GPN 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting

The federal government is working to provide funding to states to improve broadband availability through infrastructure build-outs and expansion efforts.  The speakers during this breakout will describe efforts in their respective states within the Great Plains Network region to broaden their reach through new fiber infrastructure.

Internet2 is partnering with major cloud providers and research universities to develop the Cloud Learning and Skills Sessions (CLASS) program to fill the gaps in training for cloud and research computing. The program accelerates the adoption of best practices in research computing and data in the cloud and provides professional development for research computing and data professionals (those who support researchers).  In this session, Internet2 will present the CLASS program and how you can participate in it.  Additionally, there will be an update on the deployment of the Internet2 Next Generation Infrastructure (NGI) network, including the optical, packet, automation, orchestration, and telemetry projects that comprise an amazingly comprehensive network infrastructure that can support research and education efforts for many years to come.

At Duke University, STINGAR has helped to increase the security team’s blocking capabilities from 10 million malicious connection attempts per day to 2 billion per day at the height of the Mirai botnet. The honeypot portion of STINGAR accounts for a significant chunk of these blocks and also has increased the fidelity of what they block, reducing  false positives. Come hear information on STINGAR and consider how it might help manage and protect your users from malicious attacks against your campus.

Welcome all!  In this BoF the GPN Cyberinfrastructure Program Committee will discuss possible CC* submissions for October.  Join them and collaborate!  This group has a long history of receiving funding for multiple institution grants.   They are especially interested in collaborating with state and regional networks on an Area 2 submission.

This session is a Birds of a Feather session with the open ended topic of Security as it impacts the higher education and R&E Network community in the Great Plains Networks.  The target audience is CISOs, CIOs, and security professionals responsible for implementing and providing IT security to protect your organization from the myriad security threats that affect us daily.  Discussions may extend into the more specific realms of security policy and actions required for protecting research data from theft, privacy exposures, data loss, or data integrity violations.

This breakout is a Birds of a Feather session where attendees interested in or engaging in facilitating researchers awareness, access, and effective use of computational and data (aka cyberinfrastructure) resources and services, and other related topics can gather for open discussion.  

The Great Plains Network is well known as the Internet2 Connector for its member states.  But GPN goes well beyond that, as a leader in the Research and Education Networking community, as a catalyst for research computing and networking efforts across the entire region and nationally, and as an organization supporting research computing through groups such as the GPN Research Platform, the GPN Carpentry Mentoring Group, GPN CyberInfrastructure Program, the Regional CyberTeam, and others.  Come hear GPN Executive Director James Deaton talk about these various programs, with open dialogue on how you can get engaged in one of these groups.

As the United States government is moving forward with requirements for safeguarding sponsored research information, Kansas State University has developed a solution for the technical requirements. The Research Information Security Enclave, or RISE, is a cloud-based system that uses Microsoft Azure cloud to meet the appropriate standards for each sponsored-research effort.