JANET Midlands Regional User Group
Draft Minutes of the 52nd Meeting
14:30 on 11th June 2002 at Birmingham University

Present:

   Chris Bayliss (CB)            The University of Birmingham

   Alan Benson (AB)             South Birmingham College

   Max Caines (MC)             Wolvehampton  University      

   Neil Faver (NF)                 DeMontfort University

   James Higham (JH)         East Midlands Regional Support Centre

   Andy Jack (Chair) (AJ)     University of Nottingham

   Andy Morris (AM)              West Midlands Regional Support Centre

   Rodney Tillottson (RT)      UKERNA

 

1.      Apologies for Absence

1.1. Robert Prabucki, David Roberts.

2.      Minutes of previous meeting.

2.1. Present : Niel Favar should be Neil Faver, Robert Prabuck should be Robert Prabucki.

3.      Matters Arising

3.1. None

4.      Any items to be added to Agenda

4.1. None

5.      Future status of MIDJUG and position of Chair

5.1. AJ reported a discussion at the last JNUG meeting about the future status of the Regional User Groups. In the light of UKERNA’s move towards using regional MANs to provide service, the question of whether to move towards MAN based user and technical groups had arisen. AJ proposed 3 possible alternative ways forward;

·        Disband MidJUG and form MAN based groups

·        Remain unchanged

·        JNUG attendees are drawn for MAN representative groups, if this is deemed appropriate by UKERNA.

MC added a fourth alternative, to disband MidJUG and expanding the scope and role of the Midlands Networking Forum.

MC went on to ask about the future of JNUG itself and who would make that decision. NF felt that there was a need for MidJUG and JNUG as a forum to report views and issues back to UKERNA. CB agreed and added JNUG’s role to report views and issues back to JISC. RT reported JISC’s support for JNUG as a group and that the contract between UKERNA and JISC provides for JNUG and a structured method for reporting. CB thought that a MAN based group would likely lose the user focus which is important in the current structure. AM stressed the need for the RSCs to promote the regional user groups and the opportunity to use them as a bridge between the HE and FE sectors.

5.2. AJ raised the question of the vacant position of MidJUG chair. AJ reported that there was still no news on Tim Clark’s absence, but that the position of chair has now been unfilled for nearly a year. He suggested that October’s MidJUG meeting should hold an election for chair and resolve the issue. RT concurred with this view. AJ asked for nominations to midjug@jiscmail.ac.uk.

RT expressed his opinion of the positive benefits of both the regional users groups in general and of MidJUG specifically.

6.      Reports

6.1. UKERNA Spring Report

6.1.1.      Item 2.1.1.1 : AJ noted that there was no timescale for bringing the post 16 learning and skills sector onto JANET. RT could not provide any information on this. JH reported 16 specialist colleges in the East Midlands Region. JH confirmed that the workload of connecting these sites would be borne by the RSCs in response to a question from NF.

6.1.2.      Item 2.2.2 : RT informed the meeting about the UKERNA website now holding the most accurate information regarding the connections across the transatlantic. Currently traffic to ESNet is being routed through a connection provided at short notice by MCIWorldcom through Telehouse. The route previously provided by KPNQwest is no longer in use. NF asked if this provision was through 2 1GB pipes as previously. RT thought not and did not know the actual bandwidth available. RT noted the hard work put in under pressure by Tim Kidd and others to get a replacement service as such short notice. The meeting echoed this and expressed their thanks to all concerned. RT noted that the contract with KPNQwest involved an upfront payment of 5% with the remainder paid monthly, ensuring minimal financial loss to UKERNA. RT also noted that the Teleglobe links to Abilene will cease at the end of June. He did not know what was happening with this provision, but that as a temporary measure this traffic would be routed through GÉANT.

6.1.3.      Item 2.2.4 : AJ reported that a number of members of Nottingham University staff visiting China last year had not been able to reach the http://www.nottingham.ac.uk website, but that the mathematics departmental website had been available. He also commented that this problem appeared to have rectified itself since the student web pages had been relocated from this server. AJ asked what was the appropriate route to address this kind of issue. RT suggested that the China CERNET CERT team would be appropriate and that although they were often difficult to contact, they were efficient.

6.1.4.      Item 2.4.2 : AJ commented on the continuing good service provided by Netsight, but noted an outage since the last MidJUG. RT reported a compromise of one of the boxes providing the service. The machine was returned to UKERNA HQ where the problem was identified. AJ thought that return to base fixing is rather antiquated in our environment. RT informed that group that the decision was made to turn off the equipment, and that forensic investigation may have been required, so the computer was retrieved. Once the box had been examined the other Netsight boxes were examined and declared secure. RT also informed the group that an enhancement of the Netsight service is planned.

6.1.5.      Item 2.4.3 : AM noted that the Managed Router Service has ceased being offered. He asked if there were plans for a son of MRS? RT had no information but would find out. AJ expressed the concern of EMMAN management that UKERNA were going to donate the existing routers to the colleges in which they were installed. These colleges may not know how to manage or maintain these, and who may have no budget for their hardware maintenance. He suggested that it may be better to donate them to the MANs who are better able to handle them. MC reported that the transfer had been postponed. AJ also raised the problems of service delimitation and responsibilities that the routers would cause. AM asked that the issue be raised within UKERNA.

6.1.6.      Items 2.6.4 & 2.6.5 : AJ thought that the remaining users of the X.29 conversion service had been at Loughborough. RT reported that bother services would be shut between now and Dec 31st, although no specific date was available, No users were unable to use some alternative method, and that users were being contacted to explain the situation where possible. RT concluded that little impact was expected from the closing of the services.

6.1.7.      Item 4.1.1 :AJ reported that the EMMAN technical group had discussed a suggestion from Andrew Cormack that filtering  traffic for security reasons (e.g. blocking SNMP) could be in place at MAN level rather than (or as well as) institutional level. The EMMAN meeting had thought that this was a good idea and that the principle needed establishing at management level of the organisations involved. The EMMAN meeting had raised the question of whether MANs should interfere with free and full access to JANET, for example SNMP traffic, however. NF agreeded with the EMMAN meeting that this was a good idea, but RT raised the problem that if the MAN blocks the traffic then the sites on the MAN may not feel the need to, creating vulnerabilities within the MAN. He suggested entities within the MAN network should also be protected. MC reported that none of this was being done within MidMAN. RT thought that customer sites should be encouraged to protect themselves and that the MANs should also protect themselves. He also suggested that CERT should provide some comment and guidance on the subject, with specific reference to where it’s essential and where it’s desirable.

6.1.8.      Item 4.1.1 : CB reported having received CERT tickets with little or no information on them. He asked what sites are expected to do in these circumstances. RT reported that these tickets are usually being forwarded from another CERT or Institution and that often CERT themselves had received no information.RT asked that sites make best effort to investigate the incident and then report back to CERT with what, if any, action has been taken. RT noted that no response to these tickets causes CERT to believe the information didn’t arrive, and therefore to retry until some confirmation is received back. Item 5.3.1.3 : AJ asked if the experience of the WVN was to be shared with the larger community outside Wales, especially in the light of QoS issues over the backbone. MC reported good experiences with Video over IP between Shrewsbury College and Bradford University.

6.1.9.      Item 6.2 : AJ asked RT for comments. RT had little information but felt that most of the changes would be at Board level. He had not information as to what operational effect this review would have. AJ informed the meeting he would raise the issue at JNUG.

6.2. JNUG Meeting 6th Feb 2002

6.2.1.      Item 4.3 & 4.4 : AJ reported that a discussion about the reform of the Regional User Groups was inconclusive and that representatives were raising the issue at the groups themselves. See item 5.1 above.

6.2.2.      Maters Arising 14.7 : AJ  raised a question surrounding CERT’s ability and willingness to terminate connections. RT reported that CERT are charged with the authority to disconnect any site or organisation, including MANs, summarily without reference to anyone. However, action sanction would only be taken as a last resort when no alternative was available, to protect the service to other connections.

6.2.3.      Item 9 : The meeting noted that the JISC Strategic Workshop on Charging had not reported a conclusion. The meeting also noted that Robin Arrak had not provided a response to a question by David Roberts at Networkshop. Given that the current charging strategy was last years charge + 35% the meeting was keen to know what the future held, whether this would be usage based, and how this was to be measured. AJ noted that Brian Gilmore had asked how charging filters down to affect the behaviour of users. AJ thought that it didn’t, but it did affect usage at a departmental and institutional level. The meeting then progressed to a discussion about acceptable usage of JANET and of the JANET AUP. RT concluded the discussion by reporting that he had no information on the issue that was not already known and part of the debate.

6.2.4.      Item 12.2 : AJ asked if any developments had come out of the questionnaire.

6.2.5.      JISCMail : The meeting commented that if would be nice if multiple copies of the same email to the same person could be delivered just once.

6.2.6.      Item 14.8 : The meeting agreed with SWJNUG’s comment that it would be nice if Netsight statistics could be provided to MANs.

7.      Local Issues.

7.1. AB noted that there appeared to have been some noteworthy problems surrounding a router at Warrington which had caused significant outages over the past few months and that these issues as yet remained unresolved. AM and MC also noted the problems.

7.2. AJ reported that BT had disconnected the line to Moulton College after ntl had mistakenly asked them to do so. He reported significant holdups and problems trying to get the line reconnected as BT had already reallocated the circuit. However, the line was rapidly restored when UKERNA became involved in the issue.

7.3. AM noted that the links to North Birmingham College and Sutton College had no traffic statistics on Netsight. MC reported that these had previously been sponsored connections to UCE and that these were still ATM circuits using Hynex routers which were at present incompatible with Netsight. MC reported that the issue was under investigation and that a meeting would soon be taking place.

8.      Service Issues

8.1. The meeting acknowledged good service from SuperJANET4 since the last meeting.

9.      Forthcoming JNUG.

9.1. The meeting wanted the issues of the FE College Routers, MAN level filtering and the visability of transatlantic traffic raising.

9.2. The following report will be taken to the JNUG meeting by acting MidJUG chair, AJ.

 

REPORT FROM THE MIDLANDS JANET USER GROUP

 

 

MIDJUG met on the 11th June 2002 at the University of Birmingham,following a lively discussion in the morning on e-mail and spam, lead by Rodney Tillotson.

 

The possibility of dissolving the group was discussed, either in favour of new user groups for the two regional MANs, or requesting that existing groups, such as the EMMAN Technical Group, send representatives to JNUG. There is currently no equivalent MidMAN technical group and it was felt that MIDJUG still has a role. However, the position of chair has still not been clarified, so it was decided to hold an election for the chair at the next meeting in October. If there are no candidates, the group will probably fold as recent meetings have been poorly attended.

 

The question of ownership of routers sited in FE colleges was raised. It is believed that UKERNA intend to give these routers to the colleges when MANs take responsibility for the connections. It was thought that this was undesirable, at least in some cases, and ownership and control should be offered to the MANs.

 

Following a query from Andrew Cormack, the possibility of MANs blocking certain types of traffic, such as SNMP, at the router connecting the MAN to JANET was discussed. It has been suggested that EMMAN might do this, once it has been authorised. MidMAN don't filter traffic and have not as yet considered doing so.

 

The group agreed with SWJRUG's suggestion that publicly available stats of the usage of transatlantic links would be very useful. (Item 14.8 of JNUG Minutes)

 

General satisfaction with the JANET service and appreciation of the lack of disruption caused by the recent bankruptcies was expressed.

 

Andy Jack

Acting Chair, MIDJUG

 

10.  AOB

10.1.  RT reported that RIPE were offering a service which would report on one way timings for traffic between 2 fixed points across the internet. The service currently has a €3000 joining fee with €3000 annual rental. The service was currently available to 70 locations and seemed to be performing well.

10.2. AM asked if anyone within JANET had taken up the IPV6 service. The meeting thought that the only people using IPV6 were the test sites at Southampton and Lancaster. AM asked if UKERNA could provide a speaker for an event. RT suggested making the request to Jeremy Sharp.

11.  Date and Venue of Next Meeting.

11.1. The next meeting will take place at Nottingham University on 9th October 2002. The topic for the mornings MNF meeting will be centred around FE’s involvement in JANET, the RSCs and hot issues, lead by AM and JH.

 

The meeting closed at 4:35pm.