Life Cycle and Portfolio
Management

BoF at TNC2005 - 5 June 2005

The agenda was as follows:

  1. Opening with short introduction
  2. Presentation of the participants
  3. Events and lessons learned so far
  4. Discussion on long-list of potential work-items
  5. Discussion on terms of reference of the taskforce
  6. Meeting schedule (time and place Q3 meeting)
  7. Choosing a presidium for the group

The business of the meeting took place as follows:

  1. The LCPM BoF and concept was briefly introduced by Pekka.
  2. Introduction of those present took place. (Pekka has the full attendance sheet)
  3. Events and lessons learned.

A summary of LCPM events was given.

An important lesson was to make contact with the right people in each NREN. Attendees were also asked to communicate with others in their organisations who may have responsibility in this area.

Discussion of 'long-list' of potential work items took place:

(See the long list for full details).

Comparison of service portfolio

Urs/SWITCH - The GRID community expects same service all over the EU. Although they have an assumption of shared service portfolios throughout the NREN community, actual portfolio development is different.

Eduroam was highlighted as a shared service. The ESA was identified as another organisation looking for unified service definitions.

Sandra/SURFnet - There are differences in NREN approaches to services - some deal with end users, some with institutions, some with regional networks.

Tomi/ARNES - We should find out about other NREN services to see if co-operation is possible. e.g. videoconferencing. A portal/directory of NREN services could be compiled using the Terena Compendium as basis.

Walter/SURFnet - Is it a good idea to look at the idea of co-management of services? Work together.

Urs/SWITCH - Engineers don't ask 'make or buy' enough. Those decisions made elsewhere. An advantage for SWITCH is if you don't buy in a service, you can know it well and teach it.

Pekka/Funet: Having a service definition made Funet realise they did a lot of campus consultancy. This highlighted it as an important added-value service, so protected it.

The BoF agreed that categorising different services will make it easier and more useful to compare them.

Comparison of business models

GARR - NRENs tend to associate service portfolio as a commercial business term. The traditional model is to offer all services to all users. Schools are a new type of user, so will need a different model.

Urs/SWITCH - NRENs are less different to business than we think.

DFN - Funding models for NRENs all different.

Tomi/ARNES - NRENs increasingly have to prove we are better than commercial entities. NRENs are also experiencing scope creep of services. Maybe worth segregating services for different user types.

Esther/RedIRIS - know-how is an important added value compared to commercials. Also some services are not provided by commercials. NRENs also have international co-operation as an important differentiator.

Urs/SWITCH - It is useful to compare business models between NRENs and to commercials.

Dale/DANTE - How sensitive are customers to price changes? Commercial market can take some customers from NRENs.

Pekka/Funet - Purchasing laws may require places to get the cheapest. NRENs need to respond to this by highlighting added services.

Comparison of Service Level Agreements

Urs/SWITCH - SWITCH currently have a detailed internal SLA. SLAs vary in different environments. If clients don't pay it may be easier to be flexible on promises.

Walter/SURFnet - Services are becoming increasingly mission critical. Scheduled maintenance, etc. should be considered in SLAs.

GARR - New, low bandwidth users are looking for SLAs. Bigger, established users don't as they own the network.

Urs/SWITCH - New services for existing clients are also an area where SLAs are requested. There can also be time-specific requirements for when service must be protected.

GARR - Various tools are available for SLA management. GARR have used their ticketing system for this. Comparison of SLA management tools could be useful.

Exchange of new working areas

Urs/SWITCH - There is a tendency to jump directly from technology to service without structured analysis.

Pekka/Funet - There is a need to control commitments in order to be able to fulfil them.

Dale/DANTE - NRENs should not completely drop the blue-sky technology aspect as it is an important differentiator.

GARR - Ownership structures of NRENs can have an effect on which new areas are worked on.

Tools for decision making

GARR - GARR had experience of shutting down supporting a news (nntp) service. This was a long and difficult decision affecting a small number of users. When the service was cut down, no feedback was received.

Urs/SWITCH - Services change over a lifetime. Shutdown is only one type of change and can involve many factors.

Walter/SURFnet - Defining a threshold for cutting a service is an important task. NRENs could co-operate to deliver minority services.

GARR - .eu registration is perhaps suitable for this approach.

Urs/SWITCH - Switch looked at VoIP as a possible service. In their model, at a particular decision point they decided not to implement this at that time.

Walter/SURFnet - It is necessary to ask how and why to carry through services. You need many stop/go points. Customers said 'no' on VoIP initially, may say yes again.

Tools for customer communication, comparison.

GARR - Standardised surveys for customers could be useful. Considerable overlap with TF-PR was noted by all here.

Discussion on terms of reference of the taskforce:

Based on the discussions from the long list, it was decided to reduce the number of areas down to five:

  • Comparison of NREN service portfolios
  • Comparison of business models
  • Comparison of service level agreements
  • Exchange of ideas on delivering services
  • Development of LCPM decision-making models and tools

Attendees were invited to volunteer to work on deliverables in these areas.

The following volunteered in each area:

Area 1: Comparison of NREN service portfolios
Coordinator: Urs Eppenberger (SWITCH)
Expressed interest: Tomi Dolenc (ARNES)
Koen Schelkens (BELNET)
Ann Harding (HEAnet)


Area 2: Comparison of business models
Coordinator: Dale Robertson (DANTE)
Expressed interest: Zbigniew Krzewinski (PSNC)
Ann Harding (HEAnet)
Walter van Dijk (SURFnet)


Area 3: Comparison of service level agreements
Coordinator: Ann Harding (HEAnet)
Expressed interest: Tarmo Ainsaar (EENet)
Tomi Dolenc (ARNES)
Magnus Stromdal (UNINETT)
Dale Robertson (DANTE)
Eva Kassenaar (SURFnet)


Area 4: Exchange of ideas on delivering services
Coordinator: Magnus Stromdal (UNINETT)
Expressed interest: Pekka Linna (Funet/CSC)
Urs Eppenberger (SWITCH)
Guido Aben (SURFnet)


Area 5: Development of LCPM decision-making models and tools
Coordinator: Walter van Dijk (SURFnet)
Expressed interest: David Simonsen (UNI-C)
Tarmo Ainsaar (EENet)
Pekka Linna (Funet/CSC)


Out of those who express interest, a core set of people will act on deliverables and the wider audience will continue to contribute and share information. The work of identifying concrete deliverables would begin in Q3 2005.

Next Meeting:

Pekka/Funet highlighted the current links with TF-PR as a possible scheduling factor.
Co-located meetings were proposed.
It was decided a kick-off meeting was best not co-located as there is a need to develop a group identity first.
Later it may be possible to alternate co-located with standalones?
The next meeting was to be scheduled in the autumn in Amsterdam.

Choosing a presidium:

Walter and Urs confirmed they have time to commit as co-chairs. Pekka is taking a sabbatical. Ann was to confirm availability.