Present:

Apologies were received from:

1. Notes of Previous meeting

1.1 Accuracy

There were no corrections to the minutes of the previous meeting held on 8 October 2003.

1.2 Grid issues paper

The Group agreed that there was no longer a need for the proposed Grid issues paper.

The involvement of MANs in providing connectivity to UKLight was discussed. Mick Kahn will seek clarification from UKERNA on the involvement of MANs in the various development activities.

Action: Mick Kahn

1.3 Disaster recover

Ian Griffiths reported that the East Midlands purchasing consortium were negotiating the framework agreement and that it was intended to be extended to a national deal. He will provide an update by email.

Action: Ian Griffiths

2. Liaison with Chairs of MANs Group

The joint meeting in Cardiff had been productive.

The Group will review its terms of reference by email when the revised Chairs of MAN's Group terms of reference have been circulated.

It was agreed that the Group's name should be formally changed to the UK MAN Managers Group. Mick Kahn will liaise with Ann Lloyd, secretary of the Chairs of MANs Group to agree names and terms of reference.

Action: Mick Kahn

It was agreed to consider the UKERNA document on connection reliability under agenda item 5.

The JISC had agreed to continue to fund collective legal advice for the MANs and this would continue to be channelled through the University of Newcastle, for the time being.

3. Broadband aggregation

Ian Griffiths updated the Group on developments in the East Midlands. He was on the shadow board for the RAB. It was still not clear what the implications for MANs would be in most regions.

4. RPAN contract

Dave Vinograd reported that Michael Longden had reviewed the proposed contract in late November. This had confirmed the Group's concerns about the SuperJANET 5 clause. UKERNA had proposed either a one-year contract extension or a reworded SuperJANET 5 clause. A number of MANs required more than a one-year extension to be able to enter into other contracts, so this option was not considered practical. The new SuperJANET 5 clause was considered an improvement, but will need legal review.

It was agreed that Denis Russell should continue to be involved with this round of negotiations, despite his impending move to UKERNA.

5. SLA negotiations

The SLA negotiation team is now John Linn and Paul Kentish.

John Linn reported that the SLA subgroup had held a telephone conversation with UKERNA and would be attending a negotiation meeting on 30 January 2004. UKERNA share the SLA subgroup's concerns regarding raising the targets that are not being met. The Group would like to see an SLA that can usually be met as this creates the right public image. The issue of measuring the service rather than the physical connection will be taken on board in a future year. It is anticipated that IPv6 will be included in the SLA in 2006/07.

The Group welcomed the paper on connection reliability produced by UKERNA and will discuss it further by email. Mike Whitehead will co-ordinate a response.

Action: Mike Whitehead

6. UKERNA issue

6.1 Multicast

Steve Percival reported that Henry Hughes' paper was not yet complete so that it would be better for him to attend a future Group meeting. Henry was also intending to arrange a hands on multicast workshop that would include MANs.

John Linn reported that 14 MANs had active multicast, 5 were in progress and one had no specific plans.

6.2 Sponsored connections

Steve Percival reported that UKERNA was planning to charge for sponsored connection bandwidth based on the 90th percentile of 5 minute averages. The bandwidth would be agreed once a year. This was similar to the charging model for the Internet transit bandwidth purchased by UKERNA. UKERNA would be using netflow technology, which would be implemented in 2005. In the meantime an estimate agreed with the MAN would be used. It was suggested that UKERNA could provide itemisation at the individual sponsored connection level to assist allocation of the costs within the MAN.

Mick Kahn and Ian Griffiths will continue to develop the model with Steve Percival and suggest ways in which the costs can be allocated within a MAN. Sponsoring institutions should notify the sponsored sites by the end of February.

Action: Mick Kahn and Ian Griffiths

The Group agreed that the list of all sponsored connections could be shared with all MANs. Steve Percival will circulate this.

Action: Steve Percival

6.3 Audit programme

CANLMAN and SW MAN reported that they would be audited in February 2004. The audits are focussing on governance.

6.4 SuperJANET 5

Steve Percival reported that UKERNA had only received 11 long-term funding profiles so far and requested that the remaining MANs provide the information as soon as possible.

6.5 SWERN connection to HP Labs

Steve Percival reported that the question of HP Labs connection to SWERN related to the statements on the UKERNA web site (http://www.ja.net/development/e-Science/index.html). This does not commit UKERNA to any specific option and if a MAN were used, then the MAN costs would be covered.

6.6 Connection to ISPs

Steve Percival reported that UKERNA did not plan to offer peering with MAN connections that used other ISPs for their general Internet connectivity as the MAN access links were not sized for this.

6.7 Public holidays

Roger Williams had identified a lack of clarity regarding the definition of public holidays. The SLA Subgroup and Steve Percival will take this up.

Action: John Linn, Paul Kentish and Steve Percival

6.8 ACL connections

Steve Percival reported that the programme to connect English Adult and Community Learning (ACL) providers in local authorities was progressing slowly. Approximately 20 LAs had signed up and 5 or 6 lines were on order. They would be provided with a 4Mbps JANET primary connection, usually delivered over 10Mbps or 34Mbps to allow for future upgrades.

In a number of cases there were complications as the ACL provision was closely associated with LEA provision. In these cases the RBC needs to be consulted.

6.9 FE upgrades

Steve Percival reported that the LSC were expected to fund the upgrade of all English FECs to 4Mbps. Where there was a demonstrable need (probably where there is 15% average line loading) then 10Mbps would be provided. It was anticipated that 50 to 60 FECs in total would qualify for 10Mbps. He was exploring costings with MANs with the objective of using 10Mbps circuits where possible to allow for future upgrade. Implementation will not begin before April.

6.10 Payment profiles

Steve Percival requested that the remaining MANs submit their payment profiles as soon as possible. Otherwise the default profile of two equal 6 monthly payments will be used.

7. Dates of future meetings

The next meeting of the Group will be on Wednesday 28 April 2004 in London. The following meeting is provisionally arranged for Monday 5 July 2004 in North Wales.

8. Any other business

The Group thanked Denis Russell for his involvement with the Group over the years and wished him reasonable luck in his new job as MANs Development Co-ordinator at UKERNA.

9. News from MANs

The following news from MANs was received for inclusion in the minutes.

London Metropolitan Network

An on-line off-site backup and restore pilot with a commercial partner is progressing well.

Plans for are being developed for a second connection to JANET, which anticipates the resilience plans of SuperJANET 5.

The staff development programme is proving to be very popular with most events fully booked. Eight events are planned for the current academic year.

LMN launched a new image at its AGM on Tuesday 20 January 2004 and a new version of the web site can be seen at http://www.lmn.net.uk

WNL (running the SWMAN)

We have been included in the second round of the RPAN audit process.

In my report for the last meeting I said that UKERNA were being very understanding over our consistent failure to meet SL2. They must have seen our minutes because they are now putting the squeeze on us to improve. They have sent us their analysis of our worst performing links and asked how we are going to improve.

LeNSE

No significant news from LeNSE since the last meeting. We are in the process of connecting some additional specialist colleges and other organisations to the network over the next couple of months. We have not yet enabled any QoS configuration in the core network but have started liaison with Cisco and SSE Telecom concerning the possible enabling of IPv6 for Southampton University.