To the jangling chords of the soundtrack from ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, participants filled the auditorium of a session by the same name, during the final morning of the 2008 TERENA Networking Conference. The showdown they had come to witness was a panel discussion about the “successes and shortcomings” of the GN2 project and the GEANT2 network.

In a series of short but thought-provoking presentations, the panellists fired off their thoughts on a range of relevant areas before audience members joined the fray, moderated by IT consultant Robin Arak. Although there were no casualties, many comments hit their mark.

Is computing going to be the next utility, available to everyone like electricity or gas? Is education becoming a consumer commodity? What would such developments mean for research networks? Reflections upon the future of research and education networking continued during the third day of the annual TERENA Networking Conference, with complementary plenary talks by Tim Robinson of Net North West (UK) and Richard Katz of EDUCAUSE (USA).

Both considered social, demographic, political and economic factors that could have an impact on education and, indirectly, research networking. Their audience included participants in Malawi, China, Spain, Italy, Indonesia and the Czech Republic, who were linked by live-stream videoconferencing via satellite, as part of the GLOBAL project's Virtual Conference Centre initiative.

The British science fiction writer Douglas Adams came up with ‘Four Ages of Sand’ in the history of tools with which to do scientific research, with sand forming the basic material for glass lenses, transistors and now optical fibres. A fifth Age was postulated today, 20 May, by Josh Howlett of JANET(UK) during his plenary presentation at the TERENA Networking Conference.

The ‘Age of the Looking Glass’ refers to another fictional classic, in which a mirror gives a girl access to a world unconstrained by the physical laws of the real world. This is the age we are in now, he said, with a growing number of people realising their “own little universes” in which to work and collaborate, thanks to network technology, services and applications.

There was a musical start to the opening plenary presentation at this year’s TERENA Networking Conference (TNC 2008), in joking reference to the headset microphone worn by Professor Paul Van Binst (Free University of Brussels, ULB) as he took to the stage. This set the scene for an amusing and personal talk that encompassed some of the history of research and education networking, as well as some consideration of present and future trends.

With a series of entertaining examples to make the point, Professor Van Binst observed that users of present-day technologies and services of all kinds are generally willing to accept poor quality if the final functionality is something they like: sms messaging can require pressing three times on button ‘a’ in order to get letter ‘c’, for example, and we are happy to watch poor definition video footage online even though a large, high-quality TV set may be in the next room.

The challenges confronting research networking and strategies to face them were the key topic areas at the annual meeting of the CCIRN (Co-ordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networking). It was held in Bruges (Brugge), Belgium, on 17-18 May before the start of the annual TERENA Networking Conference at the same location.

Almost 20 managers of research networking organisations in five continents gathered for lively and informal brainstorming on the future of research and education networking. Discussions revealed great similarities in the challenges that these organisations are facing today.

The expected exhaustion of IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) address space and the economic advantages of DWDM (Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing) were two of the topics raised at the second Next Generation Networking Workshop, which was held on 4 April 2008.

Around 40 participants from research and education networks, universities, research institutes, and commercial vendors attended the TERENA–organised event in Munich, Germany.

Early registration for the 2008 TERENA Networking Conference ends on 30 March. Discounts on hotel costs and on the conference registration fee are available until that date, but from 31 March the normal hotel and conference rates apply. Ordinary registration continues until 5 May.

In earlier years, connectivity was the main concern of national research and education networking organisations. This year’s conference theme explores issues “beyond connectivity”. The programme will focus on technology as well as user applications in the following seven areas: digital identity in action, virtual worlds, security, monitoring and measurement, service clouds, future development, and what is important to the users.

The GLIF Technical and Control Plane Working Groups held meetings on 19-20 January 2008, in conjunction with the Internet2/ESCC Joint Techs Workshop and APAN 25, in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. This involved forty-five participants from the Asia- Pacific region, Europe, North America and Latin America who generated much topical discussion in the tropical environment.

The first day comprised a joint session to consider the topics of interest to both working groups. This included a presentation from the GlobalNOC on some of the issues related to management and monitoring of the several optical networks they help to operate. The operational and policy aspects of dynamic circuits were also considered, before the session was rounded off with a presentation on the LHCOPN that connects the Large Hadron Collider with its data processing and storage sites.

Two major challenges face the European research and education networking community today, participants heard at the meeting of the TERENA General Assembly in Riga, Latvia on 26 October.

Dorte Olesen (TERENA President) presented the organisation’s Activity Plan for 2008, which will be dominated by preparing proposals for the GÉANT3 (GN3) project and following up recommendations from the EARNEST foresight study.

HRH Princess of Jordan Sumaya Bint Al Hassan added her voice to calls for a continuation of European funding support for vital Mediterranean e-infrastructures, during last week's EUMED Event. The event, held in Brussels 23-24 October, brought together VIP speakers and an invited audience from around Europe and the Mediterranean region.

Almost 90 politicians, network operators, users, civil servants, and managers of national research and education networks came from more than 15 countries to discuss collaborations in e-infrastructures and networking for research and education.