resources and precious dollars. Learn more about Emory University's success with increasing adoption nearly five-fold through simplified system access, user training and an expansion of use cases in just a couple of years.

In case you were unable to attend Internet2 Global Summit, or were not able to find a seat in our standing-room-only room, this post expands upon the discussion during the HPC in the Cloud BoF session. This will be the first of two posts on this topic.

rSmart today announced the launch of its first Banner® by Ellucian Connector. This new tool provides colleges and universities using Banner systems with the ability to more efficiently create the online concierge tasks within OneCampus by directly importing critical data, reducing keystrokes, and saving time.

Join Jeff Battaglino, director of technical services & support at Seton Hall University on Tuesday, June 27 at 10 a.m. PDT/ 1 p.m. EDT as he shares how they went from using spreadsheets for tracking vulnerability information and remediation progress to a new approach to vulnerability response with ServiceNow. 

A recap of different formal and informal discussions around DDoS mitigation with campuses and regional networks during the 2017 Internet2 Global Summit in Washington, D.C. 

Promoting diversity in technology through scholarship awards – it's the mission created for the Gender Diversity Initiative (GDI) awards, but also a rallying cry for our members. Internet2 member campus CIOs have embraced the GDI program, created in 2014, by nominating bright stars at their schools to experience an Internet2 meeting, attend sessions and working groups, meet fellow technologists, participate in discussions...

On August 1, 2017, the Connector/Network Member Principals will meet in Newport, RI to continue discussion on the future of the ecosystem. Beginning early in 2017, when the Connector/Network Member Principals met in Tempe, AZ, conversation centered on some specific challenges to the ecosystem shared by the Regionals and Internet2.

Sarah Kiden is the head of systems at Uganda Christian University and a facilitator at Research and Education Network for Uganda (RENU). In this blog post, she shares her experience attending the 2017 Internet2 Global Summit for the first time as a NSRC-Internet fellowship winner.

Over the past few years I have been asked to give demonstrations (demos) at Internet2 meetings. Being a technical person, it wasn’t something I had regularly done. (And what’s worse, I approached it from a technical angle.) During my first demo I created some slides with a mainly technical focus, stood up and spoke to them and was done. I wasn’t sure how the demo went, but given the many blank stares I was getting at the end, I could take a guess.

The Network Architecture, Operations and Policy Program Advisory Group (NAOPpag) met twice in April, once during the regular meeting time and again during the Internet2 Global Summit. At the first meeting, the NAOP heard a summary of the Internet2 GlobalNOC operations agreement from Rob Vietzke and Dave Jent. They explained that the agreement was created by first determining a set of overarching principles derived from the Operations Excellence Community Steering Team (OECST) report.

By Jim Bottum

The Advanced Research Computing on Campuses (ARCC) workshop is co-locating at PEARC17 this July in New Orleans with the aim to begin the process of more broadly integrating with the on-going PEARC annual conference. To minimize disruption and overlap with the standard program, the ARCC at PEARC will involve a full-day tutorial on Monday July 10, 2017 and then a single parallel session alongside the four other parallel sessions in the technical program on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 11-12, 2017 with shared plenaries, breaks, meals and other activities.