Network Nebraska Meeting Notes

http://nitc.nebraska.gov/NNAG/meetings/

Nov 20, 2013 - 1-3PM CT (Video Conference)

Video Conference (164.119.46.1##5300)

1. John Stritt and Debbie Schroeder called the meeting to order at 1:03pm CT, and then welcomed the NNAG members to the meeting. John conducted the Roll Call and Introductions and asked if there were any Agenda Additions or visitors present. As members introduced themselves, John asked that each member give a “shout out” and/or get well wishes for John Dunning, Wayne State College, as he is still recovering from his injuries caused by the October 5, 2013 Wayne, Nebraska tornado. This portion of the videoconference would be recorded and a link sent to John Dunning for viewing.

A) 12 members present

a. John Stritt, ESU 10 (ESU 10 site)

b. Rob Hanger, District OR1-Palmyra/Bennet (Audio Only)

c. Scott Jones, ESU 16 (ESU 16 site)

d. Mike Danahy, ESU 2 (ESU 3 site)

e. Michael Ruhrdanz, UNL (Lincoln-Nebraska Hall site)

f. Debbie Schroeder, UNK (ESU 10 site)

g. Gene Beardslee, Peru State College (PSC site)

h. Nick Muir (alt for John Dunning), Wayne State College (WSC site)

i. Chris Vaverek, Creighton University (CU site)

j. Mike Carpenter, Doane College (Lincoln-Varner Hall site)

k. Lyle Neal, Southeast Community College (SCC-Milford site)

l. Tom Peters, Central Community College (ESU 10 site)

B) 4 Members Absent

a. Caroline Winchester, Chadron Public Schools

b. Betty Getzfred, Pope John XXIII-Elgin

c. Kirk Langer, Lincoln Public Schools

d. Bob Uhing, ESU 1

C) 6 Liaisons Present

a. Walter Weir, UNCSN (Lincoln-Varner Hall site)

b. Leona Roach, UNCSN (Lincoln-Nebraska Hall site)

c. Greg Gray, UNCSN (Lincoln-Nebraska Hall site)

d. Tom Rolfes, OCIO/NITC (Lincoln-Varner Hall site)

e. Brad Weakly, UNCSN (Audio Only from ESU 17)

f. Ben Mientka, UNCSN (Audio Only from ESU 17)

D) 3 Guests Present

a. Matt Blomstedt (ESU 3 site)

b. Scott Isaacson (ESU 3 site)

c. Greg Gray (Lincoln-Nebraska Hall site)

2. September Meeting Notes (http://nitc.nebraska.gov/NNAG/meetings/index.html)

A) John Stritt reviewed the meeting notes from the 9/18/2013 NNAG meeting.

3. NNAG Committee Update (Deb Schroeder)

A) Deb Schroeder updated the CAP group on John Dunning’s recovery and also welcomed Chris Vaverek from Creighton University to his first full meeting.

4. Liaison Reports impacting NNAG discussion

A) CAP Meeting Review—Tom Rolfes provided an update from the November 13 CAP meeting, which included presentations by the Zayo Group, discussion of the upcoming RFP, and backbone options for 2014-2016. Tom mentioned that appendix data is needed ASAP on any circuits bid on behalf of K-12 and higher education.

B) Legislative updates—Tom Rolfes reported that the Appropriations Committee’s LR 199 study is continuing, to determine the financial requirements of a digital/virtual statewide education system. Interviews were held with the University of Nebraska, NET, ESUCC, and NDE. The LB 497 study of the Education Improvement (lottery) Fund will not be completed until Summer 2014 by the Education Committee.

5. Committee Reports (Committee Reports were moved up in the agenda to accommodate a 2:00pm CT videoconferencing start with Utah Education Network.)

A) Governance (Co-Chairs Deb Schroeder and John Stritt)

a. NN Membership Guidelines/Participation Profile (i.e. Grand Island Public Library) – Co-Chair Stritt asked for volunteers to serve on an ad hoc committee to bring forward recommendations at the January 15 meeting to define criteria for Participation, Fees, and a possible tiered approach to services and/or participation. Volunteers included: Rick Golden, Scott Jones, Mike Carpenter, Tom Peters, Chris Vaverek, John Stritt, Tom Rolfes.

b. NNAG Membership (John Stritt, Deb Schroeder)—Tom Rolfes reported that Network Nebraska-Education could receive as many as 14-28 new members on 7/1/2014 due to schools in the southeast region joining.

c. Budget (Deb Schroeder, Scott Jones, Tom Peters, Ron Cone, Tom Rolfes – Co-Chair Schroeder reported that the Budget Subcommittee will become more involved as the 2014-15 budgets start taking shape. Tom Rolfes added that the additional new members will temporarily require a build out of the backbone aggregation circuits, which could mean slightly higher costs for Interregional Transport for our Participants, but that the Participation Fee could decrease by a like amount, due to the additional members being added.

d. Memorandum of Agreement - N2a Action Item (John Stritt, Deb Schroeder)—Co-Chair Schroeder reminded the NNAG members that the Network Nebraska-Education MoAs are due to the CIO’s Office. She informed the group that a digital copy of the MoA exists on the NN-E Document Archive and that any proposals for amendments or any notice of termination are due prior to January 1 of each year, and that the MoA automatically renews on January 1: http://www.nitc.nebraska.gov/nnag/documents.html Tom Rolfes added that fewer than six returning Participants’ MoAs have not yet been submitted, but that 15 new ones are arriving from the prospective new members. Co-Chair Schroeder requested that the Office of the CIO send a courtesy reminder of the MoA amendment timeline and the link to the digital document.

e. Collaboration with outside groups - e.g. PSC, legislature (SuAnn Witt)—No Report.

f. Ed Council Action Items—Tom Rolfes reported that the Network Nebraska and Digital Education action items have been updated and will be presented to the NITC Commissioners at their December 10 meeting for inclusion in the Statewide Technology Plan.

B) Emerging Technologies (John Dunning & Mike Danahy)

a. Identity Management & InCommon Pilot Project - (Mike Danahy, Scott Isaacson, Wade Gibson, Jeff Wooters)—Mike Danahy and Scott Isaacson reported that the October 21-22 Shibboleth Training at UNO was well-attended by K-12 and higher education, and that the national Internet2 InCommon pilot project was progressing well for the ESUCC. Walter Weir added that Bret Bieber of UNCSN is an additional resource, and that Greg Gray has been attending the Pilot Project meetings. The team continues to hold conference calls every other week with the 7 other pilot projects’ staff.

b. Caching Server - (Brad)—No update.

c. Firewalls/Gatekeepers (Mike Danahy)—Mike Danahy reported that he would like to get the ESU Distance Learning Coordinators involved more with videoconferencing gatekeepers. Brad Weakly and Ben Mientka reported that the Fortinet Unified IPS devices are about to go live. Training was held on November 19 at ESU 17 in Ainsworth but more training will be provided, if requested. The goal is to reduce the number of head-end gear to 1-2 devices.

d. IPv6 - New4f Action Item—Mike Danahy reported that there were no new developments with IPv6 but that after John Dunning returns to work, it would be prudent for a multi-agency group to begin meeting to discuss the eventual implementation.

e. Classroom Flipping, BYOD—No update.

f. Big Data Transport—Brad Weakly reported that the UNCSN dark fiber IRU project to Grand Island and Kearney is progressing and should be able to be turned up sometime during 2014.

C) NN Application Services - N4b Action Item & N4e Action Item (Bob Uhing, Mike Carpenter, Kirk Langer)

a. BlendEd (Bob Uhing)—Matt Blomstedt shared that the BlendEd Initiative is progressing with many moving parts. When asked whether BlendEd could benefit higher education, Matt responded that it should be looked upon as a PreK-20 Initiative, with many benefits for single-sign-on and longitudinal student data tracking.

b. Intrusion Prevention Services (Brad Weakly, Ben Mientka)—Brad and Ben provided the IPS update under Firewalls/Gatekeepers.

c. Internet2/Commodity Peering (Mike Ruhrdanz)—Tom Rolfes read Mike Ruhrdanz’s report as he had to leave the meeting early: “The 10Gbps CPS connection to Kansas City is live, and the circuit is ready to take traffic.  Network Nebraska should be in the process of setting up the necessary routing. GPN (the Great Plains Network – our regional Internet2 connection point) has changed how their 40Gbps of CPS traffic is allocated, and I have contracted 10Gb for UNL. Network Nebraska has previously estimated that 3-5Gbps is likely what will be needed, and that will not be a problem. While it is still possible for another state to take more than their fair share (impacting the service of others), they would be required to reduce their traffic so that everyone else is able to get their contracted amount. While CPS provides inexpensive network capacity to the most popular service providers in the country, the main benefit is that the pipes are larger, with fewer network hops, so CPS should provide the best performance possible to these service providers.”

d. Traffic Shaping—Ben Mientka reported that the traffic shaper appliances for Lincoln and Omaha are deployed and functional.

e. Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery—No report.

f. Shared Services—No report.

D) Marketing - N4d Action Item (Chair: John Stritt - SuAnn Witt)

a. NN Web site - http://www.nitc.nebraska.gov/nnag/ (John Stritt, Tom Rolfes) –Tom Rolfes reported that the Network Nebraska-Education website is awaiting a ‘go ahead' from the OCIO web development team to start the site rendering.

b. Survey - 4c Action Item (Lyle Neal, Caroline Winchester)—John Stritt asked about the Network Nebraska marketing survey timeline. Tom Rolfes reported that the survey would normally be posted from early to mid-December and then data compiled and analyzed after the first of the year. Since the 2011 survey included shared services questions, Tom was not sure that the survey needed to be repeated in 2013.

6. Presentation by Utah Education Network (UEN)

Utah Education Network—Department of Technology Services

John Stritt introduced Louie Valles and James Hodges from the UEN to present information about the Utah Education Network to the NNAG members via videoconference. Members of the ESU-NOC and ESU-Distance Education Advisory Committee were also invited to view the presentation. Tom Rolfes took the liberty of compiling, comparing and contrasting the UEN information with Network Nebraska-Education and the January presentation by MOREnet using the following table:

Characteristic	Utah Education Network (UEN)	Network Nebraska-Education (NN-E)	Missouri Research and Education Network (MOREnet)
Governance	11-member board appointed by the Governor	16-member advisory group selected by the participant subsectors	15-member council selected by the participant subsectors
Business Model	Division of the University of Utah	Project of the State Office of the CIO, assisted by the University of Nebraska	Division of the University of Missouri
Website	www.uen.org	www.networknebraska.net	www.more.net
Inception	1983, by Gubernatorial decree	2006, as tasked by the Nebraska Legislature	1991, by higher education MoA
FTE Employees	100+ FTE	4.25 equivalent FTE
Annual Budget & Revenue Source	$33 million, State of Utah	$1.2 million, Participant self-funded	$24 million, Participant self-funded
E-rate Applications	Backbone, Internet, WAN circuits	Backbone, Internet
Annual E-rate Reimbursement	$11.5 million	$275,000 (2013-14)
Backbone Capacity	10Gbps fully redundant	2Gbps/10Gbps partially redundant	10Gbps
Backbone Infrastructure	Leased and IRU dark fiber	Leased and IRU dark fiber
Backbone Annual cost	?	$168,000 (2013-14)
Participation	24 school districts, all higher education, State government, museums	223 school districts, 16 ESUs, 19 higher education, 3 private schools, 1 public library	509 school districts, 64 higher education, 134 libraries, telehealth, 1 state agency, affiliates
Internet	13.1 Gbps (2012-13)	10.7 Gbps (2013-14)	20.3 Gbps (2012-13)
Technical Support	Centralized; 1-800-863-3496	Distributed; 1-888-NET-NEBR	Centralized; 1-800-509-6673
MCU Bridge Services	Centralized	Centralized & Distributed
Public Television in Organizational Structure?	Yes	No
Internet2 SEGP?	Yes	Yes	Yes
Distance Learning Services?	Videoconferencing, learning management system, digital content repository	Videoconferencing, digital content repository

John Stritt submitted additional questions by e-mail to the UEN staff for later follow-up:

• What is your bandwidth connection from your school to the UEN backbone?
• Do all sites have the same bandwidth connection?
• Do sites aggregate and then have a single connection to the backbone or does each site independently connect directly to the backbone?
• What if any costs does your school districts share in their network connection and appliances on that network?
• Do schools pay the part of transport not covered by erate or does the state pay that cost?
• In an earlier conversation I shared that Zayo provided dark fiber for UEN.  You were not aware of that but you were going to check.  Who does provide your backbone?
• Do schools choose and pay for the type of video conferencing technology they wish to use?
• Questions about your K12 video conferencing offerings:
• As many of the classes are college classes do school or students pay the tuition to community or state colleges?
• Do you have any statistical information on how many students take classes?  The growth or decline of courses taken in each area?
• Video conferencing
• Teleconferencing (A couple of colleges do record everything so this concept might work.  Really a blended approach of using online for support of the class while using video to present lessons)
• On line classes

7. Other committee Reports:

• Community College (Tom Peters and Lyle Neal)—Tom Peters reported that the July CC CTO meeting held at Grand Island went very well and that the community colleges have considered broadening the invitee list to other sectors. Central Community College, Northeast Community College, and Wayne State College are considering bidding for an alternate connection to each other and Network Nebraska.

• State College (Gene Beardslee)—No report.

• Private College (Mike Carpenter)—Mike Carpenter reported that the independent colleges were looking at using Network Nebraska for their disaster recovery services and are also interested in network security audits as a contracted service, either bid or arranged through Network Nebraska staff. Chris Vaverek said that he would check with his CU Security Officer, Brian McClaughlin about these services.

• ESUCC (Bob Uhing)—Matt Blomstedt reported that the BlendEd Initiative is progressing, and that several ESU staff were interviewed by the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee staff about L.R. 199—Interim study to acquire additional information, including financial requirements, regarding the state's efforts to establish a statewide virtual/digital educational system. Staff from the University of Nebraska, NET, and NDE were also interviewed.

• DEC (Scott Jones)—Scott Jones reported that the DEAC was meeting on this same day to discuss issues such as a reframing of the incentive program started by LB 1208.

• NOC (Mike Danahy)—Mike Danahy added that the InCommon pilot project was a “big deal” nationally and that Illinois and Nebraska seem to be taking the lead when it comes to K-12. An update is available from the http://concept.esu2.org website (keep drilling down), and the NU Federation blog, http://federation.unl.edu .

8. Consider - What are other states doing in support of statewide educational networks? MOREnet – Suggested for the January 15 Meeting

9. Next regular meeting - Wednesday, January 15 - 9:00-11:00AM by videoconferencing

A) Suggested Agenda Items for 1/15/2014:

a. Security audits as a NN-E service

b. BlendEd Update

c. Membership Profiles and Tiered Services & Costs (Subcommittee Report)

B) Recommended face-to-face meeting for 3/19/2014, 1-3pm, if possible, for those who could drive to Lincoln.

10. John Stritt asked for a motion to adjourn. All were in favor. The meeting was adjourned at 3:05pm CT.

Meeting notes were recorded by Tom Rolfes, Office of the CIO/NITC, and reviewed by Co-Chairs John Stritt and Debbie Schroeder.