TNC2005 in Poznan - monday 6/6-2005

The day starts with the TAC meeting, held in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. You may notice the gallery on the back wall, which signifies that we are in a university with a lot of tradition. It is a good thing that there is a lot more to a university carreer than ending up on such a wall...

Martin Sutter from SWITCH presented end-to-end and campus issues as a new possible focus area.

The room was very hot and it felt like there was a lack of oxygen, but people kept up to the very end.

Claudio Allocchio

Coffe break was really what we needed. Note how nicely our hosts have set the coffee table - a real pleasure for the eye. A lot of buffet makers could learn something here.

...and then more meeting!

Diego Lopez fra RedIRIS presented mobility and naturally EduRoam as a focus area,

and everyone seemed to agree, so there was no debate about that. Instead, since a lot of people cares about this project, the whole thing developed almost into an EduRoam meeting.

He also said that it was a good sign that some americans have begun to claim that they invented EduRoam. This just shows that they are interested in the project!

Special metal street signs have been made for the special bus stops put in place for the conference. - Now, THAT's organization!

Lunch and coffee breaks are in a large tent just outside...

...the conference center.

Here, I need some help from our Polish colleagues: There seems to be a tradition in the whole of Poland to symbolize the mens' room with a triangle and ladies' room with a circle. I may be able to imagine a possible explanation for the circle, but definitely not for the triangle. Please send me a mail with the explanation or contact me in the conference, so we can get this mystery solved.

The hallway inside the conference centre, where some of the sponsors are placed. This picture is taken during lunchtime when everyone is out in the tent. Otherwise it is a busy street.

The organization around the whole conference is running smoothely. I hope we will be able to do it just as well when it gets our turn to organize the TNC ;-)

The main auditorium is brand new - and huge.

The happy president, Dorte Olesen, just before the opening session.

Welcoming address by the director of Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC), Jan Weglarz.

An example of one of my favorite subjects: Danes at the conference. Here it is Helle Meldgaard and Kurt Bøge, both from UNI-C.

This conference has more than 500 participants. The best turnout ever, ...

...according to Shirley Wood.

We also had a welcoming address from the internationally-minded mayor of Poznan.

Of course, we also need the support of the sponsors.

A welcome on behalf of the Minister of Science and Information Society Technologies

The keynote speaker, Ed Seidel, represented a rare species: A real user that knows something about networking. As network people, we tend to talk about what our networks are used for only once or twice a year when we have to justify our budgets. In my opinion, we should talk with guys like Ed Seidel every day!

He had an interesting point: The reason our networks are only used to a fraction of the capacity is that we shoud supply even more bandwidth. Only then will new applications appear that will in turn use more bandwith.

More Danes: Lars Fischer, Nordunet to the left and to the right we have Henrik Wessing, from the Danish Technical University, who is involved in the MUPBED project.

Bob Riddle from the Internet2 project, talking about...

BREW - which is about securing bandwidth across domains (of all kinds)

An even more theoretical treatment of the subject of resource allocation - this time from a GRID perspective - was presented by Tiziana Ferrari from CNAF in Italy

The special buses that go with the special bus stops are regular city buses, but brand new and reserved for TNC2005.

At the national museum, where the event of the evening were to take place, Jan Weglarz and Dorte Olesen bid the crowd welcome.

This guy had some well-prepared sentences, by which he announced that the food is to the right. Noone moved and instead of repeating it another way, he kept reciting the exact same sentence three times: "Ladies and gentlemen, ...". I later discovered, by the way, that he spoke excellent english, so this was rather an example of the rule never to abandon a good plan no matter what happens.

And so, people got the message and found the buffet, ...

... which also included a PC-cake. I imagine that the cake-maker got his instructions over a bad telephone line: "We just need a piece'a'cake for the reception".