Tagged: REANNZ

REANNZ appoints new CEO

Steve Cotter has been appointed the new Chief Executive Officer of Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ) Ltd. REANNZ owns and operates KAREN, the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network, on behalf of the country’s research, education and innovation community.

Steve’s experience with similar networks is both extensive and impressive. Some of the highlights include serving as Google’s network deployment manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as a Director in SBC Global Communications’ (now AT&T) engineering and construction departments, and more recently as the head of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Sciences Network, located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His teams have won multiple awards, including being named by InformationWeek as one of the Top 10 Government Innovators in 2009.

“Advanced, high-performance networks like KAREN are an essential part of the national infrastructure for all countries with an interest in being competitive in the global marketplace,” Steve said. “Highly reliable, very high bandwidth networks drive economic growth and stimulate a new generation of innovations addressing critical needs, such as health care and education. Our job is to ensure that innovation and discovery are only limited by our users’ imaginations, not by infrastructure. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to take on this challenge at REANNZ, and am looking forward to working with such a talented and dedicated team.”

REANNZ Board Chair Professor John Raine also expressed his enthusiasm for Steve’s appointment.

“The Board is extremely pleased to have been able to confirm such an outstanding candidate for the Chief Executive role,” he said. “After nearly 15 years of leading research and commercial networks at the national and international scale, Steve brings to this job exactly the right combination of experience in all aspects of network design, development, deployment and operation. He has an important job ahead of him to continue to build on the significant contribution that REANNZ and KAREN make to New Zealand in general and to the research and education sectors specifically. I wish him the very best in the role.”

Steve replaces inaugural CEO Donald Clark, who led REANNZ for five years, and will start early December. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering then served as a helicopter pilot in the Marine Corps. He earned an MBA from Boston University.

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REANNZ Job vacancies

REANNZ has two job vacancies.

There is a role for a Technical Specialist/Member Support and a role for a part-time Communications Specialist. Read more about the roles here.

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REANNZ Ramps up for KAREN: The Next Generation

Dr Phillip Lindsay (formally of AgResearch) has joined the REANNZ team to accelerate planning for and conversations with members on KAREN2.

KAREN2 appointment

REANNZ is pleased to announce Dr Phillip Lindsay has joined the team to lead the development of the next generation KAREN2 project.

Until recently Phillip was the CIO of AgResearch Ltd. He has had extensive involvement with KAREN, being involved in its early planning and implementation. More recently he has also been directly involved in the planning and establishment of two other key national infrastructure projects: New Zealand Genomics Ltd (NZGL) and the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) – both of which will be significant users of KAREN.

The time is right for the next step

The development of the next generation network is a key focus for REANNZ over the next 2-3 years. It is a significant piece of work, meaning we need to start planning now – even though the implementation may not occur until 2014.

The contracting arrangements that were agreed with FX Networks recently, which included access to dark fibre, coupled with increased government funding and agreement from members for a sustainable financial environment for KAREN, mean that REANNZ can now plan the future network without having to continually focus on financial sustainability. We can also focus on the research and educational communities future needs beyond 2013.

Evolving to meet the needs of our community

Dr Lindsay says he is very excited about the project, particularly given his leadership role in setting the very first real national research network, TuiNet in 1992.

“While TuiNet was a leading edge network at its time, we failed to continue to focus on the future needs of the research community”, says Phillip. “Telco offerings caught up with TuiNet quite quickly and it has taken over 10 years to get another chance. REANNZ needs to avoid a similar situation with KAREN and it is important we plan now for the future even though we can’t anticipate exactly what our researches will be doing on the network.”

Being at the leading edge of network developments creates a “pull-through” effect whereby researchers try new things and this leads to new ways of carrying out research, as well as allowing our research groups to participate in large scale global research programmes, like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project.

At the same time, current peak loads on KAREN are growing substantially and that based on predicted usage, confirmed by overseas experience, then some key pathways in the current network will be fully loaded within the next 24 months.

Phillip is looking forward to getting alongside member organisations, particularly the research staff, to explore the challenges they have to the adoption of advanced networking facilities and to understand what role KAREN2 will play in their research and collaboration in the future.

A glimpse of KAREN2

The proposed KAREN2 network will not only provide enhanced bandwidth but it is also likely to have the capability to provide separate light-paths between members. Once the key optical switching layer is in place then the network capability can be increased easily and at relatively low cost.

REANNZ expects that a trial network will be established by early 2013 and that key elements of KAREN will transition to KAREN2 in 2014.

Phillip joined REANNZ on 1 August and will be working in a part-time capacity for the term of the programme.

More information

Mark Cordy, Acting CEO, 04 913 1090

Dr Phillip Lindsay, KAREN2 Programme Manager, 029 244 2310

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The low down on REANNZ

Answers to what REANNZ does, how we work with our Members and our vision for the future of REANNZ can be found in the new ‘REANNZ at a glance’ brochure.

REANNZ at a glance

This brochure brings together, and presents in a quick to digest form, essential information about the roles, responsibilities and capabilities of REANNZ.

You can download the brochure from our Publications page.

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Media release: Government invests in KAREN’s future

REANNZ warmly welcomes the Government’s announcement of an ongoing annual contribution of $4 million for KAREN, alongside a $27 million investment in the National eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) network.

Media release: Government invests in KAREN’s future

REANNZ welcomes the Government’s commitment to ongoing funding for KAREN, cementing its role as advanced national science and innovation infrastructure.

Today the Government announced its commitment to an ongoing $4 million per year funding contribution for the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN), starting in July 2013.

Donald Clark, Chief Executive of REANNZ said, “This significant continuing revenue contribution is pivotal as it will ensure KAREN remains advanced and on the leading-edge of networking, and is able to serve the specialist needs of our Members.”

“This is positive news for our community, and recognises their achievements and commitment to KAREN. Our Members can now make long-term investments in related research infrastructure and services knowing that KAREN will be there for them.”

“This positive outcome is the result of strong commitment and support from our Crown shareholders, Members and other stakeholders over the past 18 months. Many thanks to all those who contributed to this achievement,” said Donald.

More information

You can find Minister Wayne Mapp’s press release on Scoop (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1102/S00063/supercomputer-network-to-po…)

See our media and communications page to download our press release.

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Reminder – three KAREN RFCs open for comment

The first of three video conferences to discuss your feedback on the KAREN Request for Comment papers currently open for consultation will take place in a week’s time, on Thursday 3 February.

KARENRFCs open for comment

REANNZ has three KAREN Request for Comment papers open for consultation, covering resource allocation, working groups, and the RFC process. The papers are open for comment until early February 2011.

  1. KARENRFC S-0003-00 – KAREN Working Group Formation, Lifecycle and Terms of Reference
  2. KARENRFC P-0002-00 – Resource Allocation – Network Capacity
  3. KARENRFC S-0001-01 – Addendum to KAREN Request For Comment KARENRFC S-0001-00

Visit the KARENRFC page on the KAREN wiki to view and comment on the papers, and for the video conference connection details.

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KAREN is 4 years young today

Today is a milestone day for KAREN. 15 December 2010 marks the 4th birthday of KAREN, as well as the official, full transition to our new national network.

Happy birthday KAREN

Four years ago on this day, KAREN went live for all foundation Members. From humble beginnings, KAREN now connects nearly every scientist in New Zealand and the significant majority of the tertiary education sector.

Some highlights:

  • 113 Members
  • 150 Member sites
  • 18 Suppliers
  • 2 Petabytes of traffic on KAREN every month
  • 23 Points of Presence nationwide
  • 99.99% availability of the national network

New network all go

Today also marks the official end of the old national network and the completion of the transition to KAREN’s new national network provided by FX Networks. Our new international network has also been going strong since November. The successful transition of all KAREN Members to the new network has been no mean feat. We extend many thanks to the Transition Steering Group and our Members for their effort and patience.

Check out the new weathermap for traffic flow data, and see the supplier map to see the breadth of organisations involved in supplying network and services to KAREN.

KAREN weathermap
KAREN supplier map

REANNZ office now complete

In early October, REANNZ moved office. We are really pleased that the office refurbishment is now complete.

We are located at 126 Lambton Quay, at Level 5 Intergen House.

We not only have a great new working environment, we got a great deal too. We were able to leverage market conditions and take advantage of excellent lease rates. As ever, we are very conscious of keeping costs down for Members. We are open to visitors and welcome members to drop by to see us.

Merry Christmas

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REANNZ Office has Moved

From today you can find the REANNZ team at our new office location at 126 Lambton Quay, Wellington.

The REANNZ team has moved

After more than 4 years in rooms within the Railway West Wing of the Victoria University of Wellington’s Pipitea campus, REANNZ has moved office.

Our new physical address details are:

Level 5, Intergen House
126 Lambton Quay
Wellington 6011

All other contact details are unchanged. You can find further contact information on our contact us page.

As you can see from the image below, the office site is still a work in progress, and we have some settling in to do…

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