Hybrid Networking

Hybrid networking examines issues with using dynamic or static circuit based networks. These issues include measuring activity on shared Layer 2 networks, being able to use circuits to bypass the global Internet between routers or networks, trouble shooting circuits that cross multiple administrative domains, and using non-IP protocols directly between end systems.

The Fermilab Joint Techs hybrid networking focus area will consist of two parts.

1. A series of presentations relating to examples of hybrid networking on campuses and in the wide area. Some planned talks are:

• Retrofitting a network for hybrid services
• Delivery of hybrid services into a campus environment
• InfiniBand in the wide area
• The Open Fabrics Alliance
  

2. A panel that discusses the Internet2/MAX control plane workshops.

We hope to have people who have attended these workshops discuss what the learned and what they are doing post workshop that takes advantage of what they learned there.

We are very interested in your presentations in these areas, or in other areas that define and explore the new challenges and that illustrate experiences in the hybrid networking area.

Campus Networking

The Campus LAN is a moving target; there are new technologies being deployed and new developments in old technologies happening all the time. This focus area will include presentations that discuss how these new technologies are being implemented in your network and how the old technologies are evolving and being re-architected so the new technologies can build on them. Some suggested topics:

1. New Technologies

Wireless. There are many possible areas of interest in this subject; examples include management solutions, rogue detection, authentication, and encryption implementations. Network access control. This could include what's involved in
allowing a machine on the network, and what's involved in keeping a machine off of the network once it is determined to be unwanted. Firewalls. In particular, lessons learned -- have firewalls been the panacea we thought they would be? How are they managed? VoIP. How is this going? Have there been unanticipated issues? We'd be interested in examples of campus or multi-building rollouts. Bandwidth management. How are you handling high-bandwidth applications and traffic needs? Are you beefing up the infrastructure to handle it across the campus? Or sending high-bandwidth traffic across
alternate paths? Are you treating it as something special, or managing, monitoring, and securing it in the same way as your other traffic?

2. New Developments in Old Technologies

Spanning tree. As Layer 2 networks span geographical areas, what new developments have happened to make this technology adapt? What about Fast, Rapid, and per-VLAN spanning tree? DNS. How old is your DNS infrastructure? How will it cope with DNSSEC and BIND 9? VLAN management. Are current VLAN limitations becoming a concern? How
do you manage VLAN assignment, and recovery of unused VLANs? Network architecture. Have you taken a step back lately, looked at your network design, and determined whether it fits the needs of your users, yourself, and your management?

If a topic affects networking it probably is related to the Campus LAN, and we'd like to hear about it.

Security

In the Security area we're encouraging presentations that complement the Hybrid Networks and Campus Networks focus areas and presentations that speak to other timely issues, including:

Firewalls present issues of traversal connectivity and performance impact. What are the issues and how are they being addressed today? What are the best long-term strategies for solving these and related future problems? Network management and security management have a large set of overlapping concerns, requirements, monitorings, and actions - often the responsibility of distinct organizational units. What are some outstanding examples of shared processes and tools, and interorganizational communications and management? What are the unique security considerations for hybrid networks? What are effective practices for supporting disparate policy approaches on different 'host groups' - lambdas, firewalls, special filters, proxies, reverse proxies, application gateways, NAT, etc. What are security considerations and best practices for VoIP? Enterprise concerns include both enterprise-wide systems and the implications of desktop VoIP. Some possible areas of interest are: Skype SuperNodes, SPIT (Spam over Internet Telephony), spoof prevention, SIP
Asserted Identity, and SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol). What are the current considerations for DNS security? How healthy is the research and education DNS infrastructure? What are the security challenges? How will DNS be important to protection methods being developed, and does that open the door for new security challenges? What is the status and future of DNSSEC? CALEA -- policy and technical considerations. We welcome presentations that define and explore the new challenges and that illustrate experiences in these areas.

Measurement and Performance

The performance track will cover new developments in the area of performance measurement and monitoring. The focus of this year's talks will be on the integration of performance monitoring infrastructures into cyberinfrastructure and its use by application communities.