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5th Workshop RNP2 provides ample space for discussion

Diversity of panels and international collaboration favor the debate

Four great panels marked the 5th Workshop RNP2, which took place in the Events Center of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Gramado (RS), on May 13th and 14th: RNP’s Working Groups (WGs), Education and Research Networks, Advanced Applications and Experimental Optical Networks. Once again, the event happened during the Brazilian Symposium of Computer Networks (22nd SBRC/2004).

The 5th WRNP2 started on May 13th at 8:15 with a presentation made by Michael Stanton, RNP’s Innovations director, which introduced the session about RNP’s seven Working Groups in RNP 2003/2004: Video, VoIP, Public Keys, P2P, Directories, Configuration and QoS.

In the afternoon, the workshop was dedicated to the panel on Education and Research Networks. The first lecturer was the president of Xit Telecom, Robert Proulx, who talked about his experience with the implantation of the community networks in Canada. After that, Antônio Jorge Abelém, from UFPA, spoke about the evolution of the metropolitan networks. Representing USPnet, Edson Moreira, coordinator of USP’s Electronic Computing Center, described the adaptation strategies of USP’s communication network to the use of new technologies.

Clara Network is presented in the Education and Research Panel

The “Latin American Cooperation on Advanced Networks”(Clara), Latin America’s high performance academic network, which is supposed to start operating this year, was part of the discussion in two lectures. First, Carlos Casasus, general coordinator of the Mexican academic network (CUDI), stressed Clara’s importance, permitting the direct connection of Latin America with Europe. Later, Carlos Frank, project coordinator of the Argentinean academic network (Retina), covered more specific aspects of all the academic networks making up Clara.

Three other international lectures integrated the panel on Education and Research Networks: John Silvester, president of the Californian CENIC, described the implantation and development of this important state network; Jacqueline Brown, from Pacific Northwest Gigapop, at the University of Washington in Seattle, spoke about the National Lambda Rail (NLR) initiative; and, representing Project Euro6ix, Carlos Ralli tried to demonstrate the viability of using the new IPv6 Internet technology.

RNP’s future is discussed in the opening session

The schedule on May 13th finished with the opening session of the 5WRNP2, which counted on the presence of: Ana Preston - International Relations project manager of Internet2, Nelson Simões - RNP’s CEO, Marcos Dantas – MEC’s Special Secretary for Distance Learning, and Arthur Pereira Nunes – MCT’s Special Secretary for Information Policies. In his opening speech, Simões talked about RNP’s work vision in the next two years.

— Our goal is to transform Brazil into a country with the most modern education and research network, capable of making an advanced infrastructure available to the whole academic community, including research centers and museums and to integrate this network to those of schools, libraries and health centers – said Simões during his opening speech.

On May 14th, it was time for the technical lectures, the panels on Advanced Applications and on Experimental Optical Networks.

In the session of technical lectures, Dorgival Guedes, from the Computer Science Department at UFMG, spoke about Planet Lab project. After Guedes’s presentation, Hunter Hagewood, from UFPB, explained the work developed in the Logistical Computing and Internetworking LAB (LoCI) about the protocol of management and use of remote storing (IBP).

Still in the session of technical lectures, Graciela Machado Leopoldino, RNP’s information technology analyst, and Marcus Vinicius Mannarino, RNP’s Information Center manager, presented the new videoconference service that will be offered by RNP to the organizations using the network.

RNP strengthens ties with international collaboration projects

For the first time, Workshop RNP2 offered a panel on Advanced Network Applications. The goals of the panel were to show in which way the use of RNP and of worldwide academic networks contributes to and sometimes puts into effect several international collaboration projects and to debate the band consumption of these projects.

Five different areas of knowledge were involved: Bioinformatics, Telemedicine, Environmental Sciences, Astronomy and Physics. Antônio Miranda, from Fiocruz, Renato Sabattini, from EduMed, Osvaldo Luiz de Moraes, from LBA project, Kepler de Souza Filho, an astronomer from UFRGS, and Alberto Santoro, a physicist from Uerj, were invited to talk about the use of computer networks in their fields and projects.

According to Michael Stanton, RNP’s Innovations director, the aim of the Advanced Applications panel was to make the audience of the event (i.e., people from the network R& D community) aware of the fact that the greatest users of RNP belong to other areas of knowledge.

— RNP is very interested in building bridges to these areas in order to reinforce the consistency of its defense of the needs of its community of users inside and outside the country. The moment we are living nowadays is very good to increase dramatically RNP’s national and international capacity, especially through the cooperation with other Latin American countries in the Clara context. This network is actively participating in the search for solutions together with the networks in Europe and the United States, and the defense of these solutions depends on a very detailed analysis of our users’ needs – claims Stanton.

Stanton believes that the inclusion of the panel on Advanced Applications in the workshop schedule shows RNP’s tendency towards maturity. Having passed an initial stage, more related to the technical aspects of the network, the institution is starting to develop work more directed to the needs of the organizations using the backbone.

In the last panel, on Experimental Optical Networks, RNP announced the result of the call for R&D subprojects in Giga Project. Still in this panel there were lectures about the evolution of Giga Project, Tidia Program and the Giga Project of the Chilean academic network (G-REUNA).

The 5WRNP2 also counted on an exclusive room for the WGs, the course “Forensic in Windows in 10 lessons,” taught by CAIS’s staff, the release of the book Interactive Digital TV, written by journalist Valdecir Becker and by researcher Carlos Montez, in addition to a stand, during all the SBRC, with the demonstration of two tools and three new services that will be offered by RNP. Embratel, Sun, Extreme, Furukawa, Global Crossing, Intel and Padtec sponsored the event.

[RNP, 06.07.2004]