TERENA Networking Conference 2004 in Rhodes

As seen by Martin Bech, UNI-C, Denmark.
Email: martin.bech@uni-c.dk

Pictures from Monday are on this page
Pictures from Tuesday may be viewed here
Pictures from Wednesday are here
Pictures from Thursday are here

The main parts of the conference were held in a building that is part of the Univsersity of the Aegean. In the conference material, it is said to be built around 1930, but if anyone told me it was much older, I would have believed them.

Lots of people for the opening session

The TERENA president, Dorte Olesen, engaged in a conversation before the whole thing starts

The podium, including microphone and projector, were momentarily without power. Hence some waiting time, where all sorts of websites were visited: Here, a map of Rhodes.

Jane Butler from Cisco Systems was introducing the various welcome addresses, ...

.. including that of the Rector of the University of the Aegaean, Dr. Sokraris K. Katsikas

Still some technical problems...

...before turning to the keynote speech by Peter Kirstein. In last year's photo series from TNC2003, I had a lot of snapshots of the slides, presented at the conference. This year, however, a lot of effort has been put into having the presentations online at the TERENA site. If you look at them there, you may also enjoy the far better picture quality provided by the real thing. Anyhow - a few slides will be repeated here, just to illustrate some of my comments.

In the keynote speech, Peter Kirstein took us through the European history of the Internet. In particular, this slide was very illustrative. It shows how the optical networking people sees Géant as a small attachment to the network. Think about that!

Participants

Peter Kirstein

A few years ago, the University buildings were restored. Some spare parts are still left in the far corner of the courtyard...

along with one of the wild cats that are so common everywhere in the town.

Coffee break...

...in the shadows

Our very own Gitte Kudsk, featuring the standard conference gear: Badge, rucksack, programme, computer bag and sandals

Mikael Linden from CSC in Finland presented how the city of Tampere, including the university, used a special city card as access token for network and services.

This particular track, called "Recent Results II", was held in a much smaller room. But by good planning (or divine intervention), it fitted nicely with the number of participants.

This track was chaired by Licia Florio from TERENA.

The next presentation, ...

...was given by Wolfgang Schneider from the Fraunhofer University

Once again, Mikael Linden, was at the podium, explaining how the Shibboleth authentication scheme could be used instead of Radius.

Apparently, they had also come up with a new verb: The process of applying Shibboleth, was called "to shibbolize". At a TERENA conference, you may surely learn new words that are yet to appear in any dictionary!

Speaking of words, we are in a greek university. It has never occurred to me that graffiti in greek is not only an archeological phenomenon.

The walk from the university and home to my hotel passes the remparts of the old city of Rhodes. Although this is to a large extent the result of reconstruction, it is still magnificent.

The Grand Masters Palace - a fortification within the fortification, where the intruders were repelled by what one could call medieval firewalls.

A warm thanks to the organizers for the brilliant idea of placing the conference in Rhodes.