• Announces

On Thursday 10 May, the Archbishop Fonseca Guesthouse of the University of Salamanca (USAL) hosted the RedIRIS 2018 Technical Conference. This year's edition, which is the 29th overall, participated over 400 ICT experts, and network and IT service managers from RedIRIS-affiliated institutions –universities, research centres and regional academic networks for the most part– to exchange information and share experiences.

The opening ceremony was chaired by the Rector of the University of Salamanca, Ricardo Rivero, who was accompanied by the General Director fo R&D&i Policy of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, Clara Eugenia García; the General Director of Red.es, José Manuel Leceta; the General Director of Telecommunications of the Regional Ministry of Development and the Environment of the Regional Government of Castile and León, Mª Victoria Seco; the subdelegate of the Government in Salamanca, Antonio Andrés; and the deputy mayor of Salamanca City Hall, Carmen Sánchez Bellota.

An Inaugural Conference took place after the ceremony, and was presided over by Silvia Leal, European Commission advisor on Digital Competencies and director of technology programs at IE. It was focused around the topic of digital transformation and innovation, focusing on the arrival of the era of robotics and artificial intelligence. Pedro García, manager of Centro de Láseres Pulsados, participated as a plenary speaker, demonstrating the main functions of the Singular Scientific-Technical Installation that he manages, and highlighting the support provided by RedIRIS to these types of centres, offering advanced communications services.

Finally, the director of RedIRIS, Alberto Pérez, through the management report, took stock of the objectives achieved by the Spanish academic and research network during the first months of the year, and the main challenges to be met in 2018, which will be especially focused on the competitive dialogue of 23 million euros that has been launched for the renewal of optical equipment; the tendering of a new platform for mitigating denial of service attacks; extensions of fibre optic networks to reach new centres; the adaptation to the new General Data Protection Regulation; the execution of the collaboration agreement with Crue-TIC; and a new plan of joint activity with the regional networks to have a better knowledge of our affiliated institutions, and to transfer the value of all the services offered by RedIRIS.

During 9 and 10 of May ICT experts from institutions affiliated with RedIRIS gave several technical presentations, framed within several thematic lines: Infrastructures and services for teaching and research; Optimisation, efficiency and sustainability; Smart technology and mobility; and Security and privacy.

The event closed with the presentation “TCP and BBR” by Geoff Huston, Chief Scientist at APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre). You can find at recording of this presentation (in english) in: https://tv.rediris.es/es/jjtt2018/video/5ad70a5f2b81aab7048b4590, and the pdf document in: http://www.rediris.es/jt/jt2018/programa/jt/

This edition of the RedIRIS Technical conference was partnered by sixteen companies which are leaders in the ICT sector, including the special sponsors Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise and Teltek. The sponsors took part in the event by giving lectures during the technical sessions and presenting their products and services in an exhibition area.

The recordings of the sessiones are available on the RedIRIS in: https://tv.rediris.es/es/jt2018

As usual, the Technical Conference was preceded by RedIRIS Working Group sessions, held at the same location on the morning of 8 May. Their main goal was to spread knowledge about the new features that have been developed in the services offered by RedIRIS. She highlighted the participation at the Annabel Grant event, responsible relations with GÉANT partners, the European association of academic and research networks, which presented the GÉANT portfolio of services. In addition, on this occasion, apart from the usual sessions, on 7 May the e-Science Workshop was also held in the Paintings Room of the Archbishop Fonseca College. The workshop is a Spanish-Portuguese event on e-Science in which RedIRIS staff, along with the managers from other e-infrastructures (computing, storage, etc.) and e-Science users from the two countries discussed topics covering the challenges that arise in this environment, such as open science; big data; secure transfer and storage of scientific data; secure access to these data; and the integration of cloud services. All the presentations are now available at http://www.rediris.es/jt/jt2018/escience/ , together with recording from the sessions, available at https://replay.teltek.es/series/5adef70d2b81aaba048b458c

Further information: http://www.rediris.es/jt/jt2018

About RedIRIS

RedIRIS is the advanced communications network of the Spanish academic and scientific community. It was founded in 1988. It has more than 500 affiliated academic and research institutions, which bring together more than 150,000 researchers and some 7 million potential users (over 2 million users in universities and scientific centres, and around 5 million primary and secondary school pupils). It is funded by the Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and is included in its map of Exceptional Scientific and Technological Facilities. It is managed by the Public Corporate Entity Red.es, which reports to the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda.