The new Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand (CCANZ) web project enables you to choose your own Creative Commons New Zealand 3.0 Licence, read about other Kiwi CC users, join the CC community and promote your work.

KAREN video conference trial participants are making the most of this service and simplifying real-time collaboration. Are you taking advantage of this fantastic service?

Reminder: Spaces are filling up for the upcoming IPv6 workshops in Christchurch and Auckland. Registration is first come, first served. Entry is free for InternetNZ and KAREN members.

Job opportunity available to contribute to eResearch activities at Lincoln University, Christchurch.

Check out the latest edition of EDUCAUSE Review for enlightening articles on the use of cyberinfrastructure (high performance computing, data, visualisation, virtual organisations and advanced networks) for research and education.

REANNZ Chief Executive,  Donald Clark, appointed Councillor of InternetNZ for a three-year term.

For those interested in data management and curation - check out a recent report on data management from Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR).

A call for papers has been issued for the 7th Australasian Symposium on Grid Computing and e-Research  (AusGrid 2009).

InternetNZ, in conjunction with REANNZ, Cisco, Packet Clearing House, NZRS, auDA and FX Networks, is offering IPv6 technical workshops in Christchurch and Auckland.

Pete Beckman and Jim Basney join other trail-blazers in eresearch as speakers at the High Performance Research Symposium.

For the technically inclined, APAN26 features hands-on training and know-how workshops on advanced networking technologies and equipment.

The University of Canterbury is hosting the High Performance Research Symposium on 4 August 2008 at the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown, New Zealand. This event is a lead-in to the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network Consortium meeting (APAN26), Asia Pacific’s foremost event for showcasing advanced broadband networking applications and technologies for research and education.

Get involved in the PDCAT associated workshops in high performance computing, sensor networks, multi-core programming, data grids, and web 2.0 applications, 1-4 December 2008, Dunedin.

NZ researchers from the fields of education, agriculture, and SIP and network security join our impressive line up of presenters at APAN26.

Register for the 3rd NZ Workshop in  High Performance and Grid Computing.

Bill St. Arnaud will be beaming into Queenstown for APAN26 to give a plenary presentation on the development of new types of computational and network architectures that can reduce CO2 emissions and benefit eScience. 

Saving the Planet at the Speed of Light - How R&E networks can help reduce global warming

Setting the scene: cyber-infrastructure and CO2

One of the greatest threats to our future society and economy is global warming.  It is estimated that the ICT industry alone produces as much CO2 as the entire output of the entire aviation industry.

TelstraClear, Endace, Chorus and Verizon Business have demonstrated their commitment to New Zealand and the wider Asia Pacific region’s education and research communities by sponsoring the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference, 4-8 August 2008, Queenstown.

REANNZ is pleased to announce TelstraClear as Gold sponsor of the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference.

Happy news for students - APAN26 KAREN Student Innovation Competition deadline has been extended to 30 June 2008.

The University of Otago has made audio and visual tracks of lectures, seminars and other content available on iTunes U. These tracks are hosted at the university meaning they're available over KAREN for super quick download.

Five leading New Zealand academics/researchers have been confirmed as speakers in the eScience stream at APAN26.

Media release

International connectivity

“REANNZ warmly welcomes the Government’s initiative to invest in additional international telecommunications capacity to meet the future needs of the research and education sector. This will provide a step-change in opportunities for the KAREN community to collaborate and innovate”, said Donald Clark, REANNZ Chief Executive, today after the Government budget announcements.

The National Information Society Agency (NIA) in Korea has issued an invitation for international partners in network technology and applications research and working groups.

[Apologies for cross posting]

Register now for APAN26

Tomorrow (15 May) is the last day for you to catch the cheaper registration rate for APAN26.

If wireless security or video room design are your thing register to participate in an Ozeconference.

The consultation period on the Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 has been extended to 5.00pm Friday 23 May, 2008.

Cheaper standard registration rates for APAN26 end on 15 May, so make your booking now to enjoy our diverse programme.

The question 

A question has recently arisen about REANNZ’s attitude to collaboration over getting the physical connection to KAREN. The answer is quite straightforward from our perspective.

KAREN project fund recipients announced

5 projects will receive total funding of $785,000 from the Capability Build Project Fund. The successful projects take full advantage of KAREN's capabilities, and will accelerate collaboration, skill development, and the use of KAREN.

Network engineer or specialist in network measurement and monitoring? You can not miss the perfSONAR workshop at APAN26 Sustainable Networking, 4-8 August.

Share knowledge and make suggestions on KAREN and eResearch related services, applications projects and strategies at the new KAREN wiki.

Issue 6 of our newsletter hyphen is out now bringing you news, reviews and information on KAREN and the successes of our members.

Further speakers confirmed for the High Performance Research Symposium (HPRS)

Three speakers have been confirmed to speak alongside Ian Foster at HPRS:

Today Communications and Information Technology Minister David Cunliffe announced the release the Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 for public consultation.

The PDCAT08 Organising Committee invites workshop/tutorial proposals for PDCAT08 to be held in Dunedin, New Zealand, in December 2008.

The Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre (AHeSSC) at King’s College London has published a report entitled Text and Grid: Research Questions for the Humanities, Sciences and Industry.

ResearchChannel has invited New Zealand researchers to take part in the public beta test of Research1.

Members of the international research and higher education community are invited to participate in eResearch Australasia 2008, to be held 28 Sep - 3 Oct 2008 at the Sebel and Citigate Hotels, Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.

Registration for the SC08 Education Program Summer workshops is now open and KAREN members can apply to the KAREN travel fund to help get you there.

Is the internet changing science? Yes, according to Ben Shneiderman, a University of Maryland computer science professor. It's time for science to incorporate social networking and collaboration too.

A message to all tertiary students: Get creative with the KAREN Student Innovation Competition to win cash and a free spot at the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference.

Students (graduates and undergraduates) and young researchers are invited to apply to the APAN Fellowship Program for sponsorship to attend the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference in Queenstown, 4-8 August 2008.

REANNZ and BlueFern^TM at the University of Canterbury has joined forces to bring you two fantastic events in August 2008 - APAN26 Sustainable Networking and the High Performance Research Symposium.

The University of Canterbury's High Performance Research Symposium - 4 August 2008, Queenstown - will set the scene for APAN26, showcasing best practice e-Research projects, programmes and tools.

Calling all network graduate students and researchers: get involved in the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference in Queenstown by submitting a paper to the Network Research Working Group.

The APAN Network Research Working Group is holding a one-day workshop on 4 August as part of APAN26.

The deadline for the submission of papers for the International Conference on Computer Mediated Social Networking has been extended to Sunday 9 March.

Book your place now at APAN 26 - Registrations are now open for the APAN 26 Sustainable Networking conference, 4-8 August 2008, Queenstown, New Zealand.

Experience first-hand how ICT developments and advanced networks are changing the look and feel of research and collaboration in the Asia Pacific region and are contributing towards environmental, regional and operational sustainability; participate in demonstrations of applications and services that are only possible over advanced networks like KAREN.

Final call for papers for International Conference on Computer Mediated Social Networking (ICCMSN - 2008)

Dunedin, New Zealand
11-13 June 2008
http://www.business.otago.ac.nz/infosci/conferences/isn2008/

Webcasts of all key presentations at the recent 'Building effective virtual organizations' workshop are now available online.

On a recent trip to the US Donald Clark was invited by Vint Serf, Chief Internet evangelist at Google, to present at a Google tech talk session on the opportunities and challenges faced by KAREN and the research and education community in New Zealand.

The application deadline for making applications to the $50,000 building institutional capability component of the Capability Build Fund is fast approaching.

Victoria University of Wellington is hosting the International Conference 'Managing Identity in New Zealand: User-Centric Identity in the 21st Century', Wellington, 29-30 April 2008.

Mike Culver's visit to REANNZ is taking place at 1pm Tuesday 19 February.

Mike Culver an Evangelist for Amazon Web Services is visiting REANNZ as part of his February trip to Australia and New Zealand.

Virtual organisations, entities linked by electronic communication tools to support collaborative relationships in distributed work environments, are increasingly central to collaborative projects across all disciplines.

Biomatters Limited and New Zealand’s Bioinformatics Institute announce the first release of new Geneious software for grid computing on BeSTGRID, the Broadband enabled Science and Technology Grid running on KAREN, the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network that provides high-speed, high-capacity internet to New Zealand academics, researchers and educators.

KAREN Members have been quick to take advantage of the REANNZ Capability Build Fund (CBF), with round two of the project fund now under consideration by judges on the Advisory Panel. An unenviable task judging a fund that is oversubscribed by 700%; but a strong indication that the KAREN community is recognising the need for capability growth to participate in the new potential offered through eResearch and education collaborations over KAREN.

Saturday 15 December marked the first-year anniversary of KAREN.

Media release

ITPs and wānanga offered free KAREN membership for 2008

REANNZ Ltd is accelerating the reach of KAREN by offering free network membership to institutes of technology and polytechnics (ITPs) and wānanga for the 2008 calendar year.

The Institutional Capability Build Fund is now open for applications. The purpose of this negotiated round of the Capability Build Fund is to accelerate our members’ institutional capability to exploit KAREN’s full value. $50,000 per member institution is available to support staff time investment in KAREN capability development and awareness raising activities.

If you are quick off the mark you might be able to attend the next AAF Workshop at Macquarie University in Sydney, 17 - 18 December.

Aspiring grid researchers are invited to participate in an international grid school, hosted by The International Collaboration to Extend and Advance Grid Education.

26-28 November, University of Auckland

Research coordination and collaboration for geoscience in New Zealand is leaping forward with the recent initiation of the SCENZ-GRID project to establish a grid infrastructure for geoscientists in New Zealand and the larger scale NCRIS funded AuScope project in Australia.

A reminder to all KAREN members to submit your applications to the Capability Build Project Fund by 30 November.

New Zealand researchers can now access and share their research with peers both in New Zealand and overseas through the Kiwi Research Information Service.

The JISC-funded DISC-UK DataShare project has recently released information New Zealand social scientists with an interest in digital repositories may find valuable.

University of Auckland eResearch Director and KAREN champion Paul Bonnington is crossing the ditch to take up the Directorship of Monash University eResearch Centre.

Registrations are now open for the second of two technical workshops on advanced video conferencing and collaboration over KAREN - 23 November, 9:00am - 5:00pm, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

Get up with the play on the Creative Commons approach to copyright licensing at this free event: Expanding Expanding Copyright Horizons - Creative Commons Seminar, 27 October, Wellington.

Grid Camp 2007, WLCG Tier-2 and EU-IndiaGrid Workshop will be held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan from 28 October to 2 November, 2007.

KAREN Identity and Access Management Workshops

The Advanced Network Capability Build Fund is supporting two workshops, one in Auckland on Monday 5th November and the other in Christchurch on Tuesday 6th of November, to assist members of the KAREN community to prepare their identity and access management infrastructure for membership of IT trust federations. The workshops are free to attend and funding is available from the Capability Build Fund to provide travel assistance for up to two attendees from each organisation.

Design and Second Life at Victoria University's School of Design was big news on TVNZ's Breakfast show last Friday.

New Zealand academics, researchers and repository managers are invited to take part in a short survey to develop a framework in the UK for the identification of versions of objects in digital repositories.

Thanks in part to KAREN, Victoria University is the first New Zealand university to supervise a PhD totally 'In World'.

KAREN has been named as one of two finalists in the TUANZ Next Generation Fibre-Optic Network Award category of the TUANZ Innovation Awards 2007.

This Wainhouse Research paper "Using conferencing and collaboration to achieve carbon neutrality" is designed to encourage organisations to use online conferencing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from travel.

The second round of Capability Build Project fund opens today. The aim of the fund is to build institutional capability amongst KAREN's core members. The criteria for the fund have been revised to reflect the priorities identified in the recently released Advanced Network Capability Building Roadmap 2007 - 2009. The primary areas of focus are:

In the spirit of shared knowledge, three reports from KAREN community members on Capability Build Fund supported travel and event activities have recently been added to our website.

KAREN, the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network, is increasing the value of network membership by introducing clear guidelines for organisations to connect to KAREN for the purpose of providing services and content to the research and education community in New Zealand.

Science and education are evolving.  New advanced networking technologies are accelerating the pace of discovery and learning across the world.  The focus is shifting toward sharing data, applications and resources and enabling collaboration between institutions, and between the research sector and private industry. New tools, applications and skills are necessary to be fully enabled by KAREN.

The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Maatauranga o Aotearoa has just released its New Generation National Library strategy. The strategy firmly places the National Library in a leadership position in embracing a digital future and includes the development of a National Digital Library as one of three delivery channels.

Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand will soon offer licences in New Zealand.

Genetics researchers at the Wellcome Trust in the UK are generating over 1 Terabyte (1 TB) of data per week reports this article in The Register.  That's around 200 DVD movies worth of data.

Information about the KAREN awards - acknowledging members of the KAREN community who have made an outstanding contribution to KAREN - is now available on our website.

ESR Senior Scientist Dr Brent Gilpin held a seminar recently describing the development of PulseNet international - a network of laboratories who generate DNA fingerprinting data on microbial pathogens and share this data electronically.

REANNZ has released the first KAREN Members Report. This report provides an overview of the activity undertaken to support both members and the network for the six months to 30 June 2007.  It also includes information about the performance of KAREN during this time. 

Visit Computerworld online to check out Ian Foster's visionary and strategic statements about service-orientated science - the future of science.

Calling any technical people wanting to gain in depth knowledge of IPv6.... we have the workshop for you.

A new mailing list has been established by the organising committee of the eResearch Australia 2007 conference to announce eResearch related activities and events of interest to the education and research community.

Presentations from the Building KAREN Communities for Collaboration forum are now available on-line so you can experience the forum again or take a first look at what you missed out on. 

A call for papers has been issued for the Second International Workshop on Scientific Instruments and Sensors on the Grid being held in Melbourne this December.

KAREN users Chris Brown and Mik Black from the University of Otago featured - along with KAREN itself - on Radio New Zealand National's Our Changing World programme this Thursday, 28 of June.

The progamme will be available as a stream for the coming month at the Radio New Zealand website.  It is also available as a podacast.  (Programme length 12'31'')

REANNZ is a relatively new Crown Company providing innovative, leading edge technology to both national and international research ers, educators and innovators.

The primary KAREN VLAN was changed to support a 9000 byte IP MTU on Tuesday, 26 June.  This change allows members to take advantage of the low latency, high bandwidth characteristics of KAREN to achieve greater data throughput than conventional networks permit.  This is achieved without impacting the support for existing traffic.

KAREN members have already been taking advantage of the possibilities that this change allows. Ben Yeldon of AUT and Craig Miskell of AgResearch have performed some initial testing.

"Testing has shown a 3-fold increase in overall throughput when using large (4000byte+) frames vs 1500byte frames", says Craig.

This performance gain was seen without performing any tuning of the systems involved.

The first KAREN forum – Building KAREN Communities for Collaboration – is happening at an Access Grid node near you on 3 – 4 July.

The third issue of our newsletter hyphen is out now.

Presentations from the International Workshop on Virtual Research Environments and Collaborative Work Environments are now available online.

A blog entry from Bill St. Arnaud highlighted the use of Amazon's web services to run bioinformatics supercomuting applications.

A call for papers has been issued for the 2007 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) New Zealand Workshop in High Performance and Grid Computing.

Building KAREN Communities for Collaboration 2 - 5 July 2007

Excitement is mounting as registrations for this forum pour in from wide and far across the research, education, innovation and government sectors.

The Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) has released an Accredited Network Aggregator service standard to drive penetration of KAREN into new sectors.

GridNets 2007

A final call for papers has been issued for GridNets 2007. The deadline is extended to 28 May.

A key drawcard of the Building KAREN Communities for Collaboration forum is the ex-pat New Zealander and aptly known 'father of the Grid', Ian Foster.

Last Friday (18 May) BeSTGRID demonstrated for the first time in New Zealand live remote teaching on KAREN using EVO (Enabling Virtual Organisations).

New Zealand’s access to rich digital content and global knowledge networks took a leap forward today when the National Library of New Zealand formally joined the KAREN community.

A further round of applications is being sought for the KAREN Event Support and Travel Fund.

AARNet with support from NMI-EDIT (Internet2 and EDUCAUSE) and the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) Middleware Working Group will hold an Ozeconference/information primer for the APAN community on identity management. This is the first of three sessions on this topic. This first presentation takes place via video conference or web cast at 9.00am Australian Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday 30 May 2007. The presentation will cover the following areas:

Two exciting and unique positions have been created at REANNZ as a result of our latest strategic planning exercise:

2 - 5 July 2007, University of Auckland Conference Centre

Registrations are now open for the inaugural KAREN forum - Building KAREN Communities for Collaboration.

Several network access providers have enquired about the possibility of providing aggregation services, ie sharing a core KAREN connection with more than one end customer.  Such a service can be useful where customers do not have the funding available to purchase a 1Gb/s last mile connection or the required equipment to deal with the routing and other specifications of a core KAREN connection. 

New Zealand researchers are invited to submit a paper for APAC07, the APAC Conference and Exhibition on Advanced Computing, Grid Applications and eResearch to be held in Perth, Western Australia from Monday 8 to Friday 12 October 2007.

REANNZ has created a new ‘Enabled by KAREN’ logo for use by KAREN member organisations.

Through REANNZ's international partnership with Taiwanese network, TWAREN, and Singaporean Network, SingAREN, KAREN members now have improved access to their peers in these countries. KAREN recently signed Memoranda of Understanding with TWAREN and SingAREN confirming peering arrangements, and as a result widening the reach of KAREN and speeding up access to international collaboration partners in these countries.

Peering is an interconnection of separate networks or groups of networks allowing the exchange of traffic between network customers.

A call for papers has been issued for the 3rd Asian Internet Engineering Conference (AINTEC) to be held in Phuket, Thailand, 27 - 29 November 2007.

KAREN was all the rage in Seattle last week when Prime Minister Helen Clark visited the University of Washington’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab UW) and linked by video conference to the HIT Lab NZ at the University of Canterbury.

The annual conference of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) was held in Birmingham on 13 March. JISC funds a range of ICT services and programmes to support education and research, including JANET, the UK equivalent of KAREN.

REANNZ has awarded over $2.6 million to ten projects in the first round of its Working Group and Development Fund. This fund is aimed at developing capability around the use of KAREN and advanced networking techniques.

The ten successful projects are led by eight KAREN member organisations, including five universities and three Crown research institutes, and span the fields of e-research, microbiology, earthquake engineering, bioinformatics, grid computing and the social sciences.

The British Library has digitised and made available online two of Leonardo da Vincis' notebooks - called the Codex Leicester and the Codex Arundel.

Tune in to Radio New Zealand National's Insight programme at 8.15am this Sunday 18 March for a documentary piece on Business and Broadband, including interviews with early adopters of KAREN.

Professor Marcus du Sautoy from the University of Oxford is presenting The Music of the Primes, a public lecture exploring the mystery of prime numbers on Thursday 15 March, 6pm.

Does all of the jargon that comes with eResearch confuse you?

The Proteomics Facility, University of Auckland, will be hosting a one day symposium on 19 March, informing researchers from a diverse range of scientific backgrounds about both current and new proteomic technologies and methods available through The Proteomics Facility.

$82,000 has been awarded to seven successful applications to the first round of the Event Support and Travel Fund. The Event Support and Travel Fund is one of two funds comprising REANNZ's Capability Build Fund (CBF) – designed to help raise awareness and use of KAREN and advanced networking techniques.

APAC 07

The biennial Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) Conference and Exhibition on Advanced Computing, Grid Applications and eResearch will be held in Perth, 8-12 October 2007.  This event is the biggest of its kind in Australia.

NZNOG 07

REANNZ was represented for the first time at the NZ Network Operators Group (NZNOG) 07. NZNOG provided an excellent opportunity for some of us to get together and discuss KAREN, the status of connections and some of the future possibilities for the network and those who use it.

FP7 Global Information Day - 6 March 2007

FP7 (the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development) is an EU fund available to research communities in New Zealand.

AARNet High Definition (HD) Video Conferencing session

AARNet will hold an Ozeconference/information session on High Definition Video Conferencing at 2.00pm AEDST on Tuesday 13 February 2007.  An invitation to KAREN members to also participate has been kindly extended by James Sankar, AARNet's Director of Applications and Services.

The KAREN Capability Build Advisory Panel has kick started the process of developing a New Zealand Roadmap for professional skill development and technical capability to outline capability building activities that should be pursued over the next three to four years. The goal of this programme is to improve the outcomes for NZ education and research sectors using KAREN and developing related e-research infrastructure and services.

Trip Report: APAN23 Manila, January 2003

Donald Clark and Julie Watson from REANNZ and Paul Bonnington from University of Auckland attended the 23rd Asia Pacific Advanced Networks meeting in Manila.  The meeting offered a chance to:

Development work on Phase 2 of the KAREN website is underway. The key development is the creation of community specific 'sub- sites' providing KAREN communities with their own online space. You will also see some changes to the main site, including the redesign of the homepage and the addition of a photo gallery.

Virtual seminar on "Ancestral networks, and the curse of the unfaithful grandparents"

This seminar is a special 'Virtual' seminar that is being simultaneously presented at University of Auckland and University of Canterbury over Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) using 'portable' AccessGRID technology.

The HIT Lab NZ is holding an invitation only workshop on Next Generation Collaboration on February 8th.
The workshop will focus on key video conferencing methods, collaboration and applications that are available now in New Zealand over high speed IP networks. With the launch of KAREN (Kiwi Advanced Research & Education Network) late last year bringing Gigabit bandwidth speeds to Universities and Research Institutions in New Zealand, next generation collaboration can now be achieved at a higher quality and larger scales.

HITLabNZ took part in an international music collaboration using KAREN on 17 January involving University of Canterbury, Western Australia University, Manchester University, Sheffield University, Bristol University, Lancaster University and a couple other sites in UK.  A musician was stationed at each site and together they brought a new meaning to the term "World Music" by playing as an ensemble, despite being separated by thousands of miles.

REANNZ staff were fortunate to undertake two international trips during 2006.

KAREN is designed to support innovative partnerships like the new Auckland-based graphical communications technology incubator, Nextspace.

TECH Blog1

Hi all, as you know KAREN is now live. We terminated the first connections on 17^th December and now have seven Active members peering via IPv4, and one who is also peering via IPv6. Currently connected members are:

MEDIA RELEASE 

For those of you not on Bill St Arnaud's mailing list, here is a link to a GEM of an article originally posted on enterprisenetworksandservers.com.  It highlights the cost-effective potential for deploying fibre within your organisation beyond the core.

The 2006 KAREN Working Group and Development Fund application round closes at 4pm next Friday, 24 November 2006. This fund is part of an overall Capability Build Fund operated by REANNZ and administered by the Royal Society (http://www.rsnz.org/funding/karen/). The CBF is available to build awareness of the potential of KAREN though producing success stories and facilitating New Zealand access to international funding.

IPTV trials on JANET go mainstream

UK Company Inuk has been trialing an IPTV multicast service over the UK's advanced network, JANET, for the last year.

The New Zealand Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NZNEES) now have a website http://www.nznees.auckland.ac.nz  It is still very much a work in progress and probably a couple weeks behind of where we are actually at.

From Royal Society Alert No 144 

The latest edition of eJournal USA focuses on science as an international undertaking through a growing array of collaborative efforts, technical journals, conferences, the Internet, and dedicated high-bandwidth data networks for research and education.

REANNZ's Capability Build Advisory Panel identifies opportunities to facilitate and fund training and pilot activities. The fund is now open for its first round of applications

Capability build fund activities will enhance the skills of people working with KAREN and support functional delivery opportunities, to build usage of the Research and Education Network.

Annual Tertiary IT Conference, 12-14 September 2006, Christchurch, NZ

I attended the first day of the Annual Tertiary IT Conference (http://www.tertiaryitconference.co.nz/).  It was well attended with about 70 delegates; a mix of vendors and IT staff from the Tertiary Education Institutes (TEIs), most of the Universities and some Industry Training Oganisations. John Buckler, conference host, had organised a good mix of speakers, breakout sessions, roundtables and plenary sessions over the 3 days. I gave an overview presentation on KAREN, the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network.

A High Performing Computing (HPC) Workshop is being organised by the Royal Society to share information about current HPC projects, existing facilities, grid middleware tools and networks.

MEDIA RELEASE 

KAREN goes live 6:30pm 31 August 2006

The Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) is being launched by the Rt Hon Helen Clark, today, Thursday 31 August in Auckland at 6:30pm in the ACCESS GRID SUITE of the Human Sciences Building, Auckland University, New Zealand. For those of you who are unable to make it, we have a live webcast of the launch at the following URL http://www.r2.co.nz/20060831 (The link will be live from around 6:00pm).

REANNZ has signed its first two international partnership agreements with National Lambda Rail (http://www.nlr.net/) and Internet2 (http://www.internet2.edu/) in the USA. These memoranda of understanding (MoU) will enable New Zealand researchers and educators on these networks to interact and collaboarate seamlessly.

Testing of the network during the important proof of concept phase is progressing well.  TelstraClear and Verizon Business, working with a dedicated team from University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, Scion in Rotorua, and REANNZ staff, have succeeded in:

MEDIA RELEASE