Opening plenary
Chair: Jasenka Gojšić, CARNet, Croatia

Plenary: Network Challenges
Chair: Claudio Allocchio, GARR, Italy

Plenary: User Opportunities
Chair: Miroslav Milinović, CARNet, Croatia

Plenary: Closing
Chair: Karel Vietsch, TERENA, Netherlands

Session 1a: Distance Education
Chair: Predrag Pale, FER, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Distance education is a buzzword, targeted by numerous tools. The session will address practical aspects of applying ICT in education and share the experience of those already involved in the process of distance education.

Session 1b: Research Networks
Chair: Janos Mohacsi, HUNGARNET, Hungary

In the last few years, telecommunication possibilities have changed dramatically. This has enabled broader connectivity and the fulfilment of more of the service requirements of several regions of Europe. In this session we first learn about the advances made by GÉANT providing next-generation Internet services and then about Internet innovations in Russia and the Eastern European, Southern Caucasus and Central Asian regions.

Session 1c: Security
Chair: Shirley Wood, UKERNA, United Kingdom

Users within education and research organisations rely more and more on the Internet for all their interactions with collaborators and colleagues. Network security is becoming more important to all of us and we have to be sure that our Internet interactions are carried out in a secure manner to protect our research and business interests. This session will investigate the various encryption techniques and whether they are useable by all users within an organisation.

Session 1d: Middleware - Directories
Chair: Michael Gettes, Duke University, USA

Directories, specialised high-performance databases that used to enable applications to easily scale to very large environments, have become a critical component to the academic mission of most universities around the globe. Understanding which products perform well, how to define data elements in a common fashion to foster interoperability and to understand how directories will be used in the future is critical to the future success of a university. This session will explore these areas and more.

Session 2a: Improving NREN Organisation
Chair:Predrag Pale, FER, University of Zagreb, Croatia

The constant evolvement of ICT creates new opportunities for users and thus changes their needs. In order to get closer to the needs of users, NRENs need to make some organisational efforts and changes. The session will address both some classical and some new approaches.

Session 2b: Network Technologies - Technological Advances
Chair: Mauro Campanella, GARR, Italy

In order to support the diverse range of emerging and new applications, network technologies and architectures need continuous development. This session will report aspects of the latest ideas and trends.

Session 2c: TERENA Technical Programme - New Projects and Ideas - Open Panel
Chair: Claudio Allocchio, GARR, Italy

The TERENA Technical Programme (TTP) is one of the major sources of technical innovation within the TERENA community. This session provides a forum for open discussion of new ideas and proposals for possible new activities in the TTP, finding possible partners, and suggesting new paths to follow.

Session 2d: Middleware - Authentication
Chair: Michael Gettes, Duke University, USA

The identity of any element in a network (user, server, application) must, of course, be established using appropriate data. But this is not enough: this identity must be asserted to other elements, avoiding the multiplication of identities for the same element, without requiring the revelation of private data. This session presents the status of the middleware efforts in building robust, open and reliable networked authentication infrastructures.

Session 3a: Bridging the Gap between Users and NRENs
Chair: Victor Reijs, HEAnet, Irelan

It is often difficult to obtain knowledge about the actual end-users of the services provided by National Research and Education Networks. This session will provide some ideas how to get a better knowledge of the end-user, so that the services provided are more relevant to their needs. The general accessibility of the Internet will also be covered, in light of the "European Year of People with Disabilities".

Session 3b: Network Technologies - Practical Experiences
Chair: John Dyer, TERENA

The Internet Routing Registry system is not spreading quickly enough due to a supposed lack of consistency. The first talk will explain the issues and propose a mechanism to prevent increased inconsistency on RRR databases. The second presentation will address the implementation of end-to-end Virtual Private Networks services in the European IP NRENs. It will investigate the different solutions developed by the industry, with a closer look at the techniques allowing end-to-end services through several independent IP domains. The final paper in the session reports on the projects initiated and supported by the European Space Agency related to IP networking over satellite. A number of issues such as security, QoS and multicast have been addressed taking into account the specific satellite context. Furthermore, some planned projects related to satellite and IPv6 and further work on multicast, security and QoS will be described.

Session 3c: P2P
Chair: Jean-Paul le Guigner, CRU, France

Since mid-2000, the impact of P2P technology has been dramatic and undeniable. From technical to ethical and legal challenges, to interesting relationships with networking and computing, and challenges in many environments (Research and Education, corporate) p2p has proven that it is something we need to pay attention to. This session will give a brief overview of the P2P landscape, along with an overview of the most pressing and interesting challenges within the technology and a glimpse into how P2P models can also enable a new set of applications in research, science, and teaching and learning. The approach to establish a P2P-network within a National Research Network to serve the needs of scientific research and promote the exchange of knowledge and information will be discussed in more detail.

Session 3d: Middleware - Authorisation
Chair: Diego R. López, RedIRIS, Spain

As networks offer a richer fabric of services, the assessment of rights to use them becomes more complicated. Traditional and simple yes/no policies can no longer be applied in a growing set of scenarios. Authorisation constitutes the next frontier in middleware, implying not only new protocols (syntax) but the ability to capture real-world rules and procedures: semantics.

Session 4a: Virtual Worlds
Chair: Miroslav Milinović, CARNet, Croatia

The rapid development of network technologies offers an opportunity to design and build sophisticated applications - virtual worlds accessible through the network offering a new dimension to collaboration and cooperation over the Internet. This session presents state-of-the-art examples in this area.

Session 4b: QoS
Chair: Mauro Campanella, GARR, Italy

Quality of Service and reliable high-speed data transfer have a precise role in research networking and have been implemented in current production infrastructures. The session describes current achievements and possible future extensions.

Session 4c: P2P
Chair: Jean-Paul le Guigner, CRU, France

The first talk focuses on P2P computing and presents some recent software platforms: XtremWeb and BOINC (successor of SETI@home) harnessing a large set of PCs for distributed computing. It presents some applications used in industry and academia and also some feedback demonstrating that a lot of issues are still to be addressed. The second presentation explores the recent democratisation of the P2P file sharing tools which has caused a considerable increase in traffic on many networks, ascending as well as descending, and has even become a commercial argument for some ISPs. However, the point of view of academic networks is somewhat different.

Session 4d: Middleware Panel Discussion
Chair: Ingrid Melve, UNINETT, Norway

The panel will focus on the things that change when you start using middleware as the introduction to a larger debate on the technical, organisational and legal challenges. Discussion will cover some of the experiences we have had and the challenges we have yet to meet in securing complex applications and keeping the Internet as simple as possible.

Panel:
Ken Klingenstein, Internet2, USA
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Cisco Systems Norway
Walter Martin Tveter, University of Oslo, Norway
Christoph Graf, SWITCH, Switzerland

Introductory Slides (ppt -262 kB)

Session 5a: Recent Results
Chair: Steve Williams, University of Swansea, United Kingdom

This session provides an opportunity for members of the community to present the results of their development projects that are currently in progress. It includes a forum for debate, allows the exchange of ideas, and gives the audience an opportunity to express their views and ideas on both short- and long-term development/research areas.

Session 5b: Optical Networks - Steps toward True Optical Networking
Chair: Victor Reijs, HEAnet, Ireland

More and more National Research and Educational Networks are gaining experience with technologies utilising optical networks. This session will provide information on national and international projects that work in this environment. The presentations will also cover the opportunities of real optical switching.

Session 5c: Grid
Chair: Peter Clarke, University College London, United Kingdom

This session will present the first set of Grid-related talks covering areas of networking that have particular relevance to Grid operations and a mobile desktop.

Session 6a: Videoconferencing
Chair: Steve Williams, University of Swansea, United Kingdom

The use of videoconferencing has expanded rapidly in Europe over recent years and more and more emphasis is being placed on providing reliable, accessible and interoperable services. In this session we will look at the trends for providing these services across Europe.

Session 6b: Optical Networks - Practical Experiences
Chair: Victor Reijs, HEAnet, Ireland

This session continues from Session 5b.

Session 6c: Grid
Chair: Peter Clarke, University College London, United Kingdom

This session was present the second set of Grid-related talks covering applications and middleware for information services.

Session 7a: Multimedia Services
Chair: Steve Williams, University of Swansea, United Kingdom

Infrastructure provision is critical to the successful deployment of multimedia services. It is also necessary to provide suitable material in an accessible way, allowing users to concentrate on the material rather than the technology behind it. This session will look at service requirements and how the Netherlands developed a practical system to allow institutions to share materials and experiences.

Session 7b: TERENA Activities
Chair: John Dyer, TERENA

The Technical Programme is an important component of TERENA's activities. It provides the opportunity for member organisations to explore new technology and techniques in a collaborative and coordinated way. This is achieved through the organisation of TERENA task forces, coordination groups and targeted projects. In this session, some of the ongoing work and results from the TERENA Technical Programme will be presented as well as some other TERENA activities of general interest.

Session 7c: Mobility
Chair: Klaas Wierenga, SURFnet, Netherlands

The speakers in this session will address the issues involved with providing wireless and nomadic access to the campus network. Special focus is on the security aspects of the various solutions for the first-mile problem.

Session 8a: Information Exchange
Chair: Miroslav Milinović, CARNet, Croatia

The main reason people use the Internet is efficient, fast communication and information exchange. This session presents some ideas and interesting examples of improvements in information exchange and knowledge sharing in the scientific community.

Session 8b: Network Management
Chair: Janos Mohacsi, HUNGARNET, Hungary

IP networks have evolved deploying a complete set of protocols and applications suitable for delivering best-effort traffic. Nowadays the developers tend to focus on tools and methods that help the Internet community better understand IP networks, measure them and analyse them. In this section challenging issues will be discussed relaated to flow measurement and analysis, multicast monitoring, and one-way delay measurement.

Session 8c: Recent Results
Chair: Ingrid Melve, UNINETT, Norway

This session continues from session 5a.

Session 8d: Mobility
Chair: Shirley Wood, UKERNA, United Kingdom

Active users of the Internet rely more and more on having access to their e-mail and other services at any time of the day and from wherever they are. Their requirements to access all services from wherever they are often at odds with the aims of the IT manager who wants to protect his services from potential hackers to the system. This session will look at the options available for last mile access to the network and how remote users can receive their IT services from wherever they are and at whatever time of the day.

Meeting: SCAMPI

SCAMPI is a project in the Information Society Technologies programme of the European Union that is developing a scaleable monitoring platform for the Internet. This is based around an open and extensible architecture that also provides tools for DoS detection, SLS auditing, traffic analysis and accounting/billing.

Workshop: 6net

6NET is a large project in the Information Society Technologies programme of the European Union that is deploying a native IPv6 network at Gigabit speeds. It is also developing advanced services and applications that will run on this infrastructure.