Workshops

2007 Workshops

The workshops for 2007 are being planned. Please contact executive.officer@questnet.edu.au if your university can provide expertise to present a workshop, or you wish to host one.

Information on previous workshops is provided below for 2006 and 2005.

2006 Workshops

Systems and Server Consolidation and Virtualisation, 6-7 December 2006

Conducted at The University of Queensland, this two day workshop featured presenters from the universities and from industry. The program covered server virtualisation from VMWare and Microsoft, storage virtualisation from Hitachi, hardware virtualisation from Intel, and user experiences from Flight Centre, Karl Turnbull (Griffith), Scott Brewster (QUT), Luke Walford (SCU), Todd O'Connell (UQ) and Andrew Exley (UQ). Presentation slides are available at http://www.questnet.net.au/public_papers. This workshop was sponsored by QUESTnet.

Business Continuity Planning / Disaster Recovery, 15 September 2006

A QUESTnet sponsored workshop, the program featured a presentation from Adam Lawrence, Director Terrorism Risk at Ross Campbell & Associates, providing a practical guide to Business Continuity Planning. The program continued with experiences and case studies from the universities, with presentations from Sudath Wijeratne (Griffith) on their BCP methodology, and Roy Gregory (CQU) on their threat assessment exercise. Delegates participated in the discussion are share their experiences. The workshop was hosted by The University of Queensland. Presentation slides are available at http://www.questnet.net.au/public_papers.

Identity Management Architectures, 11 July 2006

Presented at the QUESTnet 2006 conference by Sun Microsystems The workshop was structured to provide a forum to demonstrate and share experiences around 3 key areas of Identity Management.

Business focus for successful Identity Management projects
1. Enterprise focus to meet the dynamic requirements of provisioning, workflow and password management
Federation focus to meet the growing needs of inter-organisational interaction for academic, e-research and student services.

The workshop delivery team included local and global experts, contributing their individual expertise around the focus areas mentioned above. The workshop was designed to be highly interactive with attendees contributing significantly their domain knowledge and experiences in relation to the topic. The workshop provided an opportunity to identify specific sector functional requirements and develop strategies to meet these requirements.

Eduroam Implementation, 11 July 2006

Presented at the QUESTnet 2006 conference by Grangenet, this workshop targeted implementers and network/wireless/campus engineers. The workshop was hands-on, delivering practical insights into wireless infrastructure models, eduroam service model, radius hierarchy in eduroam, radius configuration, AP configuration, security for guest wireless networks, IMS integration, and client configuration using SecureW2 on XP and on PDA's and Mac OSX.

Cisco Secure Architecture, 11 July 2006

Presented at the QUESTnet 2006 conference by Cisco, this session covered the principles and design aspects of identity based networking using CiscoSecure ACS. The foundation for network identity services is 802.1x, which allows enterprise network administrators to explicitly control who and what gets on their network. Identity services are a requisite technology to Network Admission Control (NAC). The workshop was run in two halves; the first half focusing on 802.1x based network admission control. The second half of the session focussed on alternative strategies and products around network admission control and remediation.

SIP and IP Telephony, 11 July 2006

Delivered by Nortel at the QUESTnet 2006 conference this workshop was divided into two major areas.

The data infrastructure requirements for effective IP Telephony and Multimedia communication.
A focus on two specific SIP based Multimedia Networking solutions, Nortel's Multimedia Communications Server (MCS) and Microsoft's Live Communications Server (LCS)

Topics covered included:

Data Infrastructure Requirements:

Network Resiliency
Quality of Service and the Diffserv Model
Power over Ethernet
Proactive Voice Quality Management
Network Audit
Security

Multimedia Communications using SIP:

Why SIP
Pure IP vs Hybrid approach
MCS Architecture
LCS Architecture
Practical implementation issues

BGP Techniques for Providers, 11 July 2006

The tutorial introduced service providers to some more advanced BGP features and techniques to aid with operating their networks within the Internet. After a review of iBGP, eBGP and common attributes, the tutorial covered the various scaling techniques available, when to use BGP instead of an IGP, and the policy options available through the use of local preference, MED and communities. The tutorial then covered common deployment scenarios as used in ISP networks, and some of the newer features available.

CiscoWorks, 8-9 June 2006

This two day hands-on CiscoWorks training workshop was a re-run of the 2005 workshop, presented by a Cisco Advanced Services Senior Systems Engineer at The University of Queensland. This workshop was sponsored by QUESTnet.

2005 Workshops

Security Audit Tools, 1 December, 2005

Split into two sections, this one day hands-on workshop presented by AusCERT focuses on Network Vulnerability Scanning and Windows Data Collection. The sessions are aimed at network and system administrators responsible for the security of their systems. This workshop is sponsored by QUESTnet and hosted by The University of Queensland.

Benchmarking 23-24 November, 2005

Delivered by John Lockwood (CAUDIT), this latest 2 day QUESTnet workshop will be of particular interest for IT Directors, their direct reports and staff responsible for data collection and completing the survey instruments.

The workshop will focus on the following areas:.

Background on Benchmarking and the philosophy behind the project
Briefing on the Educause and UK surveys
Summary of the Progress to Date
Discussion on definition/interpretation of the survey instruments

3 Services Instruments - IT Support, Data Networks, and educational Technology
Focussing on the data items relevant to the KPI's
The new University Wide Data Collection Instrument

Open discussion on data collection methodologies and how to embed this into the normal operations

Some best practice examples

Proposed Timetable for the Benchmarking Project over the next 6 to 12 months

This workshop is sponsored by QUESTnet and hosted by The University of Queensland.

Thinking Skills, 21-23 November, 2005

Dr Richard Broome is coming to Australia again will run another "Thinking Skills" course on 21-23 November. The course includes mind mapping, memory skills, problem solving, and more (see Richard's web site: http://www.thinkingskills.co.za). This workshop is hosted by The University of Queensland. QUESTnet will sponsor travel from regional QUESTnet universities.

AusCERT Intrusion Prevention, 29-30 September 2005

This workshop is sponsored by CAUDIT and presented by AusCERT. Hosted by The University of Queensland this two day workshop will cover technical aspects of protection strategies for Windows environments. The course will identify common attack types used to penetrate Windows servers and workstations, common misconfigurations and architectural issues associated with maintaining Windows Server 2003 systems and Windows XP clients. QUESTnet will sponsor travel from regional QUESTnet universities.

Enterprise Architecture, 26-27 September, 2005

Hosted by Griffith University and presented by Ovum Asia Pacific the workshop gives a broad overview of standard Enterprise Architecture frameworks and examples of the use of Enterprise Architecture in the public sector. It will also explain how Enterprise Architecture practises can be used as a tool for understanding and managing IT complexity, whilst at the same time highlighting the potential pitfalls in implementing Enterprise Architecture practices. The workshop also defines Ovum's approach to Enterprise Architecture and explains how to establish an Enterprise Architecture practice appropriate to your organisation. This workshop is sponsored by QUESTnet.

CiscoWorks, 26-27 September, 2005

This two day hands-on CiscoWorks training workshop is presented by a Cisco Advanced Services Senior Systems Engineer at the Nathan Campus of Griffith University. This workshop is sponsored by QUESTnet. The following areas will be addressed in the workshop:

Resource Manager Essentials, ACL Management, etc.
QoS Policy Manager Module
Internetwork Performance Monitor Module
"How To / Best Practice" - Getting the best out of network monitoring and management from Ciscoworks, both layer 2 and 3.

Automated and bulk switch configuration updates
Checking trunk consistency
Spanning tree