MERC

MERC Board of Director’s Meeting

July 10, 2007, 10 a.m - Noon

Attendees

Robert Athearn, Teresa Fort, Rita Gulstad, Melanie Gross - proxy for Russell Helm (via video), Jeremy Kintzel, Joel LaReau, Mark Mabe, Bob McGlasson (via video), Bob Paulson, Jon Rickman (via video)

MOREnet Staff: Megan Barney, Chip Byers, Dave Byland, Bill Giddings, Bill Mitchell, Hank Niederhelm, Nancy Piringer, Debbie Rodman, Greg Silvey

Welcome and Opening Remarks - Joel LaReau

Joel LaReau opened the meeting by welcoming all of the participants. He then asked the group to introduce themselves and state their main concerns for their organizations:

• Joel LaReau - emergency notification
• Jeremy Kintzel - SB389 implementation, data collection
• Rita Gulstad- security, emergency procedures
• Bob Paulson - data warehousing
• Teresa Fort- emergency procedures, security and alert systems
• Bob Athearn - security, emergency notifications, implementing new LAN
• Mark Mabe - security, emergency procedures, campus construction
• Jon Rickman - increase in enrollment, new residence halls, graduate programs, voice over IP
• Bob McGlasson - installation and upgrades to equipment, installing new datatells
• Melanie Gross- security, emergency response

MERC/HELIX Financial Reports - Greg Silvey

Silvey began his update to the Board with a review of the current FY07 MERC Financial Report for the year ending June 30,2007. Silvey indicated that the report includes year to date actual spending through May 31, 2007. Silvey also pointed out to the attendees that revenues are broken down into member fees and connection related fees. Silvey also pointed out the revenue transfer to the HELIX Conference in the amount of $6,803. Gulstad asked about the status of the FY08 budget. Rodman responded that no changes had been made to the preliminary FY08 budget since drafts were handed out and discussed during the February 20th, 2007 Board meeting. Gulstad asked that copies of the FY08 budget be distributed during the meeting in order to allow for discussion of MERC reserves and the Fiscal Exigency Reserve (FER).

While waiting for copies of the FY08 preliminary budget to be distributed, Mitchell mentioned the possible impact of the new $2.5 million appropriation increase that was allocated to MOREnet when Governor Blunt signed House Bill 3. The money will come from state lottery funds and is designated for spending on K12 and higher education only. Mitchell told the Board that at this time it is not clear how this will affect the MERC FY08 budget/fees but that a final determination as to how the $2.5 million would be spent would be made by late August or early September. Mitchell also mentioned that MOREnet will be requesting an additional $2.5 million during FY09.

Mitchell went on to report to the Board that it is expected that a revised MOREnet FY08 budget will go before the MOREnet Council by the end of August, when the returned RFP for optronics equipment is assessed. LaReau asked Mitchell when MERC members would have enough information to review member fees and set budgets. Mitchell replied that it would be late August or early September. Mitchell pointed out that FY08 will be a year of transition for MOREnet with NGN upcoming. The more typical timeframe of budget drafts by January or February should be back on track for FY09.

Copies of the preliminary FY08 budget were distributed, however with the previous discussion of the MOREnet budget not being finalized until the late August or early September timeframe it was decided any decisions would be held off until then.

Legislative Update - Bill Giddings

Giddings began by reporting to the Board that House Bill 12 included an increase for MOREnet's online resources. Currently MOREnet is working with Procurement for a sole source procurement on the Gale Discovery collection. Giddings also reported that State Senator Rob Mayer has been named Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, while Senator Gary Nodler has been named Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Mitchell added that the increase to MOREnet's funding through House Bill 3 did not stem from Governor Blunt's recommendations, but instead originated in support from members of the state budget committee as a result of grassroots support. Mitchell mentioned that MOREnet will be asking for an additional $2.5 million increase to their core appropriation in FY09. He mentioned that MOREnet will once again be seeking the help and support from members and others in speaking to the state senate on MOREnet's behalf.

Next Generation Network Update - Chip Byers

Byers summarized the NGN project for the benefit of the new Board members, explaining that the concept behind NGN is to replace the managed circuit core with a fiber core. He reported to the Board that during 2006 and 2007 demand grew by about 67 percent. Byers informed the Board members that the RFP for fiber has been returned and MOREnet is evaluating options. A second RFP for optronics equipment was returned on July 5, however it is still being reviewed by Procurement and has not yet been released to MOREnet for review. For an interim solution the plan was to upgrade the MOREnet backbone from 1 Gig. To 2.5 Gig along the I-70 corridor. However, the vendor who agreed to provide 2.5 Gig is currently saying they cannot.

Byers went on to say that on a national scope, dark fiber is drying up and those who own it find it more profitable to sell it themselves. Costs for dark fiber likely to increase and it will be more difficult to acquire than it was a few years ago. Byers reported that Phase II of NGN will be to examine the possibility of creating metropolitan aggregation sites for tail circuits, Byers pointed towards SpringNet for an example. The concept is to bring one or two large pipes (about 100Mb) into a centralized area and then split bandwidth among members, the Marshall area is one possibility out of about twenty that have been identified. Byers indicated that this local aggregation model is a long term process and will take some length of time in order to evaluate the possibility. Other solutions might include wireless connectivity. Whatever the model, dependability and reliability are key factors.

Rickman and Gulstad both indicated that their organizations were having trouble with increased levels of e-mail spam and asked Byers if MOREnet is either planning to or is in the process of evaluating new e-mail filtering solutions. Byers indicated that he was not involved in the process, however Hank Niederhelm could provide additional information. Niederhelm was brought into the meeting in order to speak to the issue, and he reported that MOREnet is in the process of identifying solutions. Postini is a possible solution, which is a service that would be located off the MOREnet network and would catch spam before it hits the core and tail circuits. Niederhelm indicated that a solution will not likely be in place until January or February of 2008.

HELIX Conference Update - Nancy Piringer

Piringer began her update with a brief report on HELIX 2007, indicating that there was a 30% increase in attendance over the 2006 conference. Piringer also reported that 52 attendees participated in the golf outing while 90 people attended the Texas Hold 'Em Poker night. Conference sessions were highly rated in evaluations and attendees indicated that the wine tasting and opening reception was highly enjoyable.

Piringer announced to the Board that HELIX 2008 will be held April 2-4 at Tan-Tar-A. The theme will be "From the Information Age to the Interaction Age". The HELIX Conference will once again be held simultaneously with the Spring Technical Conference. Piringer mentioned that Chad Shepherd was assisting her with conference planning and asked the Board members if anyone was interested in contributing, Fort volunteered. Piringer indicated that her goal is to bring in a keynote presenter who will speak to the development of Web 2.0 and what convergence means now and what it will mean in the future.

Piringer also announced to the Board that planning for the fall Institutional Representative meeting is underway. The meeting will be held November 1st at the Courtyard Marriot just up the street from the MOREnet building on LeMone. The theme of the meeting will be crisis management. Piringer is currently planning to assemble a panel of speakers who would be involved in crisis management from all levels. Rickman mentioned that it might be a good idea to include a legal perspective on the panel. Mabe indicated that he was aware of a state committee looking into crisis management, however it is not expected that any required standards for institutions would stem from the committee, although a general report is expected. LaReau thought it would be a good idea to gather additional information regarding the state committee and put together a brief status report on it for the fall meeting. Mitchell mentioned that UM System has released a Mass Notification Software RFP and the results of that are expected to be in later in the summer. LaReau suggested that Emergency Notification Systems could be a topic for the fall IR meeting. Mitchell also added that he hoped a comprehensive presentation on NGN rollout would be included as a topic. Kintzel added that he would like to see some time included for the discussion and sharing of data warehousing information. Rickman suggested allowing open time for the discussion of Vista installations and Emergency Notification Systems. Mabe mentioned eDiscovery as a possible topic and that he was curious as to what others were doing. Kintzel stated that he would be happy to share what DHE is doing to address eDiscovery and data warehousing.

Discussion turned back towards the HELIX Conference and Gulstad suggested that the contribution of up to $20,000 be approved to fund HELIX 2008. Athearn motioned that MERC should move forward and approve an amount up to $20,000 in order to fund the HELIX 2008 conference. Mabe seconded the motion. All were in favor, motion carried.

Planning for FY08 - Open discussion among Board members

LaReau opened the meeting to the discussion of issues that the Board would like to address or initiatives to undertake in FY08. LaReau began by suggesting the topic of using MOREnet's Kinetic service as a way to put up an emergency web page during emergency conditions. Byers indicated that the Missouri Department of Revenue does this now and that this re-routing of DNS will also save people on hits to their internal web servers in times of emergency. Mitchell mentioned that should be possible now to do as long as no personally identifiable data is included. Mitchell added that AUP's were a possible topic. Byers suggested hot spots and the security risk of providing publicly accessible wireless access. LaReau added that online credit card payment security was also a topic his institution is currently addressing.

LaReau asked Board members their thoughts on meeting times for the upcoming year and asked if the current model was working out for them. It was agreed upon by all that Monday and Friday times are not possible. There was general agreement that the current model is working and the Board would like to continue with quarterly meetings and meetings held at fall IR meeting and HELIX conference.

Gulstad suggested that she would like to see reports on video at both the IR and board meetings. LaReau added that he is curious about the topic of web-based distance learning contributing to the effects of bandwidth demands. He is currently experiencing a larger demand for bandwidth with instructors beginning to use more and more video. Mitchell responded that there is a possibility of storing much of the streaming data at the core. He added that a pilot might be in order, and mentioned that MOREnet wants to offer those services that the membership finds the most useful. LaReau mentioned ScreenCast as a good model for something that MOREnet might offer for storing streams.

Gulstad wondered if there were any studies or available information concerning the impact of MoVIP on bandwidth. Giddings responded that the presumption is that the greatest impact will occur at the public library level and at the districts now working to enroll large numbers of their students. Giddings added that for FY08 TNP has moved to a model that provides two windows per year for bandwidth upgrade requests. A part of the upgrade request is a bandwidth utilization survey. LaReau suggested the possibility of creating fact sheets that speak to the impact of technologies on bandwidth that could be passed on to legislators.

This led to the discussion of the possibility of MERC putting out a survey for the higher education institutions that would ask both the academic and administrative sides questions about current and intended uses of technology that will impact their bandwidth usage. Gulstad, Mabe, and LaReau each volunteered one of their staff to assist. It was agreed that the survey should touch on residence halls, incubators, etc.

LaReau asked the Board if they had any thoughts on any additional reports or information that MOREnet could provide. Gulstad suggested updates on the K-12 and library areas, which she finds useful as an indicator of what future higher education participants will be expecting.

LaReau asked if Board members had any additional business. Hearing none, Mabe motioned to adjourn the meeting and the motion was seconded by Athearn. Meeting adjourned 11:55 a.m.