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From FIRE to the NGI in Linz

Linz, 29 May – 2 June

The 33rd edition of the TNC17 Networking Conference, the largest and most prestigious European research networking conference, was held between 29 May – 2 June 2017 in Linz, Austria, the picturesque UNESCO City of Media Arts. Hosted by the Austrian Academic Computer Network (ACOnet), the Austrian National research and education network (NREN) for science, research, education, and culture, the conference was attended by more than 650 participants, including decision makers, managers, networking and collaboration specialists, and identity and access management experts from all major European networking and research organisations, universities, worldwide sister institutions, as well as industry representatives.

NGI BoF at TCN17

Through keynotes speeches by renowned specialists, parallel sessions, demonstrations and presentations, the Conference presented participants with a unique overview of the latest developments in research networking, both in the technical field and in the area of application and management.

The keynote speeches were concentrated around the theme of the conference: “The Art of Creative Networking”, but also provided interesting technical insight into Google’s SDN backbone networking.

During conference, Hub4NGI and the European Commission organized a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session to introduce the Next Generation Internet principles to the community and receive hear what they had to say about potential interest and new ideas for the NGI.  The session was structured as a typical BoF, with 4 well-respected speakers on the panel:

  • Jean-Luc Dorel, European Commission
  • Brecht Vermeulen, IMEC
  • Jerry Sobieski, Nordunet
  • Artur Binczewski, PSNC

The panellists each gave short statements on the following topics to start the discussion:

  1. The NGI is being advertised as a new, “human-centric” Internet. How do you see the role of your organization/project in the NGI initiative? How the infrastructure players (GEANT, NRENs, facility projects) can make a difference there?
  2. The NGI at this moment is NOT foreseen as “technology-centric”. What technologies and solutions can be natural contribution of GEANT/NRENs to the NGI? What technologies/technology enablers would you like to see on the NGI roadmap?
  3. Is there any conflict/contradiction between willingness to make everything open (Open Data, Open Interfaces, Open Standards) and business goals of industry, where openness is not always foreseen as a good approach to make business? Do you think NGI principles can bridge these two different approaches?
  4. Which types of challenges, described in the preliminary drafts of the NGI initiative – Technological or Economical/Legal/Social – can be considered as extremely difficult to solve. Examples of the latter include: cultural changes, adoption of the law to the new situation, the risk of unemployment in the context of automation of industrial processes (industry 4.0).

The experts’ statements were followed by vigorous discussions within the audience, who raised up  questions ranging from organizational aspects of the upcoming NGI call for projects to technical discussions on potential contributions from NRENs towards the NGI.

In all, the session was very well received, with attendees indicating that there was clearly  room within the NGI project for NRENs and their customers (mainly universities and research centers) to take an active role.

Read more on @NGI4eu

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