Garrett Saundry
BCNET’s 8th annual conference is being held next week, April 22 and 23, at SFU’s Harbour Centre in Vancouver. The conference is considered Western Canada’s premier technology event for research and higher education. Webnames.ca is proud to be involved as a Bronze sponsor.
BCNET is a not-for-profit society formed to provide high-speed optical network capabilities, often called advanced networking, to British Columbia ‘s higher education and research institutions. Advanced networks are independent from the commercial Internet and support experimental and collaborative efforts in education and research being conducted across the province and around the world.
There are two main themes for this year’s “Lighting the Path – Connections for the Future” conference: virtualization and next generation networks.
Keynote speakers include:
Dr. Brad C. Wheeler, CIO of Indiana University – Dr. Wheeler is a worldwide spokesperson on behalf of the community source software development model. This engages academicians and software developers in higher education who collaborate on building software tailored to the unique needs of higher education.
Dr. Stephen Hand, Seinor Lecturer, Cambridge University – Dr. Hand is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory (UK), where he is a leader of the Systems Research Group. He is also a co-founder and the chief architect of XenSource, a venture funded start-up created to commercially exploit the Xen Virtual Machine Monitor.
Over 30 sessions will be held at this year’s conference. Here’s a sample of what’s in store for attendees:
Mobile Musings – Moving forward, the advancement of WiFi and third generation mobile phone technology creates potential for rich media applications that utilize a broadband wireless network. In this panel, MobileMUSE team representatives present current projects and related mobile rich media work in BC.
Are We Ready? A Disaster Recovery Plan for the BCNET Community – Disaster recovery specialists present a business case for collective data protection for BCNET members, powered by BC’s Optical Regional Advanced Network (ORAN) for data transfer and pooled resources for data storage. The plan recommends best services and procedures for disaster recovery planning, and remote host data centres for use by BC research institutions.
Virtualization: Can Less be More? – Virtualization researchers discuss virtual software and program options, as well as the impact these technologies have and will have on networking and systems management.
IPv6: Creating Room for the Growing Internet –A panel of industry representatives discuss the rational for and against converting from IPv4 to IPv6 as well as the setbacks encountered during this process.
Attendees will learn about some of the top IT topics on campuses today as well as gain tools for enhancing their research and education projects. Spaces are still available. Registration fees start at $25 for students, with academics, government and industry paying slightly more.
Visit the bc.net conferernce overview page or the event wiki for complete information.