Ca$hing in on caching – an old approach reborn at UNSW

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Demand for bandwidth is increasing significantly and with the connectivity available through AARNet, Australian Universities are well placed to meet this demand. But can we afford it or more importantly, is this where funding should be diverted?

UNSW struggled with this problem with yearly increases of 30% to 100% in the space of 2 years with a current consumption of over 250TB’s per year. Growth for 2009 is expected to top 450TB if no action is taken.

Students expect to be able to use social networking, enhanced bandwidth intensive teaching, media rich environments and learning opportunities as a part of their studies. This environment creates the demand for bandwidth and the stimulus to lead into new opportunities with Research. The delivery of ubiquitous networking with a significantly improved wireless service growing to 600 base stations of 802.11a/b/g/n in 2009, students will garner the experience they expect at UNSW, but again, at what cost for the organisation.

UNSW implemented a flexible system that allows traffic, including streaming, to be delivered centrally with a 30% saving on Internet downloads while providing additional benefits including quota management, traffic identification, peer to peer control, splash pages and web blocks. With peer to peer, a different strategy utilising the same equipment has been employed with specific web sites blocked and peer to peer bandwidth limited, with heavy fines for students caught breaching copyright. This is designed to ensure bandwidth costs are aligned to improving the student experience and supporting Research – not giving students cart blanc access to copyright material. UNSW has found that the ROI for this solution can be derived within 1-2 years and it will scale to meet UNSW’s needs delivering funds back into IT and UNSW from year 2.

Can You Recover when Your Investments Crash?

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QUT’s networking team have worked towards providing robust service flexible enough to recover from major disasters while not becoming unwieldy. Networking design and implementation was rolled out but there was a need to test if the implementation really could survive a real incident. Documentation for recovery of systems and the staff undertaking that recovery were inspected but until a real incident occurred there was no evidence that there was enough preparation. A live test was run to gauge how prepared QUT was to restore network service everywhere in the face of major disaster in February 2009.

The Network Operations Centre (NOC) ran an exercise in February that severed network connectivity of the Kelvin Grove data centre, isolating it from the rest of QUT and simulating the total loss of the primary data centre at Gardens Point. Preparation for the event included documentation all NOC services and scoped to define what hardware and staff skills would be needed. The “service restoration” was defined by what was needed to restore minimal service in the shortest amount of time. The service documentation contained the administrator’s opinion of the expected behaviour of network services for multiple scenarios and also how to recover service during those scenarios.

The process was undertaken as a readiness exercise to prove the readiness of QUT in disaster situations. Also, it was a valuable teaching tool to provide experience to staff of how systems behave during sub-optimal conditions without the stress of a real emergency.

QUT’s network implementation involves networking sharing specific server vlans across both data centres to create a Virtual Data Centre (VDC) to provide network redundancy and the ability to move hosts between data centres with minimal re-configuration. Network services such as DNS/DHCP, time, firewalls and internet access are deployed to take advantage of the redundancy but also be able to survive independently while also being able to re-synchronise with HA partner units when network architecture is restored.

AARNet K12

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“..Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today..”

In keeping with the theme of this year’s Questnet conference, this presentation will explore the impact of Information and Communications Technology on education and the role of the network as a fundamental enabler for 21C learning.

ICT continues to transform the opportunities for learning and the manner in which we learn. Although requisite, an access device and a high speed Internet connection alone are not enough. The resulting growth in new, often unfiltered information and the adoption of rich media as a communication medium requires information literacy skills - skills to define an information need, access information from multiple sources, evaluate information's accuracy and credibility, and use information effectively.

Formal education no longer comprises the majority of our learning. Learning now occurs in a variety of ways – through communities of practice, personal networks , and in the participation of targeted learning activities.

In today’s world the exponential growth of knowledge and specialisation and the inversely shrinking half life of knowledge, predicate that engagement is often needed beyond the scope of personal learning – that is, learners need to act by drawing information outside of their primary knowledge . The ability to synthesize and recognize connections and patterns is a requisite skill. As in their social lives, a state of geographically unconstrained and on-demand connectedness is fundamental to the perpetual learning lives of young Australians.

Many of the imperatives that drive the need for high speed connectivity in the tertiary and research communities are now prevalent in K12.

High speed broadband connectivity is essential to schools . Connectivity (to other institutions, to resources and content, to services and applications, as well as the internet) is the foundation stone  upon which the contemporary service set of teacher professional development and student learning will be built.

AARNet is to play a significant role in the facilitation of a National Schools Network, as it does for the tertiary and research communities. This presentation will  provide insight into the activities of AARNet in supporting the greater schools community in realising the aspirations of the Digital Education Revolution.

Enhancing video conferencing bridging and support services in the Australian R&E sector

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This presentation will provide an insight into the AARNet National Video Conferencing Service (NVCS), the sharing of video multipoint video resources and support across the sector and internationally.

Jason will provide an update on the service and the results of the newly formed quality assurance scheme (to ensure end to end video services just work) and evaluations with vendors to independently review the latest HD and Telepresence products.

The talk will include case studies on video conferencing use that cover aspects related to room design, end user support and etiquette.

The talk will end with details of how video conferencing is moving into the desktop video conferencing and virtual worlds with details on the network and support challenges and collaboration opportunities that will arise.

Infrastructure developments to build on AARNet’s VoIP and Video services

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This presentation will provide an insight into AARNet’s real time communications infrastructure.

Leon will talk about the new Gatekeeper service to deliver VoIP on.net and video services.

Leon will also cover the use of Cisco Call Manager services for AARNet staff to deliver low cost mobility solutions including SIP service support to the Apple iphone and other mobile devices.

Leon will update the audience on development work on Infrastructure ENUM (led by ACMA) and SIP developments in the APAN region.

The talk will end with thoughts on what customers and AARNet should do to support communications collaboration, is that SIP and ENUM and if so what could be done, or are there other protocols we as a community should focus on such as Asterisk/Skype gateways etc?  

A general discussion would follow in the remaining time allocated for this talk. (This could be extended to a BoF?)

Current Practices and Outlook for SIP Security

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SIP is a protocol used primarily for video and audio conferencing. While spam was at one time confined to text-based messaging systems, such as email and instant messages, there has been a growing prevalence of spam sending pre recorded videos to video conferencing systems. With limited authentication and authorization capabilities built into the core protocols, beyond the spam lie potential DoS, impersonation and registration attacks. This session will examine the functionality implemented in products, some deployed environments, and potentials for future research & development to give SIP better ways to fight these problems.

Multiplying Network Investment with DWDM

ECU has leveraged its investment in dark fibre infrastructure by replacing a once simple, gigabit Ethernet service over dark fibre between its metropolitan campuses with a highly flexible and resilient Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) system using the same infrastructure.

The DWDM service, underpinned by Nortel’s OPTera Optical Metro 5200 platform, now integrates a wide range of services including multiple internal Ethernet networks, external Internet services, state-wide research networks, voice services and Fibre Channel storage network infrastructure.

This presentation covers the business case for optical multiplexing, planning, technical design, implementation and ongoing value-add provided to the organisation by the system.

Further, the demonstrated value of ECU’s system is discussed, with particular attention to:

1. Enabling ECU’s “SecNet” architecture across multiple sites.
As part of its 2006 Network Upgrade project, ECU implemented a reverse-DMZ network architecture. DWDM provides the foundation for this architecture and allows the organisation to operate simpler network architecture in the presence of multi-site challenges.

2. Metropolitan Fibre Channel and cross-site backups.
Key to ECU’s disaster recovery strategy, mirrored offsite backups with minimal human interaction are enabled by a resilient metropolitan Fibre Channel network

3. Virtual machine site portability.
Cross-site Fibre Channel connectivity enables virtual machines to be migrated amongst campuses to reduce the impact of planned outages.

4. Geographically diverse clustering and SAN replication and IBM SAN Volume Controller.
Reductions in recovery time and recovery point capabilities for key systems to minutes from hours or days.

5. Savings in voice infrastructure costs.
When abundant, resilient IP bandwidth between campuses is available, who needs independent E1 fibre?

6. iVEC integration
iVEC, Western Australia’s hub of Advanced Computing provides research computing services to Universities and research organisations across the state. When ECU needed to provide access to the network on both of its metropolitan campuses, DWDM provided a quick, low-cost solution.


ECU faced challenges around implementation and support of the technology in the relatively small and sometimes tumultuous Western Australian market, finding that dedicated vendor/reseller relationships provided the necessary skill/will mix to get the job done. Planned future expansion of the network to ECU’s truly regional South West campus in Bunbury is also discussed.

Unified Collaboration - Media Ready Networks

The past year has seen an explosion in interest of the benefits of collaborative and visual communications clients whether they be on-net or cloud based and/or mobile clients. The need for on-demand multimedia communications and the focus on client based solutions has initiated changes in the architectural requirements for building network-based collaboration solutions. The result is the need for media ready networks.

This session will outline the concept of a media ready network or ‘medianet’ and also explore the architectural elements and new client services framework to support Cisco and 3rd-party collaboration clients. This framework provides the flexibility to integrate collaboration and visual communications into virtually any client.

Getting the most out of your network connection

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This presentation will look at results of some performance testing we've done across the AARNet network over the last 12 months.  We'll look at speeds up to 10Gbps - both domestically and internationally.  We will look at tools such as iperf and NDT - exploring their performance, ease of use and factors affecting the accuracy of their results.

Increasing Interaction and Engagement: Leveraging our infrastructure investment to support student learning

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In the last four years, QUT has invested considerable resources into equipping all centrally managed classrooms with a minimum standard of technology and providing wireless into a large percentage of all the Universities spaces. Today, in all central classrooms, academics and students are able to utilise computing, DVD, and video resources all projected onto large screens for ease of access. Larger theatres have the added functionality of document cameras and specialist audio setups. While the data shows that the usage of these resources is increasing year to year, a large component of the use of the technology is still based around a didactic approach to teaching (i.e. one where students are simply presented with material rather than engaged with it). Many university initiatives including the first year experience project and flexible learning initiatives as well as various Faculty based projects associated with real world learning and student engagement will need the facilities to engage students in collaborative learning, problem based learning and active learning activities within a focus on increased student to student interaction. This session presents a range of initiatives that are being implemented that build on the current infrastructure to encourage and support greater interaction in the classroom environments and beyond.

The session will present a series of solutions that provide:
• The ability for students to easily co-develop and share both textual and visual content with each other and with their academic throughout any space and across the duration of the class and beyond.
• The ability for a student in lectures and tutorials to anonymously ask questions to lecturers, to vote on any proposed question set, to brainstorm ideas and provide short answer responses and to rank or sort collectively the ideas generated in any brainstroming session.
• The ability for the academic to control the the classroom technology and their presentation materials from any point in the room, thus freeing them from any perceived tether to room podium and allowing them to be more of the “guide and the side” rather than the “sage of the stage”.

The key element that underpins these solutions is that they will be available in all teaching spaces and not juts a selected few ensuring that the learning experience is improved for all students rather than a select few and that the investment to date in classroom infrastructure is maximised in terms of meeting university learning and teaching objectives.

Direct to Discovery.

Direct-to-Discovery (D2D) is program designed to improve science and math learning in primary and secondary schools in the US. It was conceived as a partnership between the Georgia Institute of Technology and Barrow County Schools as a method whereby university level experts could contribute to the education of pre-college students by employing advanced networking, learning theory, and science and math subject matter expertise directly into the classroom.  Increasingly, education and industry experts are calling on the U.S. to refocus and reform its approach to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines in an effort to improve its international standings and meet changing workforce demands.  D2D consists of three components: 1) the underlying network infrastructure -- access to the high-speed research and education networks, 2) the classroom-side equipment -- high-definition videoconferencing capability, and 3) a collaborative framework within which teachers work directly with faculty researchers to develop lesson plans, grounded in the appropriate curriculum standards, that bring the pursuit of scientific exploration to life.  When these lesson plans are implemented, high-def videoconferencing allows the students to interact directly with the researcher and the equipment in the laboratory.

The project is currently in a proven prototype stage and in the process of expanding to districts throughout Georgia.  Classes can connect, for example, with GT nanotechnology researchers in a clean room, with a scanning electron microscope, with professors in a laboratory that produces carbon nanotubes for solar cells, with an astronomer and a telescope.  Further classes are bring developed to cover chemical engineering, marine biology and a variety of other topics.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the D2D model can inspire interest in learning science and math, provide role models for making informed career choices, and improve student achievement that extends beyond these disciplines to overall academic performance.  There is insufficient data at this point to make a comprehensive assessment, although there is a logic model that is driving evaluation activities.

The D2D program is designed to address important issues, including
• outdated science textbooks,  
• lack of interactive digital content tied to curriculum standards,  
• teachers with responsibility for science and math who lack sufficient disciplinary training, and
• economic pressures that reduce the possibilities for out-of-classroom experiential learning

Field trips to scientific workplaces, museums, and other supplemental resources can bring the joy of scientific inquiry to young learners while exposing them to practicing professionals and the exciting workplaces they inhabit.  Experiential learning opportunities developed under D2D answer the question "Why do I need to learn this?", provide appropriate role models, and serve to bring the process of scientific inquiry to life thereby enabling students to become active learners in emerging technical fields.

Sharing the Technical Vascular System – The New Business Paradigm?

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Some say the personal computer, and Microsoft, changed the network world by unshackling the user from corporate data centre changing the deployment and nature of infrastructure.   However, technical infrastructure owners are still masters of their universe because they own the infrastructure, own the people and control the gateways to that universe.    The futurists are touting the changes that Google and Amazon developing of taking much of the current applications to the cloud as a new paradigm.  In reality whilst it sounds like a huge paradigm shift isn’t it really back to the future for the old, bureau computing. In network terms this really only affects the external connection from our organisations the business model is still the same.

More importantly there will be changes in the way business is conducted that will have a more profound effect on the way we design build deploy and charge for our infrastructure. We need to look at some of the key business concepts and technologies that will affect the nature of the whole technology and business infrastructure in the higher education space.

In the new world, there are not only applications and bits of bad internet coming into your domain, there are people and organisations that live contemporaneously inside your world who you have very limited control.   This new world is called the ‘collaborative environment’.

Some of the business models and associated technologies that we will examine are:

eResearch – shared large data stores and associated applications, researcher facebook

Instruments and Sensors – Data intensive tools that are automated

High Performance Computational models and Data – not only inside the University but from government and commercial ‘customers’

Intensive Visual Collaboration – High resolution images and video shipped and shared around th globe.

Direct to Discovery:  K12 Education Beyond the Bandwidth Barrier

Direct-to-Discovery (D2D) is a collaborative program involving the Barrow County School System and the Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta, Georgia, US.  It provides a mechanism whereby university level experts can contribute to the education of pre-college students by employing advanced networking, learning theory, and science and math subject matter expertise directly in the classroom.  D2D consists of three components: 1) the underlying network infrastructure -- access to the high-speed research and education networks (AARnet in Australia), 2) the classroom-side equipment -- high-definition videoconferencing capability, and 3) a collaborative framework within which teachers work directly with faculty researchers to develop lesson plans, grounded in the appropriate curriculum standards, that bring the pursuit of scientific exploration to life.  When these lesson plans are implemented, high-def videoconferencing allows the Barrow County students to interact directly with the researcher and the equipment in the laboratory.

Video over IP Case Study – Swinburne University of Technology

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The Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, wanted a new surveillance system to improve security and safety and deter crime across its large main site and five remote campus locations, beginning with its main Hawthorn campus – a challenging environment that includes a railway station, rail line, public streets, retail outlets, and 24-hour access to some facilities.

Learn about the solution that was implemented for the university and see the results; which has resulted in the university taking a quantum leap in the quality of its surveillance, with a network video system that can be used to monitor and access security situations quickly, deter crime and help ensure the safety of security officers, staff, students and valuable assets around the clock.

Also learn how Swinburne leveraged their existing VoIP infrastructure to run the system and how/why the system is configured and managed by Swinburne’s own IT Department; a paradigm shift from the traditional Security Department that is quickly becoming the norm for IP-based surveillance.

The Connected Classrooms Program in NSW DET

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This presentation will provide and overview of the Connected Classroom Program from the NSW Department of Education and Training with a particular focus on the Interactive Classroom Project which is delivering video conferencing an interactive Whiteboard and desk top collaboration capacity to every school in NSW (3,200 sites K-12).

The presentation will provide an overview of the equipment suite being delivered to schools, the change management process being applied within the DET and examples of how the technology is being applied to support teaching and learning in schools.

A brief overview of the Learning Tools and NGEN projects will also be provided for participants. The learning Tools Project is focused on the delivery of Web 2.0 style tools to teachers and students and the NGEN Project is the upgrade of network bandwidth to schools from 2MB to 10MB.

An identity and access management framework for the Australian and New Zealand higher education sector

Identity and access management (IAM) is critical for higher education institutions. It is an essential component in mitigating security risks, helping to protect the confidentiality and integrity of information, to maintain the availability of data and resources, and to ensure the authenticity and non-repudiation of transactions.  Effective identity and access management can also assist in improving an organisation’s operational efficiency and in allowing a more agile response to business needs.

For several years, identity and access management has ranked among the most important issues facing CIOs and IT Directors on both the CAUDIT and EDUCAUSE annual surveys.  In response to this need, the CAUDIT Standing Committee for Technical Standards is developing an online compendium of information to provide guidance to institutions on identity and access management.   The work has in part grown out of the MAPS (Middleware Action Plan and Strategy) Project under the Australian Government’s Systemic Infrastructure Initiative.

The compendium will include:
• A business case for taking a comprehensive approach to enterprise identity and access management;
• A glossary of terms related to identity and access management;
• A framework for identity and access management, to illustrate the spectrum of processes, policies, and technologies involved and the relationships among them;
• A maturity model within the framework, to assist in defining what improvement means for an organisation and in prioritising actions;
• Advice within the framework on key topics such as evaluating technologies and federating with other organisations;
• A set of resources for further information.

The framework itself is in six classes based on a logical timeline of significant processes in the life-cycle of an IAM event:
1.  Governance and policy;
2. Identification and credentialing;
3. Attribute aggregation;
4. Authentication and assertions;
5. Transport;
6. Relying parties and resources.

The six classes are used to organise the information in the compendium into six volumes.

Because the work is an initiative of the CAUDIT Standing Committee on Technical Standards, its content is biased to the higher education and research sectors and the Australian and New Zealand environments. However it is hoped the information will also be useful to the wider community.

The work is intended to be a living resource that grows through community contributions and that is periodically reviewed by the Committee. The compendium is published as a live wiki to enable it to keep pace with the dynamic, evolving landscape of information and communication technologies. Specialists are invited to contribute to the content, and the public will be encouraged to comment. In addition to keeping the content fresh, this approach has the added advantage of manifesting a wider group perspective rather than the limited set of views of a small number of authors.

To date, the compendium contains the business case and a broad outline of the framework.  The group is now seeking additional contributors to add to the work.

Launching the Pilot Australian Access Federation

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This presentation will launch the Pilot Australian Access Federation (AAF) to the wider University and Research communities providing an invitation to join. An overview of the key technology, governance and policy aspects of the Pilot AAF federation will highlight its production ready status and ability to provide quality federated services to participating organizations.

The Pilot AAF builds on work done by the MAMS TestBed Federation, the AAF project and the experiences of other federations around the world. This heritage will be discussed underscoring the best practice aspects that have been brought together for use in the Australian environment in the delivery of the federation.

As its name indicates the federation is a Pilot for a future full production federation. The presentation will explain the rationale for the Pilot and the learning and competency building exercise that has been undertaken during its development phase. Timelines and activities for the transition from Pilot to Production will also be provided.

Finally an outline of the requirements to join the federation will be provided. This includes the implementation pack provided by the federation. This has been designed to assist IT Directors work through the organizational implications with senior management. Other tools provided to assist organisations join the federation will also be discussed.

Strategies for verifying learner information and learning outcomes

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Theme: Reusing and repurposing IT infrastructure and services

An e-portfolio is a learner driven collection of digital objects demonstrating experiences, achievements and evidence of learning.  An e-portfolio system is the tool or services which allows the learner to create and manage their e-portfolio.

In the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, e-portfolio systems have been identified as an emerging technology with the potential to support learner transitions between education, training and employment.  Information about learners and evidence of their learning outcomes is usually located in a disparate number of places, including education and training provider databases, ie student management systems (SMS), learning management systems (LMS),  centrally hosted statistical educational reporting systems (ie AVETMISS in the VET sector) and perhaps generally on the web.

The ability for an e-portfolio system to electronically access learner information to verify the evidence claims being presented has the potential to streamline applications for employment, course admissions and recognition of prior learning process.  

The Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework) has identified the need to develop services which enable an e-portfolio system (or related service) to access electronic learner data from across organisations and jurisdictions, which support the verification of learner evidence of competence.

Work being undertaken by the Framework’s E-portfolios business activity is exploring the technical, policy and business rules required to reuse and repurpose existing learner data which resides in third party databases.

The outcomes of this investigation will be VET focussed but has the potential to be utilised by higher education as they seek more streamlined mechanisms to enable student mobility between these two sectors, as recommended in the Review of Australian Higher Education (Bradley 2008).

Leveraging our Investment: what it could mean for the VET Sector

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This presentation will discuss what possibilities arise if the VET sector was part of an optic fibre network. It will also point to some challenges that will need to be met by teachers, policy makers and IT managers.

The presentation will be informed by work done in the Australian Flexible Learning Framework’s Access to Bandwidth Project and other work within the Framework.

VICTOR Project

The AISV was successful in its application for funding under the Clever Networks program (DBCDE) to build an education network for independent schools in Victoria, prioritizing rural schools which were disadvantaged by low levels of internet access and online educational resources. Senator Conroy launched the project in July 2008.

The VICTOR (Victorian Independent Communication Technologies and Online Resources) project has now built and established a network data centre and is in the process of connecting rural and metropolitan services to the network. While the network has now been established and schools are experiencing improved broadband access, we are now in the process of developing both on-line professional development modules and curriculum resources to support teachers and students.

We are proposing that in our presentation we would share our experiences of building the network, its technical components and operational capacity. We have worked in partnership with several IT companies to build and manage the network and establish the sorts of services which would best meet the disparate needs of our Member Schools. A particular challenge is that independent schools are not a system and so manage and operate their IT networks in a variety of ways; plus our schools have diverse resource capabilities, and philosophical approaches to issues such as content filtering.

Building a network that is rigorous and robust and accommodates the needs of a potential pool of 200 plus schools has presented both design and implementation challenges.

The development of educational resources has also had design and implementation challenges. We have built professional learning modules, used collaborative tools to bring teachers together, developed on-line projects for students, and provided a range of curriculum resources for students. We have been fortunate to have good partners in the development of our education offering. We would like to share this part of our journey with other participants at the conference.

Health Research Access Project (Stage 2)

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The QRNO Health Research Access Project commenced in 2007 recognising the need to provide reliable high speed networking access for university researchers, staff and students based at health precincts.  Researchers had little or no access back to their home institutions, low bandwidth solutions or university deployed solutions which duplicated existing health networks.  As both funding within Queensland for bio-medical research and collaborative activities between hospital and university personal increased, the QRNO Director’s of ICT wished to establish formal processes for researchers to gain required access.

Stage 1 investigations found approximately 11 600 university staff and students were placed within health precincts over the period 2007/8 and documented current connectivity between the universities and health precincts.  A key outcome was in-principle support by Queensland Health stakeholders to share LAN and WAN infrastructure, establish a wireless solution and investigate the use of virtual environments to avoid the requirement for two PCs on a researcher’s/collaborator’s desk.

Stage 2 commenced in November 2008 and seeks to build upon this in-principle support and in collaboration with QRNO, AARNet, Queensland Health and Private Hospitals is working to implement eduroam at the Mater Hospital and three Queensland Health precincts.  The QRNO is working towards agreements to leverage wireless networks already installed at these precincts with proposed solutions to share existing QRNO member infrastructure negating the need for parallel and duplicated infrastructure.

This presentation will report on the project’s process, progress and products.

Evaluation of a Statewide Fibre Network

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VERN (Victorian Education and Research Network) is a statewide optical fibre network serving the needs of the nine universities, the divisions of CSIRO and major research facilities in Victoria. VERN includes approximately 1600km of fibre and currently provides 136 services across its member base. The first services were delivered in 2007 and most of the network was rolled out during 2008. It was decided to carry out an independent evaluation of the network implementation to examine such questions as
• Is the network as deployed fit for purpose?
• What are the current capabilities of the network, and what are the   limitations, risks and opportunities it represents for the future?
• Does the network represent good value for funds invested?

To examine these questions an independent network assurance firm was engaged and briefed to deliver a comprehensive report by April 2009. The project took about ten weeks and required the examination of over 80 documents and 30 hours of interviews. To assist in answering the “value for money” question the consultant built a cost model which allows the effect of different deployment decisions to be tested.

The presentation will look briefly at the history of VERN. We will compare the original vision with the network which was ultimately built, and explain why there are some differences. The main findings of the Network Assurance report will be presented and we will examine the commercial and technical implications of the decisions which network builders must make when facing the questions of whether to build, co-build or lease existing infrastructure.  We will also focus on the different types of leasing agreements and their advantages and disadvantages.

Developing mobile technology packages to achieve gains in productivity: a case study of a high profile research institute at the Queensland University of Technology.

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The presentation will discuss the Mobile Staff Productivity Project, a $1.36M collaborative project between Griffith University and QUT funded through DEEWA’s (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations) workplace productivity program. The project’s goal is to boost staff productivity through the use of mobile technologies and practices. More information about the project can be found at: http://www.tils.qut.edu.au/initiatives/msp/ .

The presentation will begin with an overview of the Mobile Staff Productivity Project and then focus on discussing the strategy and technologies behind the development of mobile work practices (mobility packages) in a high profile cross-faculty Research Institute at QUT. The initial results from an eight week research study will be presented, identifying potential productivity gains, attitudes and enablers towards the update of mobile technologies and practices.

E-standards: Enabling e-learning in the VET sector

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The Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework) is the e-learning strategy for the vocational education and training (VET) sector. It provides the VET system with essential e-learning infrastructure and expertise needed to respond to the challenges of a modern economy and the training needs of Australian businesses and workers. One of the Framework’s initiatives is the E-standards for Training project. The E-standards for Training project is the mechanism used for gaining state and territory agreement and ratification of national e-standards. The E-standards for Training project provides the sector with research into standards, funding of emerging technology trials, tools and application development.

The e-standards are a diverse set of technical requirements that advise the development of e-learning content and infrastructure. E-standards enable communications between information systems, efficiency in digital resource management, interoperability, and the creation of more technically sound e-learning content. Adoption of e-standards in the Australian VET sector continues to contribute significantly to national collaboration in building e-learning infrastructure and educational resources. As an example of one such initiative, a national, standards-based approach to content development, learning object repository management and metadata creation has enabled the formation of the Australian VET Learning Object Repository Network (http://lorn.flexiblelearning.net.au).

This paper will describe some of the current goals, challenges, national initiatives and pieces of work being undertaken within the VET sector to improve content and systems interoperability, computer networks, and improved access to e-learning functionality for teachers and trainers. Discussion will focus on how these initiatives interrelate to support the sector’s key information management goals and objectives.

Appropriate access to computer networks and across firewalls is essential for VET practitioners and learning. With the rapid growth of new web technologies however, computer network access is now seen as a major issue across the sector. There is a fine balance required between reducing barriers for access and innovation and maintaining appropriate levels of security. This paper describes the key outcomes of the VET computer network access and firewall study over 2007/08.

The VET sector perspective and involvement in a number of related cross-sector initiatives (such as the Australian Access Federation and Schools Interoperability Framework) aimed at improving systems interoperability will also be discussed.

Will your video and telepresence investment today meet your organisation’s future needs? The top 10 priorities you need to consider for a safe investment path in video solutions.

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CIO’s and IT Managers roles continue to expand and align to an organisation’s strategies and objectives. The IT need for a tertiary institution today will be different from tomorrow therefore making an investment into video solutions in your organisation should be one that provides a safe investment path of incremental change that allows flexibility and adaptability to meet those future needs.

Tomorrow’s students are in essence the future global knowledge workers, comfortable communicating through different methods and mediums, where the world and access to information is at their fingertips. How can policy, lesson plans, curriculum and technology evolve to attract the new global student? How does a university, TAFE or business school compete against other organisations based in Australia or outside of Australia who continue to internationalise their programs? How to attract post-graduates who require flexibility to juggle work, family commitments and their studies?

Albert Mehrabian Professor Emeritus of Psychology, UCLA, deduces that there are three elements in any face-to-face communication: words, tone of voice and body language and that the non-verbal elements accounting for 55% of the liking. This is why Polycom sees the increasing importance of high definition video in global business today and in education especially to replace the cost and inefficiencies relating to face-to-face communications without losing the significance of the exchange. Throw into the mix a global digital marketplace adds significant new competitors and technologies which can spell potentially wasted investments if video communications are not core to your overall IT investment planning.

Extending the campus through HD video communications is happening today. The University Union in Japan recently decided to move to full 1080p HD video solutions to connect multiple sites nationwide, Georgetown University in Washington utilises telepresence for its cross cultural studies with its Doha, Qatar campus and the Johnson School of Management at Cornell, NY joined with Queen’s School of Business in Canada to launch the Cornell-Queen’s Executive M.B.A. program through video communications.

CIO’s and IT Managers need to consider key questions when implementing HD video on their network:
1. How does my organisation extend it campus beyond the bricks and mortar, for students to participate from home, the workplace or while travelling?
2. How does my organisation bring in external lecturers and experts virtually?
3. How do I integrate my unified communications environment with my video communications infrastructure?
4. Can I add recording, streaming and playback functionality to provide flexibility to teaching?
5. How can my communications infrastructure support more efficient processes and efficiencies?
6. How can I facilitate inter-organisations and cross-campus communications for administration and executive meetings?
7. Considering 1080p, do I need it?
8. How can I ensure the security of my video communications?
9. How do I manage all these endpoints on my network?
10. How do I prioritise my bandwidth for video?

If you are considering video communications or looking at your next phase of video, Polycom welcomes your participation in this session.

JCU Network Upgrade 3 years on - Leveraging Our Investment

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Where are we three years on? After the major fork lift upgrade, have we realised our expectations? Have the savings in time, resources and capital been achieved?  What does the future hold?

The paper will present the benefits of the upgrade, how the network is coping and what goals we now have in our sights.

James Cook University’s original objectives were for a network infrastructure that provided a sound, scalable foundation for delivering rich multimedia and high-speed data services to their students and staff.
The network improvements had to meet critical objectives, such as significantly expanding the range of communication services while reducing network complexity and management. Nortel's cost-competitive solution not only met these objectives but also gave JCU the flexibility to meet future needs without making major additional investments in the network.
Our Current situation:
James Cook University use Nortel as their locally switched network solution for providing access to services across their 1500 staff and 10,000 students.
The ERS 8600 core switches provide full routing and multicast support for the various services running across the university network, including data and video applications and, in the future, IP telephony.  The ERS 5520/5530 switches used throughout all campuses support future IP telephony applications and WLAN services by providing Gigabit Ethernet, power over ethernet, quality of service and security services on every port.  The ERS 5500 series switches also form the hub for the university's high performance computing facility.  

With modern Monitoring tools, Configuration tools, Network security JCU are better able to manage and trim their network.

The Future
Now that the network has been well and truly bedded in, James Cook University is looking at ways to further leverage this investment.  
The future poses many questions:

How much accelerator do we still have?  What life expectancy can we expect from the core and the edge? How will the design cope with VOIP, server virtualisation, Port Based Authentication and unified communications?
Advancements will include, wireless roaming, unified communications and collaborative solutions.  
Converged Network - Migration of traditional telephony services off copper based systems to VOIP.
Unified Communications - Offering both staff and students single inbox for voice mail, email, fax and instant messaging.  Peer to peer video and collaboration tools enabling students and staff to participate off campus in workshops and online training
Solutions like these can not only have the immediate benefits of reducing operational costs, but also continue to differentiate James Cook University as a technology leader enabling us to attract and support the best students and staff.

We are working closely with vendors to audit our sites and further enhance services in preparation for meeting the future need of the University.

Unified Communications: Cutting Edge Innovation or Déjà Vu?

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This presentation takes a bird’s eye view of the history of ICT over the last 20 years, to differentiate between true innovation and hype.

It takes the introduction of ISDN, SS7 and Intelligent Networks in 1988 as a starting point and describes how these standards facilitated the division of the traditional carrier cloud into separate access, transit and service logic layers. Examples are provided of both carrier and enterprise service initiatives that subsequently leveraged and still leverage these architectures.

The presentation then moves on to summarise the various “multimedia”-focussed research initiatives of the 90s, including B-ISDN, TINA, PARLAY, OpenSIG & H.323, that focussed on finding the perfect open, transparent service architectures for the delivery of ubiquitous multimedia services over heterogeneous network infrastructures. The organic growth of IP networks and their subsequent adoption as the transport networks of choice was a market-driven phenomenon that rendered most of these research initiatives obsolete, along with (unfortunately) some of their key innovations. However, a few of the innovations from this time survived and successfully evolved in the IP domain.

The key research initiatives of the last decade in the areas of multimedia, IP telephony and Unified Comms are then summarised, including MGCP/Megaco, SIP, Application Servers, various codecs and SIGTRAN protocols, IM, MPLS and mobility (wireless & 3G mobile). Much of this work focussed on:
• Enhancing IP networking standards to make IP networks suitable for and capable of reliably and securely transporting real-time high quality traffic such as voice and video and
• Bridging between traditional PSTN and IP domains
However, from the user perspective, not much has changed – Unified Comms applications today bear a striking resemblance to the “multimedia business service” applications that were available in the early 90s. So, from a user or business service perspective, where has the innovation truly been? We put forward some suggestions as to what the real innovations were, differentiating between initiatives that were evolutionary, revolutionary or just really re-creating the wheel.

Finally, we look at where things are going next in Unified Communications and suggest where and how the research of the past can be leveraged to provide an evolutionary path into the future.

Video Communication among Finnish Institutes of Higher Education - Survey of 2009

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The presenter co-wrote a report ‘Video communications in Finnish institutes of higher education” which was published in January 2009. The report is a follow-up on a similar report from 2003 which mapped out the usage of video technology among Finnish Universities. In the five and half years the technology has advanced both in quality and in popularity. In this new, broader survey, also Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences were included.

The 2009 report surveyed how the Finnish Institutes of Higher Education were utilising video technologies, such as video conferencing, video streaming, web conferencing and podcasts, and how they would like to develop these services in the future. The report combines results from three national expert workshops, three questionnaires and statistical data. One questionnaire was also repeated in English for an international reference group to gain ground for international comparison.

According to the results, the use of video technologies is on a steady rise. The MCU usage (multipoint videoconference) has grown eightfold in less than ten years. Virtually all user groups – students, teachers, administrative staff and researchers – all familiar with multiple video technologies; for example, over 95% of all university-level users (wether students, researchers or staff) had watched videos over the Internet. About 80% of teaching and administrative staff had taken part in videoconferences.  More than one out of every five students have published video material on the Internet.

The survey also revealed a strong interest for centralised services. Currently video communications services in Finland are dispersed among many institutions and it is not uncommon that a course obtains MCU services from one university, streaming and recording from another, etc.  This state of affairs was considered to be too complex and labour intensive. Integration for joint user authentication and other services was also seen as an important goal for the future.

The presentation will outline the survey process and evaluate the results in more detail.

One laptop per child (OLPC) in Papua New Guinea: A collaborative partnership between ICT (information communication technology), Telikom PNG (telecommunication), Department of Education (PNG) and Divine Word University to provide quality education to remo

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Since PNG attained independence in 1975, the issues of relevance and quality education have continued to be national concerns that need to be addressed. The Tololo and the Matane Committees were tasked to investigate and provide directions for the education system in that period. Apart from these two reports, there have been other studies (McNamara, 1989) and reviews (World Bank, 1991) that were conducted to investigate the quality of the education delivered and received within the national education system. Upon completion, these studies then made recommendations for improvement of the national education system. Unfortunately, not all recommendations have been implemented by the National Department of Education.  Numerous factors including human, technical and natural, continue to pose challenges to any implementation of study recommendations.

The introduction of the one laptop per child (OLPC) computer or XO laptop provides an avenue to ameliorate what has often been perceived as a hopeless case scenario in the provision of curriculum in schools, particularly at the lower primary school sector. The XO laptop operates on a linux-base operating system. It was designed with the real world in mind, considering everything from extreme environmental conditions such as high heat and humidity, to technological issues such as local language support. Thus, the XO laptop is extremely durable, brilliantly functional, energy-efficient, responsive, and fun. The mission of OLPC is to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

The XO laptops are currently being trailed by grade 3 students in the Dreikikir and Gaire primary schools – two remote schools in the East Sepik and Central Provinces respectively. The Education Faculty of Divine Word University (DWU) is working closely with the DWU ICT Department, Telikom PNG, National Education Department, and PNG Sustainable Energy Ltd to make possible the use of the XO laptop computers in schools, particularly those in the rural and remote areas.

This paper presents an attempt to avert what has commonly been perceived as hopeless in curriculum provision in PNG to a glimpse of hope, that a child in the most rural and remote school in the Kiunga mountains can receive as equally good an education as a child in a Brisbane, Chicago or Warsaw school. It describes a collaborative partnership between different providers – Divine Word University, Telikom, PNG Sustainable Energy Ltd, and Education Department – to provide equal access to education in the most rural and remote areas of PNG.

Enterprise Virtualization : Addressing the consolidation and mobility challenges without exceeding your budget and compromising security

As Enterprise CIO’s continue to be under tremendous pressure to reduce both CAPEX and OPEX, all of the IT infrastructure components and resources used by the end users, customers/partners are now being shared while continuing to maintain proper level of security. Virtualization of various resources drives substantial savings to various organizations but also offer some new challenges where innovative technology solutions are being proposed to address their needs. The main driving factor for virtualization is to share various resources as opposed to duplicating them increases both costs and operational complexity. Resources such as network, computing, I/O & storage are now all being shared while end users and your customers demand ubiquitous access to your business applications (Wired & Wireless, Local or Remote).  It is therefore imperative proper planning is done to meet the new requirements while providing uninterrupted application services without compromising security and confidentiality of information.
This session will provide an overview of new IT trends as well as architectural solutions alternatives various Enterprises could use to meet their new business needs while enabling solutions such as cloud computing to be deployed when deemed appropriate.  The solutions being discussed will also take into consideration Green IT requirements while clearly communicating the various level of complexity each may imply.

At the end of this session, attendees will have a better understand of the new IT virtualization solutions available from various vendors as well as discuss new trends such as cloud computing, social networking for businesses and be able to determine which ones should be considered for their organizations.

Sharing Communication Network Resources for a User-Controlled Electrical Energy Consumption

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Growing electrical demands followed by constantly growing supplies led to troubled electrical services manifested by technical and economic deficiencies and undesirable environmental impacts. Technical and economic difficulties are mainly represented in congestions at peak demands associated with compromised quality (e.g. voltage drop) and high-priced energy. At low-demands, a resulting low energy cost could be driving power station to operate at the limits of economic viability. The paper is describing dynamic intelligent techniques enabling sharing communication network resources to achieve controlled electrical energy consumption. The scheme is an endeavour towards achieving a Dynamic Smart Grid environment offering seamless communication between users and suppliers in a way to allow a deliberate and timely user’s decision for electrical connection. This implies the development and implementation of a dynamic intelligent energy management system, which allows the user to withdraw electrical energy in a conscious, responsible and cost-effective manner. The supplier, on the other side, is handing the quantity of the supplied electrical energy to a particular user at a time following specific transacted information. The described system improves the use of energy consumption around the clock reflecting the benefit of the user and supplier. The results are creating transparent users-suppliers conditions, better use of electrical energy resources, reduced energy prices, and better economics of power stations, more diversified energy sources, more use of renewable energy, and a reduction of environmental polluting emissions.

AARNet Network Operations - Customer Alerts & Maintenance

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AARNet Operations presentation on customer contact information, what we expect our customers to do, and what do the customers want from us and what time of the day/night/morning.

Display information about a forthcoming improvement to the customer notifications for alarms and upcoming maintenance, with built in reminders, and formal notification closure notices - coupled with additional features.

Features will include CPE portal enhancements:
* Display current customer contact information .
* Allow user updates for preferred contact method, and user substitution (ie when lead engineer is away on leave, someone else can be key contact out of hours).
* Display of current notifications relevant to the customer - customer circuits.
* Allow customer to define what they want to be alerted on.

Will discuss improvements to the internal documentation for circuits and services built by AARNet for use by customers, where AARNet operations is responsible for advising the client prior to the maintenance event and or in the case of an emergency outage or current fault.

JCU NetAccess - managing Internet usage

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In late 2008, James Cook University decided to replace their out-of-date Internet Access system.

After product investigation, discussion and site referee's reports, JCU decided to commission Obsidian Consulting Group to install their Jet product to provide JCU with a managed Internet service. The new service would be know to users as the NetAccess system.

The Jet billing system is an Internet and Telephony management system. It supports a number of edge devices, such as the Procera PacketLogic and the Cisco Service Control Engine. It can also source it's account management from a number of systems, such as LDAP and RADIUS.

The standard Jet install uses a number of methods to allocate traffic from IP addresses to users or groups.

The installation at JCU took the base Jet functionality and extended this functionality to support a number of pre-authentication methods:

* MS-AD
* 802.1x wireless, including eduroam

Open Universities Australia investigates Nortel web.alive virtual world technology

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The appeal of a virtual world lies in being able to do something that cannot be easily achieved in the real world.  Many interpret this to mean doing fantastical things, such as the games and simulations built around alternate realities, however it can also mean undertaking regular activities like discussion and collaboration where the participants are separated by distance.  Virtual worlds are just one of a range of communication technologies (from the humble telephone, through to videoconferencing and internet conferencing) but they are the only one that engender a real sense of personal presence.  

Public virtual worlds have been around for some time and are currently sliding into the "Trough of Disillusionment" according to the 2008 Gartner Hype Cycle.  Although there is a persistent community of passionate users, none of the first generation of virtual worlds has achieved mainstream success.  

The second-generation of virtual worlds currently under development hope to address many of the issues seen as barriers to this success, and make the transition through the Trough into the "Slope of Enlightenment".  One of these is Nortel's web.alive, formerly known as Project Chainsaw.  Nortel has highlighted the following characteristics of web.alive which distinguish it from existing virtual worlds:
* Security – private world, integration with existing authentication and authorisation systems.
* Communication – built-in support for voice and use of spatial audio.
* Ease of use – the virtual world is accessed via a web browser and has very simple controls.

Open Universities Australia (OUA) is committed to identifying and exploring innovative teaching and learning technologies as part of its leadership role in online and distance education.  Working with the partner providers and Nortel, OUA has embarked on a project to research the potential teaching and learning applications of web.alive.  This presentation will detail the aims and outcomes of the first critical phase of discovery for this project.

One Laptop Per Child - Oceania

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) has revolutionised access and education for children all over the world, from the most disadvantaged nations, to local Aussie schools. The vision of this project is to not only bring to many of the world's most disadvantaged children real tools for education and advancement, but also to connect children to their classrooms, each other and the world.

The technology includes cutting edge hardware and software specifically designed for children aged 5 - 12 years old. The combination of education and development tools give the recipients the ability to progress their own education, and to be empowered with technologies they can tinker with and change. This constructionist approach to education means children will always be challenged no matter their level of skill or education, and will be able to continually pursue education for themselves in and out of the classroom. Teachers are embracing the new tools the devices bring to the classroom, including music, science, math, literacy, video and photo recording, distance measuring, and above all the collaboration tools that allow children to collaborate within and between classrooms with other students. Many of the classrooms using these devices would otherwise have no way of obtaining some of the most basic classroom tools such as a blackboard and chalk.

This talk will outline some of the local achievements of this program, including an overview of the coordinated effort in the Pacific, the strategic planning and policy development ongoing in these diverse countries, the opportunities this presents for Australia, and some of the social and educational benefits children are already seeing in trials throughout Australia and the Pacific. It will also cover how the Australian education sector can get access to the devices for primary schools, or for ICT student classes, and participate in the OLPC community.

Encouraging disruption in the classroom – considerations for innovation and sustainability in staff professional development at the University of Southern Queensland

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This paper outlines the current design practices and modes of delivery of staff development at the University of Southern Queensland, discusses the current role technology plays and explores how new technology tools can be incorporated in pedagogy to disrupt current norms and lead to new practices.  There is a distinct divide between the construct of academic courses in e-learning and online modes, and staff professional development which continues to be offered as scheduled timetabled courses at the main University campus in Toowoomba.  As blended learning models and flexi-mode become embedded into University programs, similar constructs must be designed for staff professional development and applied research needs to be carried out to identify technologies that are most effective at enhancing professional development learning and teaching.. This paper will review a remote computer training “cells” project that is currently being finalised between Toowoomba, Fraser Coast and Springfield campuses

Leveraging Existing Communications Infrastructure to deliver Communications Enabled Business Solutions

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Organisations are looking to increase the effectiveness of their IT budget through the implementation of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles. Some of the key concepts of SOA revolve around non duplication of effort in new systems development and reuse of existing legacy systems.

An important building block of any SOA implementation is the chosen messaging standard which should ideally be widely adopted and easy to implement. The IT industry has seen very widespread adoption of Web Services as this messaging standard.

Legacy IT systems rarely comply with the SOA modular approach and will usually not support Web Services for messaging. In order to reuse these systems the concept of a software adaptor exists whereby software is written to expose useful functionality of a legacy system as a well defined Web Service that can now be used by other systems in a SOA ecosystem.
Modern Unified Communications (UC) systems are implementing Web Services support natively. This allows organisations to leverage their communications systems as part of the SOA framework leading to a concept commonly called Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP). Unfortunately this is often dependant on making significant investments in the implementation of a heterogeneous UC solution.

Nortel have taken the concept of the Web Services adaptor and applied it to communication systems. This enables existing communications infrastructure to participate in a SOA / Web Services framework allowing organisations to realise the benefits of CEBP without the prerequisite of a full UC implementation.

This presentation will provide an overview of SOA and CEBP principles and show how the Nortel Agile Communications Environment can help Universities gain the benefits of Communication Enablement while reusing existing investments in communications equipment.

Virtualising, Consolidating and Leveraging your Data Centre Investment for the future

USQ is currently in the process of updating its Data Centre infrastructure, at all levels.  The key components are significant use of virtualisation and consolidation of infrastructure.  This is taking place in conjunction with Data Centre upgrades with a view to building a sustainable model for future technology growth.

A Case Study is provided of the USQ experience as a small University dealing with the resource challenges of maximising infrastructure investment while building a stable base for unknown future requirements.

Growing the pool of quality online content available to Australian schools and their associated repositories.

The Le@rning Federation has developed digital curriculum content for all Australian and New Zealand schools. The project is a collaborative initiative of all Australian and New Zealand governments. Since 2001 high-quality, innovative content has seeded and supported schools' moves into 21st-century education.
The Le@rning Federation initiative was commissioned by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), overseen by Australian Education Systems Officials Committee (AESOC) and managed by Curriculum Corporation.
Phase Three of the Learning Federation was funded for the period 2006–2009 by the governments of Australia, the Australian states and territories, and New Zealand. Approximately half of the funding is provided by the state, territory and New Zealand governments, with the Australian Government providing the remainder.
With agreement towards creating a national curriculum and the creation of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, the Learning Federation has been funded to growing the pool of quality online content available to Australian schools and their associated repositories and sustains the existing asset that has been created over the last seven years.

During 2009-2010 The Learning Federation will be facilitating a number of activities in the Schools sector for both Government and Non-government jurisdictions.


- Sharing, Quality Assurance and copyright clearance of content provided by Jurisdictions
- Harvesting and quality assurance of metadata records of digital content from Australian Cultural institutions that is appropriate for school use
- Brokering and quality assurance of commercial content appropriate for schools
- Development of collections and teacher guides for using sequences of digital content
- Sharing of teacher practice and ideas

These activities will be supported by technology infrastructure, standards and specifications including,

- The Sharing exchange, a repository, quality and rights management system for content provided Jurisdictions
- The Metadata Exchange, a repository of metadata harvested from Cultural institutions, Commercial organisations and jurisdictions
- Scootle, a teacher’s portal hosting digital content form the national pool used in the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia, Northern Territory and Non Government sectors.
- Existing digital content repositories and portals in Australian education such as
o The Learning place and Curriculum Exchange in Queensland,  
o The Knowledge Bank Next Generation and Ultranet in Victoria
o The DET portal in Western Australia
o eCentre for Teachers in Tasmania
o TaLE in New South Wales
- The Schools Online Thesaurus (ScOT) and controlled vocabulary for tagging content with agreed terms used by School education.
- The Learning Federations content packaging and technical specifications for delivery including the IMS content packaging standards and specification of approved plug-ins.

Alcatel-Lucent breakthrough Laptop Security Evolution

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The growing number of employees using company laptops means that corporate data is increasingly vulnerable to loss or theft.

With the NEW Alcatel-Lucent Solution, increased workforce mobility no longer equals increased risks.
Now YOU can protect sensitive data on employees’ mobile laptops, anytime, anywhere, even when the laptop is turned off.

With this award-winning, secure, always-on 3G wireless enabled solution Alcatel-Lucent is bringing mobile laptop security into a new era giving IT 24/7 visibility & control over laptop data.
This presentation will provide you with a full insight into this very unique solution and the opportunity to see more in-depth case studies.

A brief history of time, no, of cryptology

QuestNET2009 is all about sharing, online collaboration and the ubiquity of network access. These are all laudable goals, towards which academia has historically led the way by showing just how open (and useful, and democratic, and democratising) the internet can be.

Inamongst all this zest for openness and availability -- these days aided and abetted by proprietary operators such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and many others, who have an unashamedly commercial interest in the open and available information they accumulate and republish -- is an urgently growing need for the proper and provable protection of privacy.

For this, of course, we need to know more than just the basics of cryptography. Encrypting stuff is easy. But having confidence that only the right people can decrypt it (or that you have, in fact, encrypted the right stuff in the first place) is rather harder.

So come to this talk and learn. Based on a whirlwind history of cryptology, which is the study of how both to make and to break codes and ciphers, we will investigate together how to ensure privacy where it is appropriate, without giving up openness where it is important.

(No. This is *not* a product demonstration. That would be boring.
"Oh look, I have encrypted some data. Now it looks like shredded cabbage." Pregnant pause for applause which never comes. "For my next trick, more shredded vegetables." Zzzzz.)

Google Collaboration Applications

This presentation discusses and demonstrates some of the Google
web-based collaboration tools, and how they can be used to provide a highly
productive and effective working environment.

The Modern Datacentre – Energy Efficient, Modular, Scalable, Secure

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As our economy and society continue to shift from paper to digital information management, data centres have become common. They are found in nearly every sector of the economy -- and essential to the function of communications, business, academic, and governmental systems. All companies have some kind of data centre, Wiring closet or Server room and larger companies often have many tens, or even hundreds, of data centres. Smaller data centres are commonly located within larger commercial buildings, and larger data centres tend to be buildings constructed specifically to serve their purpose that can be up to several hundred thousand metres in size. Universities, Companies, and government institutions also use and operate many data centres for information management and communication functions.

Increasing power densities can lead to a situation in which companies are forced to build new data centres not because they are running out of floor space but because they need power and cooling beyond what can be provided in their existing data centres. This situation has driven much of the recent interest in energy-efficiency improvements for data centres. If the power consumed (and resulting heat generated) in data centres can be reduced through energy-efficiency measures, the existing or scalable infrastructure can continue to meet cooling and power needs, and costly investments in new data centres can be deferred.

Energy Efficiency, Modularity, Scalability and Security are the new drivers for today’s modern datacentre including the IT Security Room, UPS, Cooling, Power Distribution, Enclosures, Fire Detection and Suppression, and Power Generation.

A Network for Australian Education, Training and Research

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The paper will outline the key elements of the Australian Government's Digital Education Revolution (DER).  It will describe the objectives of the DER, in particular the objective of ensuring that all Australian students enjoy a technology rich learning environment and have access to educational resources and tools which effectively utilise those environments to facilitate high quality learning outcomes.  The paper will then consider the central importance of a true national network linking together schools, vocational education and training institutions and universities to the achievement of the objectives of the DER.  It will explore ways in which such a network can be achieved, building on the work already undertaken in the higher education and research sectors and taking advantage of the Australian Government's commitments to build a new National Broadband Network and to connect all Australian schools to broadband.

Virtualising security and securing virtualisation in an ever-evolving threat landscape

Organisations have been quick to adopt virtualisation as a platform to enable rationalisation of hardware, power consumption and emission reductions, and cost reductions. Over the past eighteen months, Trend Micro has adopted a virtualisation strategy and has developed solutions that are delivered via a virtual form factor. At the same time, Trend Micro has also been working closely with VMware to utilise the VMsafe technology to provide solutions that protect the virtual environments themselves.

This presentation will feature an overview of the threat landscape, as observed by TrendLabs, identifying the major threat vectors, and the challenges they present to organisations. The changing threat landscape is being addressed by Trend Micro through it’s innovative Smart Protection Network - a unique cloud-client infrastructure that combines in-the-cloud technology and light-weight client architecture delivering security that is smarter than conventional methods. Discussion will then progress to investigating the security issues faced with virtualization, and why virtualization is being used as a platform to deliver security. This discussion will explore the strategy, technical aspects, and customer benefits behind Trend Micro’s virtualisation direction.

ICT as a Utility for Education

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Networking and networked information technologies impact every aspect of the way we live, work, play and learn. Not surprisingly, the use of ICT in teaching and learning across all levels of the Australian education system is today considered a necessity, just like electricity and water. But the Australian education system and its associated ICT infrastructure and services is (arguably) more complex than either the water or electricity networks, so how does the an education system made up of three segments (K-12, VET, Higher Education) spread across two levels of government and the private sector deliver an effective, efficient, immersive, integrated and ubiquitous ICT experience ? This presentation will describe an approach based on the proposition that there are more similarities than differences in the ICT requirements of each of the education segments, and indeed across ICT in general. Examples from around the globe of innovative approaches to ICT in education, and effective collaborative strategies will be used to as proof points of alternative solutions.

new developments in AARNet's eResearch portfolio

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In late 2008 / early 2009, AARNet's eResearch team signed up to a number of international development consortia aiming to improve particular facets of the eResearch toolkit. Preliminary results from three of these consortia are expected by the time of the QuestNet 2009 conference, and this talk will touch upon those --- their technical detail will be discussed at an intermediate level, and a number of potential use cases will be highlighted.
The initiatives to be covered are:
- TIGRE, a predominantly European consortium to further develop the CAS connection agreement / controlled firewall connection agreement system, submitted for European 7th Framework funding
- FENRIR, a US/EUR/Japan/Australia consortium to futher develop the DRAGON dynamic circuit provisioning platform, submitted for US NSF/GENI funding
- FileSender, a joint development between a handful of NRENs to develop a web-based file transfer "drop box", with the aim of removing the problem of ad-hoc large file transfer (file too big for an email attachment, no time to get an FTP server set up, firewall won't let Instant Messaging file transfer through, recipient doesn't have a bittorrent client set up...)

Video Conferencing at Abbotsleigh

A focus area for Abbotsleigh in 2009 is the use of high end video conferencing to support and enhance teaching and learning opportunities. Along with this, video conferencing will provide more flexible, effective communication opportunities within the school and with other local, national and international audiences and collaborators.

A number of teaching and learning opportunities are being developed with staff. The IT Integrators (classroom IT support) have been researching opportunities online to support the curriculum areas that are being taught and then working with staff to see if the opportunities work as value to support the curriculum. Some of the opportunities include existing and custom-designed Virtual Field Trips where libraries, universities, schools and private organisations provide a virtual excursion or create a video conference presentation, usually with a resident expert, to students of all ages. Some of the existing opportunities seem impressive and can provide real value where normally an excursion would be the only way to talk to these people or view the artefacts, exhibits or samples.

Currently a video conference session is being developed with Year 10 Geography. In this session Year 10 will connect with the Education Centre for the Great Barrier Reef where the education team at the centre will deliver a program that allows students to work towards objectives outlined in the school curriculum. With this particular program the students will observe up to five thousand live sea creatures, experience the habitats, ecosystems and behaviour of reef creatures, analyse the interactions that exist between reef creatures, appreciate the requirements for a healthy ecosystem; and discover the latest in reef research. Amazingly this presentation occurs inside of the tanks as well as outside, with a scuba diver presenting some of the content from within the Predator Tank.

Many opportunities like this are available through Virtual Field Trips. A part of our challenge as a school is to find quality providers and to maintain a value for the curriculum focus. The use of online databases such as Two Way Interactive Connections in Education (TWICE) www.twice.cc/fieldtrips.html allows for quick viewing of some of the Virtual Field Trips available with many provided by organisations such as; The National Space Centre, Las Angeles Museum of Art, Natural History Museum of London, The Holocaust Centre, Library of Congress, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Questacon at The National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra and many others. The TWICE website lists approximately two hundred and fifty Virtual Field Trip providers.

We are also looking for other opportunities within Australia from organisations and museums who are just ‘finding their feet’ with video conferencing. We hope in the near future to be connecting with the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House for example. We may be able to share our local expertise, such as our author in residence, or our archivist, or Mandarin teacher, with schools that have already expressed interest in collaborative projects of this nature.

The ability to collaborate with other students is also an important feature and already we have connected with students from Hong Kong for Year 5 where they have been studying Chinese culture. In fact, Year 5 took an adventurous step in connecting with a Virtual Field Trip provider located in Missouri, USA, in the morning and then connecting with the school in Hong Kong in the afternoon. It was great to see opportunities where the students at Abbotsleigh could practice speaking Mandarin and the students in Hong Kong could practice English. The teacher from Hong Kong has now put forward the idea of connecting every month or so to consolidate the language exchange.

There are many other collaboration opportunities that are being planned as well. These include: a virtual debating club where students from around Australia or beyond have formal debates online, exchange students communicating with their families and school back home to strengthen our sister school relationships,  and connecting with experts at universities for a careers evening.

This is a new area for Abbotsleigh, but one that has the potential of providing significant value for the school, staff and students in enabling communication and collaboration opportunities that either did not exist or logistically would have been too difficult to facilitate prior to video conferencing.

Academic and Research network collaboration in Hong Kong and beyond including Grid-related initiatives being undertaken by the University of Hong Kong.

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The Universities in Hong Kong collaborate through JUCC (the Joint Universities Computer Centre Limited - an organization established and incorporated in 1970).  One of JUCC’s main activities is oversight of the management and development of HARNET (the Hong Kong Academic and Research Network).

This presentation will provide a brief overview of JUCC followed by a summary of HARNET, its architecture and connectivity, and connections to research organizations in China and other countries.  Additionally, because the University of Hong Kong (HKU) is active in Grid Computing, a number of HKU developments will be described including connections to CNGrid, APGrid and EEGE through the CSTNET, KREONET, ASGCC and TEIN2/3.  The establishment of an IGTF PA compliant CA and membership of PRAGMA to support grid-related research activities at HKU will also be described.  Possible future developments related to the CNGI (China Next Generation Internet) will be identified.

Protect your Mobile Enterprise School Children and Government Employees when they are out of the Classroom or Office

"I can't surf Porn at school or the office with my laptop but when I leave the Network and go home or to the hotel then I can do anything I like on the Internet."

Why do Australia's largest Enterprise and Government's allow their staff to do this with corporate assets?

Why are Australia Educators trying so hard to ensure that School Students with Kevin07 laptops can’t do this either?

Mikko Valimaki, Chief Scientist Blue Coat Systems will explain how Corporate, Government and Education IT Security Managers can effectively deal with this issue by gaining Visibility and Control at the End Point. You will be able to assure the CEO, CIO and Minister that your Security Policy is now locked into EVERY LAPTOP no matter where it goes – even for Mobile Users.

Leveraging your Telecommunications Investment

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Universities invest millions of dollars on telephone systems, data networks, carrier services, video conferencing and associated professional services to maintain a platform for communication, collaboration and research. In this presentation we help you understand how to manage the financial aspects of this infrastructure while validating and allocating these expenses to end users, departments and related entities.

Security Without Sacrifice: Delivering Affordable IT Security Without Breaking The Bank

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Organizations of all sizes are being asked to do more with less. Education vertical is no exception to this in our current day and age. Join this session as we visit some compelling case studies of Australian institutions that have been able to successfully control theirs costs while being able to deliver a duty of care to their student populations and ensure a safe and secure learning environment.

Sharing Global Knowledge for Development – how QUESTnet can contribute to poverty alleviation

In their efforts to raise millions of people out of poverty in poor countries, aid agencies and multilateral financial institutions have known that knowledge is the key to development. It is recognized too that very often it is the tacit knowledge in the minds and experience of practitioners that is more valuable than the explicit knowledge found in textbooks. Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) can provide the platform to connect people from around the world to facilitate the sharing of this tacit experience and the exchange of knowledge.  

In 1997 the World Bank began to look at how these new technologies could contribute to its knowledge agenda and in 2000 it launched the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN). Coordinated by the World Bank, GDLN is a partnership of over 120 recognized global institutions (Affiliates) in over 80 countries that collaborates in the design of customized learning solutions for individuals and organizations working in development. Affiliates are as diverse as the Asian Institute of Management, the Ethiopian Civil Service College, the Islamic Development Bank, and Pontifícia Universidad Católica of Peru. The events range from customized training courses to global multi-country dialogues.

The growth of the network has depended to an extent on the availability of adequate connectivity, and this has presented a challenge in certain regions in the past. However, by partnering with National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in a number of countries, GDLN has seen its reach extend beyond capital cities, and to new audiences. Conversely the NRENs have seen in GDLN an area of business that on the one hand brings global knowledge to the classrooms of their members and on the other brings them into the mainstream of socioeconomic development for their countries. The presentation explores how GDLN and NRENs and specifically QUESTNet can cooperate to mutual benefit with new audiences and new themes.

Delivering applications in the year the budget died

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Deploying applications can be expensive... Depending on what you chose to deploy, *very* expensive... Adrian Noblett, Solutions Engineer from F5 Networks and Bruce Williams, Acting Manager of Network and Communication Services at Griffith University, will be talking about how F5 is helping organisations dramatically reduce costs of application delivery.

Enterprises are moving toward replacing their traditional data-centric network architectures with a virtual, open and intelligent dynamic infrastructure that supports users and applications regardless of where they sit on or off the network. The latest release of F5’s solutions enable strategic points of control within the IT infrastructure to communicate, synchronise and be aware of each other, thereby creating an inter-connected mesh that F5 terms as “Unified Application and Data Delivery”. This paves the way for enterprises to optimise their business by enabling enterprises to create a dynamic IT infrastructure that is application aware.

Clean Pipes – security for the education revolution

Leveraged by more than 230 educational institutions, Clean Pipes is a cloud based security solution that provides hands-free evolution of IT. Instead of you procuring, deploying, operating and refreshing your Internet gateway infrastructure, Clean Pipes delivers it all to you as part of your Internet feed.

Clean Pipes provides efficient broadband access to essential Internet resources and services. Clean Pipes offers enhanced security and provides access to many protective technology services such as firewalls, intrusion prevention, mail protection, web protection to name a few. All this without compromising the flexibility required to meet the unique needs of your institution.

Clean Pipes provides 24/7 support together with process excellence while saving institutions between 20% and 55% on their existing costs.

Clean Pipes allows for predictable budgeting and cost management while providing reduced fixed costs (OpEx) and upfront costs (CapEx).

Clean Pipes allows CxOs to focus on more strategic initiatives like setting policy and managing SLAs as opposed to building and operating Internet gateway’s that is noncore to their business.
This translates to a more secure learning environment enabling your institution to manage student access to learning resources, the Internet and optional online services such as email and web hosting. Clean Pipes extends beyond the institutions gate to provide its educators and students with secure and filtered remote access from home to school resources as well as the Internet.

Celebrating AARNet’s 20th Birthday - See how far we have come!

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2009 is another year of significant change in many areas including political, technology and customer needs. It is also AARNet's 20th birthday and in turn 20 years of the internet in Australia. This presentation touches on the journey to now and the challenges ahead and how AARNet will meet them.

Topics covered will include NBN, our continuing move away from volume based charging including domestic peering and off-peak changes, international update, effects of recent natural disasters and 10Gig customer use examples.

QUT Wireless Goes Mobile

Investigate the feasibility of maintaining network connectivity for QUT’s staff and students as they move from one campus to another by extending QUT’s wireless network onto the Brisbane City Council bus service that transports students and staff between QUT’s main two campuses. The presentation will cover the technical difficulties in providing a wireless service on a moving target, architecture used, usage models and business feedback on the pilot carried with Mobile IP and Telstra.

How a University project became a world standard in Data Integrity

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Tripwire, originally a project started in 1992 by Gene Kim at Purdue University, has grown up to be the standard in Data Integrity and Configuration Assessment worldwide. The presentation will cover the history of Tripwire, how it went from a small academic project to having over 6500 customers Worldwide helping maintain the integrity, security and operational efficiency of their IT infrastructure. The presentation will also include the risks and rewards of virtualisation and how Tripwire can mitigate the issues surrounding it.

802.11n and the All-Wireless Campus: Delivering a pervasive, high-performance, and cost-effective wireless infrastructure to educational institutions

Building a wireless network that can keep pace with the mounting demands of campus mobility can be challenging. No longer is it enough that Wi-Fi supports basic access to e-mail and the Internet. Users expect more from their campus Wi-Fi networks—reliable connectivity to bandwidth-hungry voice and video applications and real-time collaboration tools from more places, more often, and over more devices.

This presentation addresses the critical challenges facing educational institutions today, which include:
• Implementing, managing, and securing the wireless networks.
• Managing campus wide radio coverage and simplifying network expansion
• Enabling very high densities of clients and maintaining high throughput.
• Delivering high speed video, voice and data via 802.11n, while simultaneously supporting legacy 802.11 a/b and g clients

A case study of an 802.11n at a major University will also be presented.

How to get ready for Cloud Computing!

To compete in the current economic climate, organisations require a level of flexibility and choice that will enable faster response times to market together with an instant ability to expand and contract in response to changing information needs. Unfortunately today's technology does not deliver the 24X7, available-everywhere flexibility that the market demands.

While the industry pinpoints Cloud Computing as a viable solution, many organisations are still confused about what Cloud Computing is- and what it is not. Additionally, they are unclear about what this solution looks like, the business benefits that can be realised from the adoption of this solution and the preparations involved in the transition.

Vendors and service providers are delivering tools and services to offer a growing range of cloud models, including internal, private, public and federated. Which brings us to the question- If the future atomic unit of the data centre is the virtual machine, how can these models be integrated and adopted?

Essentially, getting ready for the ‘Cloud’ can be seen as a five step process, consisting of Virtualising, Centralising, Networking, Automating and Cost Modelling.

Attend this session to learn more about preparing your organisation for the ‘Cloud’ by:

• Understanding what ‘Cloud’ means for your organisation.
• Finding out how your organisation can benefit from a variety of ‘Cloud’ models, and the one that may best suit you.
• Taking away the key steps to prepare your infrastructure and operations for the ‘Cloud’.

Moving HPC from Research to Production

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Based in Melbourne, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has collected climate data and issued forecasts for more than a century. They share federal funding and collaborate with the Australian National University (ANU) located in Canberra. ANU was established by Australia's government in 1946, and is a leading research university with 14,000+ students and a broad range of disciplines.

Both Australia's Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian National University continuously upgrade their computing infrastructure to better monitor the weather and climate change. Communities around the globe rely on the Bureau for its forecasts and climate data, and they also benefit from ANU's research into extreme weather and ocean events. As they prepared for their next refresh project, both organisations wanted significantly more computing power and open-source platforms, which would broaden opportunities by helping to facilitate collaboration with external researchers.

As a result of a joint RFP between the Australian National University and the Bureau of Meteorology, Sun Microsystems is providing a platform not only for research and development but also for production of daily weather forecasts.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) previously used a proprietary vector system.

The Bureau has a requirement to produce a number national weather forecasts every day so high availability is critical.

Hence what Sun is delivering is:
• a clustered system with off-the-shelf components
• maximum performance on their codes
• strictly limited power in their datacentre
• high availability
• complete software environment including OS
• open source system
• compilers and debuggers
• job scheduling system
• parallel file system
• guaranteed increases in application performance over time
• complete support

Frustrated with your current NON-unified communications solution – Want to know how to Transform and Innovate your existing investment?

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Does your telecommunications system fall short of your expectations? Are you frustrated by the Multitude of proprietary box’s it takes to deliver a solution which never quite comes together?

Compare this to an “all-in-one” technology and learn how it will address your current and future communications needs, avoiding those integration and administration minefields whilst lowering your TCO as well as your carbon imprint.

See where telecommunications is heading and how you can stay at the forefront of VoIP technology through a “never grow old” communications suite of software applications. Make the wrong decision with your VoIP platform and you may be condemned to a future of struggling with an expensive and inflexible dinosaur.

Other Topics
- How many servers do I really need?
- The ultimate in Business Resilience and Disaster Recovery!
- Open Standards or Proprietary Hardware & Software?
- Integration into other applications?
- What Voice applications do I need now?
- What about future applications and how do we integrate them?
- Unified Communications. What is it?
- Multi Media Contact Centre? Do we need it?
- Speech Recognition. The benefits are boundless!
- Multi Site Campuses. Can one system manage them all?
- Integrating with Microsoft.
- Transforming your legacy infrastructure
- The new application race! What is “Business Process Automation” and how it will revolutionise the way universities handle their work flows?
- Charles Sturt University Case Study.

Bring Web 2.0 into the Classroom and Control P2P Traffic

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Educational institutions face enormous pressure to deliver consistent network performance to meet the diverse needs of students, faculty and researchers. Students and educators alike are accessing bandwidth-intensive online applications and rich media like videos and podcasts for educational purposes. Institutions must also deal with ever-increasing recreational (and potentially illegal) traffic that threatens to overrun the network including P2P file sharing and social networking applications.  Upgrading the bandwidth is not a viable technical solution and not a sound financial investment either.

With Exinda, educational institutions gain visibility into the types of traffic and traffic volume on the network – even encrypted applications like BitTorrent. With a clear view of the top inbound and outbound applications, institutions can allocate more bandwidth to high-priority applications while minimizing the bandwidth allocated to recreational traffic. By providing control over network usage down to the individual user level, Exinda helps educational institutions conserve bandwidth and guarantee performance for educational and administrative traffic.

Understanding and Blocking the Evolving Bot

Our session surveys bot innovations, adding depth to the existing knowledge of IT pros so they can generate well-informed layered defense strategies that repel bots.

Botnets use modular code, swapping modules to evolve rapidly. The Internet always hosts a toxic mix of new and old bots. Understanding new bots requires understanding the classic IRC bot, so we portray IRC bots in depth. Our animated "Magic White Board" depicts bot architecture in video. We explain bot workings with screen captures of source code from an in-the-wild bot, Rxbot. In live demo, our bot client compromises a victim PC via drive-by download, shown from the victim's and attacker's view. In video, we show the attacker's view (on an IRC channel) as one zombied PC recruits a bot army.

With that foundation established, we then detail the innovations botmasters mounted from 2007 until now. We categorize bots by the protocols they use for their Command and Control (C&C) channel.

For HTTP bots, our example is Zunker. Possibly the first bot with a back-end GUI, Zunker uses PHP and CGI scripts to enable optimal exploitation of zombies. Screen captures show how a botmaster can sort and view victims by country of origin; amount of RAM; amount of hard drive space; etc, in Zunker's slick graphics.

We next highlight MayDay, which can use three C&C protocols: HTTP, TCP, or ICMP ports (encrypted). MayDay pioneered the technique of refusing to let new recruits join the botnet outside of narrow time windows, rebuffing researchers.

For P2P bots, our stand-in is Storm. A video shows how P2P bots differ from IRC bots. After listing some of Storm's advances (image-based spam, strike back), we drill into Storm's evasion skills. Our Magic White Board clarifies how DNS Fast Flux and Double Flux work. We show how automated re-packing and re-crypting helps bots evade AV. We explain AV neutering (your AV processes are running, but don't see Storm).

To explain mass SQL injection bots, we use ASProx. IT pros pay lip service to SQL injection but may not understand it, so we demonstrate manual attacks in live demos. Then we tell how such attacks are automated. This section closes with three classic defenses against SQL injection.

We conclude with bot countermeasures, explaining effective refinements to the use of firewalls/UTMs; anti-virus; patching; log monitoring; and application layer inspection. All presentation materials, including the videos, will be made available to attendees via free downloads.

Dell | Delivering on increasing velocity of technology into productivity

Dell is committed to simplifying IT by reducing cost and complexity. Dell is focused on a complete range of solutions that helps education customers reach their goals - technology, services, perspectives, resources and information that address all the needs of professors, researchers, students and administrators alike. We can make innovation that delivers on productivity a daily practice instead of a long term goal. And that will result in a faster, better and smarter institution. Drawing upon Dell’s global experience in working with some of the world’s leading institutions, this presentation will provide a local context to how you can improve your IT service quality and maximize your investment return.

Using GenY technology to break down the barriers in lectures

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The modern day student expects information to be at their fingertips. They interact, source information and socialise through instantaneous mediums such as mobile phones, mp3 players, YouTube, msn and video-gaming. Today's students use technology to not only entertain themselves and their peers but also to learn. How can we as teachers cater for our students need for immediate response, interaction and technology in the classroom while still improving their learning outcomes? Student Response Systems are an interactive solution designed to engage all students within a classroom (extensively used by the University of Auckland) This is your chance to experience being part of this kind of teaching environment, we will ensure 100% of our audience is involved in this session and show you in a very 'hands on' manner how organisations are utilising response technology to bring an exciting new dynamic in their sessions.

Enabling 21st Century Higher Education

Higher education institutions budgets are being stretched to the maximum.  At the same time, governing boards are requiring CIOs to review their IT budgets down significantly.  For some institutions this will bring to the forefront technology options that until now were not seen as a necessary part of consideration for cost containment.

Mobility and collaboration is a primary concern in higher education today. By 2012, enrollment in online courses will be greater than 30% of the total higher education enrollment in the Western world. More and more courses are being virtualised and the cost of travel and the implications of the financial crisis are driving the adoption of online learning. The increasing amount of critical data and new services that are available electronically will necessarily drive a requirement for enhanced levels of security to protect these new assets.   

The challenge of maintaining and enhancing campus infrastructures is becoming more acute due to more complex environments that are increasingly subject to intrusion and security breaches; as well as more demanding technology users and higher expectations for always-on service. College and university personnel have a daunting task to ensure the security of information resources while operating within a culture of openness and decentralisation.   

In this presentation, 3Com will discuss the challenges facing education institutions and how emerging networking and security technologies can be applied to address them.  We will also present some best practices that we’ve learnt in our 30 years of working with educational institutions, and some case studies to demonstrate how we have helped other institutions deliver better learning outcomes for their students.

Microsoft Unified Communications -  It is time to save money

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2009 has been an important year for Microsoft in Unified Communications (UC).  Gartner again rated Microsoft in the leaders’ quadrant for UC, both in the ability to execute and completeness of our vision. Last year we also entered for the first time the visionary quadrant for enterprise telephony.  Microsoft continues to see reducing human latency and the ability of “presence” as key to helping end users find the right resource to then leverage the various technologies; IM, Email, Telephony and conferencing as the mechanism to connect.
This session will focus largely on real outcomes and the impact technology has on end users:

* The Microsoft UC vision including the next versions of Microsoft Exchange and Office Communications Server
* Building the business case for UC
* How do I kick off a project in my institution?
* How do I support my users – in terms of adoption, etiquette and support?

My Digital Life

Is there a silent abyss between the reality of the digital life of school age students and the digital capacity policy makers and ICT leadership are implementing in schools? Alternatively, is the popular perception of the young being digital 'wizzkids' over stated and the recent proposed initiatives of the digital capacity of schools well placed.

In this panel session, Questnet will welcome students from three schools around the country via High Definition Video Conferencing to participate in a facilitated panel session.

Referencing the trends and forecasts outlined the 2009 Horizon Report (http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/) as a topical basis, school students will have an opportunity to express an often mature and well considered perspective on their digital lives and their aspirations for a digital education revolution

Topics will cover...

• Use of technology in the classroom
• The internet and Web 2.0 tools
• Digital identity
• Security and content filtering
• Self Directed Learning - and the enabling role of technology
• The experience between personal and school life
• Mobility and 'always connected'
• If I were King...

Please join us for what promises to be an insightful and undoubtedly entertaining lunchtime session.

Supporting Learning in Rural Australia into the 21st Century

Rural communities are often severely disadvantaged because education and training resources tend to be concentrated in urban centres. Rural communities must have equitable access to education and training, and growing opportunities to participate. Issues of particular concern include: rural isolation; Aboriginal education; opportunities for women and girls; integration of the disabled; school retention rates, socio-economic disadvantage; secondary and post-secondary education and training.

In this joint panel session, Questnet will join the Society for the Provision of Rural Education in Australia (SPERA) conference being held concurrently at Flinders University via High definition Video Conferencing.

The session will be facilitated by respected rural educator Megan McNicholl

Exploring Learning Paradigms - A panel session exploring some of the following issues.

• What are the infrastructure implications for rural and remote Australia
• What is the rural learning paradigm for rural and remote Australia in the 21st century

Working Together Framework

• Education provision
• Community partnerships
• Staff, leadership and governance
• Digital learning

BOF: eduroam project group update

This BOF will include a brief update on the work of the eduroam project group covering

1. Latest eduroam RADSSEC developments
2. Eduroam deployment and coverage update
3. Eduroam monitoring update
4. Eduroam & Google Maps (for local information)
5. Feedback on eduroam experiences (technical, support and user views)

A general discussion would follow in the remaining time allocated for this talk.

BOF: Desktop Video Conferencing developments in the R&E community

This presentation will cover:

The aims and objectives of the desktop video project group
Types of video conferencing technologies (thin clients; thick clients; web collaboration tools; full unified communications suite)
Challenges and opportunities for delivering video beyond the campus
Addressing the differing support requirements to end users
Next Step: Embracing cloud computing to deliver scalable cost effective solutions
Next Step: Integrating social networking technologies for community led collaboration

Streaming Media

Datacentres