1st SIG-CNaaS meeting (physical/onsite meeting)

Starts 19 Jan 2026, 12:00

Ends 20 Jan 2026, 14:30

(Timezone - Europe/Amsterdam)

SURF

Virtually Hosted ( Teams link will be provided to subscribers )

Maurice van den Akker (SURF)

The 1st SIG-CNaaS meeting is a workshop and will be held in Utrecht, kindly hosted by SURF. The agenda and the meeting information will be shared here: https://wiki.geant.org/spaces/SIGCNaaS/pages/1183744016/1st+SIG-CNaaS+meeting+-+19-20+january+Utrecht+Netherlands. 

We encourage everybody to join the session by person in Utrecht. However, we provide an option to join remote as well. We don't know if the format of the workshop is suitable for remote joining, but we'll try ;-)

For any questions, please reach out to einar.ljones@sikt.no. 

Monday 19 January

12:00 → 17:30 First day of CNaaS workshop

First topic: Network operating Center, ticketing and monitoring systems for Campus Network Services:

For campus network purposes, we need a NOC, monitoring and ticketing system. These systems and services have to aggregate their information from within several (sub)services like Wi-Fi, LAN, firewall, radius and other stuff. However, each NREN has it implemented in a different way. Either doing it themselves, or in collaboration with institutes or a third party. What are the best practices to set these systems up? Can we use NAV and Argus from SIKT NREN-wide for this? Should we develop something more? How can this be used, what are best practices?

Furthermore, How could you best organize a NOC for this? What does it take to organize a NOC 24x7 in-house and what are the (dis)advantages of this in relation to outsource it to a market party? Especially if you mix services like wired, wireless, firewall. Can we make a plan together how such a NOC should look like and what the requirements are? For housing, personnel/profiles, equipment, and so on. Can we outsource field services and/or leave it up to the institute? What is then needed for training them? Is there international collaboration possible? E.g. sharing NOC employees, first/second line helpdesk, etc?

Tuesday 20 January

09:00 → 14:30 Second day of CNaaS workshop

Second topic: Network Access Control and IoT connectivity

Gaining role-based access to campus networks is common practice on many campuses. However, the systems that are being used for this varies a lot, from open source to proprietary. Furthermore, the functional requirements might have been changed over time, but it is unclear what can be expected from NAC in a campus services portfolio: is it only about 802.1x and appointing VLANs, or also about putting users in Quarantaine and other requirements? What are the dependencies of the IP plan of insitutes? Can we think of an open source solution that covers future campus’ needs, can we procure a system together? Can we work more together on something we call radius-as-a-service? Other ideas?

Specific for IoT-devices, NAC is also an intersting topic. The number of IoT (non-eduroam) devices is growing rapidly on the campus. In order to keep track of all these devices and trace them back to the users, a platform is needed which is independent of a vendor. SURF already has a service into place called iotroam, where Wi-Fi IoT devices can be managed in order to have them connect to the network in a secure and user friendly manner by the user itself. Is it easy for other NRENs to launch such a service? What is needed? How can we collaborate internationally?