Task Force Life Cycle and Portfolio Management(TF-LCPM)

TNC 2007 – General Assembly

Lyngby, 24 May 2.007

Dr. Alberto Pérez GómezDeputy Director of RedIRIS

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NRENs: more than links and Gbps

• The defining element of a National Research and Education Network is a network infrastructure…

• … but what the NRENs really do is to provide services (some services directly related to that network infrastructure, but others not so related).

• NRENs were created by technicians for technicians – and in some cases they risk focusing too much in technological aspects, and not enough in making use of certain well-proven management and marketing tools (portfolio management, life cycle, etc)

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NRENs dilemma regarding services

• Promotion of innovation vs. covering users service needs?

“Technology-driven” (push) vs. “User-driven” (pull)

• The answer in the case of any NREN depends on its strategy and what the funding bodies and users expect from it – Trend towards “push” (“technology-driven”)

• Do NREN service portfolios (beyond IP connectivity) really cover actual and future users needs?

• What added value does the NREN services provide? What would happen if the NREN did not provide the service? Which penetration goals should be established?

• How does it fares in a cost-benefit analysis? Is the provision of the service scalable? Which is the expected life cycle?

• How should service provision be managed and coordinated?

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Portfolio Management (I)

• Detailed description of each service

– Strategic goals whose provision would help to achieve

– Target and expected penetration rate

– Resources needed

– Added value, competitive advantages

– Development process, implementation and operation

– Estimated life cycle

– Marketing policy (Product, Price, Placement, Promotion)

– Synergies

– Risk management

– Indicators

– Expected service levels

Portfolio management (II)

• It is necessary to have a balanced portfolio of services (it is linked to the concept of life cycle)

CowsCows

?InterrogationInterrogationMarksMarks

DogsDogs

User penetration rateUser penetration rate

Gro

wth

Gro

wth

LowLow

HighHigh

HighHigh LowLow

StarsStars

Boston Consulting Group MatrixBoston Consulting Group Matrix

E2E; VoIPEduroam; SCS

Basic IP connectivity News

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Service Life Cycle (I)

• Classic model

Intro. Growth Maturity Decline

Time

Penetration

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Service Life Cycle (II)

• Potential synergiesWhat is promising?

Exchange of information

User demands?

Coordination of surveys Joint operation and / or coordinated launch?

(harmonization of service portfolios)

Synchronisation?

Research Study Servicedevelopment

plan

Startof service

Servicediscontinuance

plan

Turn-offservice

Service development

Service production

Serviceshut-down

Technologyscouting

--------------Surveys on users

requirements

1 2 3 4 5

Technologydevelopment

Userneeds

Lifecycle

ImpactAnalysis

Joint development,

buying or trial?

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Cooperation at European level: TERENA TF-LCPM

• TERENA usually sets up technical Task Forces – but now, besides a TF- PR (Public Relations), it has a TF-LCPM (Life Cycle and Portfolio Management)– Created on December 2005 for an initial period of 2 years

– Main task: to promote collaboration among NRENs in the area of service management

• Current work areas of the TF-LCPM:– Service portfolios: The main goal is to elaborate a common list of service

categories and a common service description template, in order to facilitate comparison of service portfolios

– Comparison of Service Level Agreements: Study about which NRENs offer SLAs – plus examples on the process for the introduction of SLAs

• Most NRENs charge their users for their services, and SLAs may help to show that their services are competitive quality-wise vis-à-vis those of ISPs

– Exchange of ideas on delivering services: Identify new service ideas and promote exchange of ideas on how to provide them (including co-development)

– Portfolio management and life cycle models and tools: Some NRENs have formalized these processes, linked to their strategic models. Within this work area the current existing examples are studied, and useful documentation related to this field is provided.

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• Proposal of NREN Service Categories– Interaction with the TERENA Compendium Working Group

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: service portfolios (I)

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• Proposal of NREN Service Description Template

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: service portfolios (II)

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• Comparison of services of different NRENs• Three NRENs (BELNET, RedIRIS, UNINETT) have agreed to provide

information about a commonly defined set of NREN services using a similar service description template in order to facilitate comparison.

• A subset of 8 services to be compared was defined by the group

– The services were chosen by TF-LCPM trying to include different kind of services (e.g., network and application services; services at different phases of the life cycle; services aimed at different targets; some services jointly developed at European level and others developed nationally, etc)

– The services initially chosen were: Antispam IP connectivity IP multicast Point-to-

pointEduroam SCS Videoconferencing News

– Some lessons learned and some initial conclusions• Description of services was useful not only for comparison, but also for internal

purposes – however, people at NRENs are not used to focus on activities like this• Comparison provided ideas about new services and how to implement them

(NORDUNETT MailDike, eduroam and videoconferencing at RedIRIS, support at BELNET…)

• Comparison would be even more useful if more NRENs describe their services

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: service portfolios (III)

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• Survey on which NRENs provide SLAs, for which services, and at which level– Results compiled & study on the aggregated data

• Example: implementation of SLAs at HEAnet– Analysis of internal process followed in order to determine

which SLAs to provide, at which level, how to formalize it and communicate it to users…

– SLAs provided for IP connectivity (different SLAs for users with redundant connections), point-to-point circuits, hosting and support

– It proved successful to convince of the advantages of HEAnet services to some users which could switch between publicly-funded networks

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: Comparison of SLAs (I)

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• Templates of HEAnet SLAs

• Additional examples to be provided by UKERNA

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: Comparison of SLAs (II)

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• NRENs already have fora in which they exchange information on new services and how to deliver them– GN2 Project: Joint Research Activities (JRAs) which become

Service Activities (SAs)– TERENA Task Forces

• Example - Eduroam: First it was a TERENA TF-Mobility project, then it was developed through JRA5 of GN2, now it will become service launched in a coordinated way through a GN2 SA

• However, there are areas of possible cooperation between NRENs not covered by GN2 or existing TFs– Examples coordinated by TERENA: joint NREN contracts for

Server Certificate Service (SCS) or Request Tracker for Incident Response (RTIR)

– New areas to be explored, among others, by TF-LCPM

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: exchange of ideas (I)

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• SURFNET proposal on “service dashboard”

– TF-LCPM Meeting organized by SURFnet in Utrecht in December 2006

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: exchange of ideas (II)

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• UNINETT proposal on how to provide mail filter (Mail Dike)

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: exchange of ideas (III)

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• TF-LCPM has produced a brief LCPM White Book to explain the rationale behind this concept and to put it in relation to the activity of NRENs

• SURFnet has provided a detailed example of how have they implemented this concept internally– Go / No-Go documents (plan for a feasibility study; business-case

and development plan; plan for service introduction; plan for stimulating usage and support; plan for decommissioning)

– Annual user surveys to determine priorities• 2006: Qualitative survey to 10 ICT Managers of affiliated

institutions, and quantitative surveys to all ICT managers of affiliated institutions plus 3000 end-users

• Input used by product managers to determine priorities (users consider operational excellence a key factor) and take decisions (2.006: decommissioning of SURFnet search engine and http mirror-services)

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: LCPM models and tools (I)

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• Other examples:– BELNET is currently studying the introduction of a formalized

LC-PM process, following the model of SURFnet– SWITCH template for the description of a new service idea:

• The Work Area of LCPM models provides NRENs with resources related to these issues – taking into account NREN strategies

TERENA TF-LCPM Work Area: LCPM models and tools (II)

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• Target audience for the work of this group: NREN Managers & people defining / implementing / marketing services– Probably everyone attending this GA fits within these categories!

• The work already done by the TF members should be further disseminated among that target audience– They could use this work (that is what it was done for)– They could contribute to this work, with new experiences / ideas

• E.g., for the TF-LCPM Work Area “Exchange of Ideas”: What’s the newest / most innovative project your NREN is, or has recently been, involved in?

• New meeting in September to complete some pending actions and to assess whether to propose the TEC a revised version of the ToR before the end of the year

TERENA TF-LCPM What next?

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For more information on this issue, visit

http://www.terena.org/activities/tf-lcpm

Many thanks to the former Chair, Work Area leaders and TERENA

Urs Eppenberg (SWITCH)

Koen Schelkens (BELNET)

Ann Harding (HEAnet)

Magnus Stromdal (UNINETT)

Walter Van Dijk (SURFnet)

Guy Van den Bergh (TERENA)

…and to the all the participating NRENs!

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Edificio BroncePlaza Manuel Gómez Moreno s/n28020 Madrid. España

Tel.: 91 212 76 20 / 25Fax: 91 212 76 35www.red.es – www.rediris.es

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION