Today, a new website was launched for the TERENA Networking Conference, at http://tnc2008.terena.org.

The new website was designed to allow easier and more intuitive navigation and has a new look, featuring the uniqueness of the Conference location and the richness of the Conference programme.

Users should learn about the implications of sharing personal data, alongside their other studies, agreed participants at a recent EuroCAMP workshop, held in Stockholm in Sweden last week, 7-8 May.

The event was the latest in a series of Campus Architecture Middleware Planning (CAMP) workshops for representatives from university campuses across Europe. Almost 50 participants from more than 20 campuses and national research networking organisations attended.

The EARNEST Summary Report will be distributed to participants at the 2008 TERENA Networking Conference (TNC) next week, from 19-22 May in Bruges (Brugge), Belgium. Copies of seven sub-study reports will also be available at the event.

The goal of the Education And Research Networking Evolution Study (EARNEST) was to provide input for initiatives that could keep European research networking at the forefront of world-wide developments and enhance the competitiveness of the European Research Area.

TERENA is gearing up to make training available across Europe for institutions wishing to install an eduroam® infrastructure at their site.

To enable this, under the GN2 Project, the Training Activity is working with the people responsible for the development of eduroam® to create structured training materials and an associated course open to existing administrators who wish to become ‘Approved eduroam Trainers’. The subsequent courses that the Approved Trainers will then be equipped to run, will be tailored to the local situation.

GLIF, the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, announces the availability of a new world map that showcases its advanced research and education multi-gigabit optical network infrastructure.

The infrastructure has grown since the previous map was created a little more than two years ago, with participation from more national research and education networks, countries, consortia, institutions and individual research initiatives, on more continents.

The first meeting of the new TERENA Task Force on Storage took place last week, 8 April 2008. Almost 30 participants attended the event, in Espoo, Finland, which was co-located with the NORDUnet 2008 conference.

This first TF-Storage meeting continued and extended discussions that began in 2007, during TERENA-organised workshops exploring opportunities and areas for collaboration on data storage services among national research and education networks. Jan Meijer (UNINETT), who chairs the new task force, briefly summarised the previous meetings and reviewed the task force’s main objectives.

The final deadlines are approaching for the TERENA Networking Conference 2008 (TNC 2008) registration, gratis student registration and poster presentation submissions. Proposals for poster presentations can be submitted up to and including 20 April. Advance conference registration is possible until 5 May, which is also the deadline for students to register free of charge.

TNC 2008, which takes place in Bruges (Brugge), Belgium, from 19-22 May, takes 'Beyond Connectivity' as its theme.

Members of the research and education networking community presented key findings of the EARNEST foresight study to Members of the European Parliament last week, 2 April. They highlighted successes within European research networking but also emphasised issues with policy implications.

"Computer networks for research and education: A European success story - new challenges for policy makers" was the workshop organised as part of the EARNEST (Education And Research Networking Evolution Study) activity.

A newly improved website for the eduroam® wireless roaming service was launched this week, 27 March. The upgraded website includes an interactive map showing where eduroam is available, plus a 'cookbook' explaining how to install the system.

The website make-over began after eduroam's European 'confederation level' was included in the GN2 project, in September 2007: countries participating in the 'eduroam confederation' cooperate on infrastructure and policies, which allow members of the research and education community to obtain wireless network connections and on-line services while visiting eduroam-enabled institutions outside their home country. Most European countries have a national eduroam service.

Thirteen people from eleven different European countries achieved the title of ‘GN2 Security Toolset Approved Trainer’ last week, following a one-and-a-half day training course in Switzerland on 18-19 March.

This course was the first pilot for a planned series of sessions across Europe. It provides an introduction to the ‘GN2 Security Toolset’, a suite of network monitoring and data retrieval tools to aid incident handling. The course explains how to use the tools and what their uses are. It also gives an introduction to training techniques, communication and presentation skills, with the goal of creating a trusted base of Approved Trainers who could help to deliver the course in subsequent rounds of training.