Words: Annabel Grant, GÉANT
The Special Interest Group on Management Service Portfolios (SIG-MSP) gathered online on the 21st of September. The meeting saw a varied agenda and presentations from the Community. Topics included a case study on how NRENs are in a unique position to persuade Cloud providers to meet the stricter General Data Protection Regional (GDPR) requirements of Research & Education. Those who attended learned how the Dutch NREN, SURF, and the Dutch government successfully negotiated better terms with Microsoft and Google, with some tips and tricks on how this knowledge and approach could be used more widely across the community. This was followed by Alf Moens, Senior Information Security Officer at GÉANT, raising awareness of the important the Revised Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS2) which will shortly be bringing major changes to the community – much in the same way as GDPR. A full presentation on NIS2 is available here . Alf highlighted that all NRENs globally can benefit from using GÉANT’s Security Baseline to assess their Security readiness.
Next were presentations from Italy, Spain and Australia on the importance of tackling the issue of how to continuously support (after project funding has finished) community-based software or services. The topic garnered so much interest it was agreed that a longer “one off” event, under the auspices of our MSP special interest group be organised in December 2021 – this will allow the community to focus on the topic in more detail.
Finally, the Spanish NREN presented a strategic plan for the present times while the Norwegian colleagues shared some ideas for future strategic planning and service development. The concept of NRENs as ‘Data Movers’ was presented and discussed, with many questions and positive feedback from the audience.
Overall a veritable smorgasbord of ideas, interactions, comments, and feedback sums up the SIG-MSP autumnal get-together. The steering group is now looking forward to planning a more face to face endeavour for the Spring and to hosting the next online Winter meeting in December.
For more information about the SIG-MSP and other Special Interest Groups and Task Forces of the GÉANT’s Community Programme, as well as to stay tuned on upcoming events and workshops, visit the website: https://www.geant.org/People/Community_Programme.
