On Wednesday and Thursday I had the opportunity to participate in "The Gathering of State Networks" Conference in Tempe, AZ. George Brown, UEN Policy and Planning, also attended.

This was interesting mainly because I was able to find out what other State Network Directors are doing. It's not that there is a lack of good networking guys in Utah. It's just good to get some outside ideas every once in a while.

George and I were intrigued as much by our similarities as by our differences. It seems that Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri are the movers and shakers in the State Network arena. Other states have networks, but these are the oldest, most mature and seemingly the most progressive.

The main themes of the conference, as evidenced by the program, were security, e-rate, Internet2, how to cope with shrinking budgets and, oh, security. No matter the agenda topic, the conversations seemed to always gravitate to these areas.

Main points of advice:

Make your network and services relevant.

Keep focused on the main thing (networks).

Find services that differentiate the state network from ISPs and others.

Areas of Focus or Concern:

Funding: Dealing with less money and more demand for bandwidth.

Customer Outreach: How do you stay in touch with the customer and give them what they need.

Cutting Costs: Different than the funding issue, although closely tied to it.

How to grow bandwidth: Again, doing more with less. In addition, it is evident that every network is feeling the pains of growth. The cuts in government spending have not lessened the need for the network. If anything the reliance on network services has increased. We all agreed on this point.

How to grow and manage services: WiscNet provides something in the order of 30 different services. One of these is the commodity Internet. Another is Internet2. Most networks are in the same boat. There appears to be some conflict here. How do we grow services, make ourselves relevant and keep a focus on the main thing?

The one big difference between most of these networks and UEN is funding. Missouri, for example, receives funds from three main sources. First is Legislative appropriation. Second, E-rate and third Fees. UEN does not receive fees from its stakeholders.

The fee idea may seem like a winner. Perhaps it is. In bad times it can cause some trouble. One example was given to illustrate this point. With cutbacks one Missouri agency simply decided not to pay their fees for May and June last year. Not only was MOREnet's legistlative funding cut, those cuts caused losses elsewhere in the budget. This created a double whammy, compounding MOREnets budgetary woes.

It was also interesting to hear how MOREnet (Missouri) allocates bandwidth. By contract all Colleges and Universities get a DS-3. Each District Office and public school receives a T-1. This is funded completely by the legislature. Any additional bandwidth is provided by the consortium and paid for by the institution.

One of the panel discussions focused mostly on e-rate. Two of the panel members are Educause analysts. Garret Sern, Educause, was particularly concerned about some aspects of e-rate. He indicated that the feds are having trouble collecting from the LECs. This is placing pressure on the program.

Also, the reports reaching Congress indicate that we will reach the 98% level for school connectivity this year. That is being interpreted by some as a complete success of e-rate. The bad news is that there are certain factions who now want to do away with the program. E-rate being such a complete success and all. That could spell trouble for those who have bet the farm on growing networks with e-rate dollars.

Other trouble spots exist. There is a lot of attention being paid this year to the allegations of fraud that originated from New York State. That means tougher guidelines in an already paperwork intensive and audit happy program. The joys of receiving "free" government money.

There is no real hope that the pool of funds will ever increase. Some speculation surfaced that the amount might even decrease. The one bright spot is that there is almost a billion dollars of year 5 funds that have not yet been allocated. That's cool unless you are MOREnet. They are still waiting to hear on $7 million of their year five filing.

Another area of concern is security. Tom Liffiton, FBI Special Agent and security expert, gave the key note address Tuesday afternoon. I can't quote him but can give my impressions.

He doesn't think there is any hope to secure our networks and avoid network outages caused by hackers. No news there. I guess that the news is about his attitude. Resignation. We have failed. The bad guys own the net.

The only hope is that we learn how to recover quickly from the attacks that will inevitably come. He stopped short of predicting a Cyber Armegeddon. But the consequences could be just as devistating to network operators. This whole discussion left a pit in my stomach.

It was good to get together with some network pros and learn from them. The time spent was well worth it. I look forward to keeping in touch with members of this group and using that affiliation to make the UEN network better.

That's all for now.......
10:10:25 PM    comment []