UK MANs Group

Notes of meeting held Tuesday 22 June 1999 at ULCC.

1. Administration

The following were present

Apologies were received from

In Dave Vinograd’s absence, Mick Kahn chaired the meeting.

Peter Kemp was attending as Chair of the JISC MAN Management Guidelines Working Group, but was also representing EaStMAN, so stayed for the whole meeting.

It was agreed that terms of reference and notes of the meetings (which were effectively public documents once approved) should be placed on the web. Mick Kahn agreed to make an area available on the London MAN website.

Action: Mick Kahn

2. Notes of previous meeting

There were no further corrections to the notes of the previous meeting and no matters arising that were not covered by other items on the agenda.

3. Licencing

Mick Kahn had investigated the PTO licence, but there wasn’t either a single licence or single price. The term minor PTO licence appeared to apply to a regional network without code powers. Some information was available between the Oftel and DTI web sites, but was difficult to locate. He would circulate some pointers.

Action: Mick Kahn

Phil Brady reported that he had made contact with Simon Moseley at the DTI who was now dealing with the matter. However, no action from the DTI was likely in the near future as they were busy reissuing PTO licences. A response to John Arbuthnot’s letter to the DTI had been received by the JISC after an 18 month delay, recognising the problems of the academic community and stating that there would be no enforcement.

Phil Brady was drafting letter to the DTI that would indicate the range of varieties of situations covered by MANs including:

• single organisation or consortium
• different technologies
• light or dark fibre
• different sources
• different communities
• more than 20 sites
• for own benefit
• regional scope

Action: Phil Brady

The related actions on the whole Group and Dave Vinograd were now superseded.

4. Further Education

Discussions on the FEFC joining JISC and the FE Colleges in England connecting to JANET were continuing, but no decisions had yet been made. DENI were also interesting in joining the plans. The education structure in Scotland was changing. If the plans go ahead, it was expected that 80% of FE colleges would be connected to JANET by mid 2001 or April 2002. Connection to JANET will be via MANs, but it was noted that some FE colleges were grouping themselves into consortia, which might have a single connection to a MAN.

Support centres would be provided, based at FE colleges or associated with MANs. There might also be regional centres to support curriculum development. Other issues discussed were representation of FE colleges in MAN management arrangements, the varying levels of support expertise in FE colleges and the requirements of FE colleges for support during evenings and weekends when teaching also takes place.

A proposal for National Education Peering Points had been raised by Andy McLeod. A paper from Edex was mentioned. Mick Kahn would circulate the URL.

Action: Mick Kahn

5. Public Libraries

Mick Kahn reported that Chris Batt, currently Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon, had been appointed as the Library and Information Commission’s Chief Network Advisor. It was agreed to invite him to the next meeting to discuss the role of MANs in the New Library Network (NLN). It might be necessary to organise something in advance of the next scheduled date, depending on the timescale for the implementation of the NLN.

Action: Mick Kahn

Mick Kahn reported that a London Learning Network Group had been established involving the HE, FE, public library, museums & galleries and archives sectors to look at opportunities for collaboration on lifelong learning initiatives. The London MAN provided an obvious infrastructure for such collaboration.

Colin Tennant reported that the Government Office, West Midlands was interested in connecting Health trusts and libraries to MidMAN.

6. NHSNet

Ed Carter reported a SCONUL seminar that had recently taken place at Leeds. He tabled copies of slides from his presentation on activities in Leeds. The project had been driven by the hospital trusts and currently provided access to University services for University staff at hospital sites, using dual boot machines. The project had been very successful and collaboration was expected to continue to grow. The project had begun at the technical level and deliberately taken slowly, starting with building up trust. The incremental approach had been vital.

It appeared that NHSNet was becoming more open to collaboration.

7. JISC Working Group

The JISC had established a Working Group, chaired by Peter Kemp to produce guidelines for the Management of MANs. An interim report would be produced in the Autumn and a final report by Easter 2000, following consultation with the community.

A list of issues for the Working Group was discussed and the following points were raised:

• Technical interworking
• The MAP/PoP contracts would be reviewed
• MANs needed to know the full cost implications of the SuperJANET IV procurement
• If the MAN (rather than HEIs) have sponsored connections, how will international charges be organised?
• Should there be one MAN per region?

The Working Group would work in a collaboration with the MANs and the common membership should ensure good feedback to the UK MANs Group.

8. News from MANs

The South Wales MAN had merged its technical and applications groups into a development group to look after projects. This would involve heads of learning and teaching. A news server, including local groups, a web server had been provided for the MAN. A new DNS name was being registered. Video conferencing was being tried on a small scale using H.323 and H.320.

Some East Midlands MAN ducts were having to be moved to 1.2m below new tram lines, which was causing complications as the MAN was not a utility. The fact that the MAN had evolved rather than being set up at one time presented organisational problems, such as varying contract renewal dates.

NorMAN was bedding down and learning about failure modes of microwave and rodent damage! 3 hospitals were connected with more planned.

The Kent MAN had selected a microwave supplier and was negotiating details. The network would be a triangle at 155Mbps.

MidMAN reported the interest of the Government Office, Midlands and that Telewest had bought Birmingham Cable.

BWE were renegotiating the infrastructure contracts.

In Scotland, the MAN interconnect IP resilience was now live, but PNNI would be required for resilience of the video conferencing.

YHMAN was a figure of eight, which provided resilience, but left Leeds as a single point of failure. Plans were being developed for a fallback connection to SuperJANET from Leeds Metropolitan University. Two FE college consortia in the region were connected. The third connected with frame relay and SMDS. There had been some contact with schools.

The South East Consortium was awaiting approval from HEFCE to proceed. The network would involve Guildford, Southampton and Brighton. Reading had left for political reasons.

9. Dates of Future Meetings

The May 1999 date proposed by email would clash with a UCISA meeting.

The following dates were agreed for future meetings:

Tuesday 9 November 1999

Tuesday 8 February 2000

Tuesday 16 May 2000

Mick Kahn will discuss with Scott Currie the option holding a future meeting in Edinburgh

Action: Mick Kahn

Mick Kahn had not yet establish contact with SohoNet, but would do so with a view to inviting them to make a presentation to a future meeting when a slot was available.

Action: Mick Kahn

10. Any Other Business

Peter Kemp reported that the HEFCE MAN Initiative evaluation panel meeting for the following day had been postponed, which meant that the next HEFCE meeting was likely to be missed. He hoped that Chair’s action would be taken.