Educause 2010 Network Management Discussion Session
Meeting Minutes

Thursday, October 14, 2010 4:30-5:30PM
Orange County Ballroom Salon 1
Ground Level, Mariott Hotel

Since its inception in 1997, this group has discussed a wide range of
topics relevant to network managers including network convergence,
bandwidth management, management systems, security, wireless
technologies, and support. This gathering will allow network managers
to share ideas about their current professional challenges and new or
emerging technologies with other networking experts from a wide
variety of institutional backgrounds.

http://www.educause.edu/E2010/Program/DISC54


Attendee Count: 25 participants


Activity Notes:

We followed Charles' standard "What have you been up to" round-table
discussion, noting who's doing what.  Counts came in as follows.

Wifi Upgrades/802.11N/DAS/Security/Mesh (14)
NAC/802.1x/Clean Access (11)
Virtual/VDI (9)
LAN/10G (6)
Firewall/Security/PCI (4)
Voice (3)
Fiber builds (2)
WAN/Bandiwdth (2)
Monitoring (2)
DHCP/InfoBlox (2)
Shaping (1)
Data Center (1)
Video (1)

No surprise to see Wireless and Network Access Control to be on the
top of the list.  Interesting to see VDI and 10G.


Discussion:

* Expansion of Constituent Group leaders

Pete Hoffswell (Davenport University) and Brian Paige (Oakland
University) have answered Charles Hollingsworth's call for group
leader volunteers.  Pete and Brian duplicated the NETMAN CG roundtable
at the Educause Midwest Regional Conference 2009 with great success,
and look forward to supporting NETMAN.


* Are there other preferred communication methods than the mail list,
like Social Networking?

The NETMAN email list is still the preferred method to communicate.
We will continue to put feelers out there, to see if other social
networking applications may be of interest.

There was discussion about making the NETMAN list private.  We are
thinking that this might not be possible within the Educause CG list
format.

There was also the normal discussion as to how to control vendors that
participate on the list.  We discussed some issues they dealt with on
the CIO CG list, and will be sure to monitor NETMAN closely for any
abuses.

There was mention of the idea of a monthly conference call to provide
another opportunity for Network Managers to collaborate.  We will
consider asking NETMAN if they would be interested in that.


* Regional Conference update and opportunities?

Brian Paige and Pete Hoffswell mentioned the success of regional CG
meetings held at Midwest and South East.  They suggested that other CG
members step up and do the same thing for other regional conferences.
Pete and Brian will nudge NETMAN for volunteers as well.

The 2011 regional Conferences are:
MARC/Baltimore (Jan 13),
WSWRC/Austin (Feb 23),
MWRC/Chicago (March 15),
and SERC/Charlotte (June 2)

If you are planning on attending a MARC or WSWRC, and are interested
in leading a NETMAN discussion session please email
pete.hoffswell@davenport.edu


* Feedback on Educause – what are some ways that Educause better serve
network managers

It was a general consensus that having the meeting earlier in the day
would be better.

There was good end-meeting discussion regarding Educause programming,
and how it relates (or does not relate) to Network Mangers.  In recent
years, there has been less programming relating to the technical
aspects of network design, deployment and operations.  Other
conferences exist (NANOG, Cisco LIVE, Internet 2), but travel funds
are limited.  We hope to continue a dialogue regarding opportunities
for Network Managers to learn.

Educause national and regional conferences, of course, do remain a
value to network managers, as they provide insight into the business
of education, operations, and learning technologies.


Submitted respectfully on behalf of the Network Management Constituent
Group Leaders:

Pete Hoffswell, Network Manager, Davenport University,
pete.hoffswell@davenport.edu
Charles Wayne Hollingsworth, Manager, IT Architectural Planning,
Georgia State University, chollingsworth@gsu.edu
Brian Paige, Executive Director, Networking and Technology, Oakland
University, paige@oakland.edu

-
Pete Hoffswell - Network Manager
pete.hoffswell@davenport.edu
http://www.davenport.edu
616-732-1101