The PSU Research Network MOU:Summary of Comments from the

ICS Coordinating Committee31 July 2014

Highlights from the MOU:The Research Network (RN) :

• Facilitates high-speed movement of data for research between endpoints on or off campus

• Has passive monitoring is installed rather than traditional firewalls in order to minimalize latency

• Is not intended to be a replacement for the general-purpose PSU Internet backbone

• Passes PSU security and policy implementation to the end users of the network unlike the standard PSU Internet backbone

Comments from the Committee Onboarding (Scope and Connecting)

“It is not clear throughout whether an endpoint is a device connected to the network or just the connecting point, perhaps a network jack

Also, for the sake of this document the endpoint is specific to the Research Network – so if we say “connected to the endpoint”, it is understood that means connected to the Research Network”

It was suggested that Onboarding is vague and should be reworded as “Establishing and Connecting to an Endpoint”

“We need to explain the nature of this responsibility. For instance, would monetary penalties become the PI responsibility?”

Comments from the Committee Security

“It's unreasonable to try to pass all responsibility/blame for anything that goes wrong on faculty/PIs.  This becomes especially problematic if there's a machine shared by a sizable group .... Users are responsible for how their accounts are used.  IT staff are responsible for keeping machines secure.”“Under the Security Requirement section, perhaps we should specify what happens if use of the network is not related to approved research projects. For example, the PI will be given a warning, and within how many days the data or applications will be removed, etc.”

“Need to be more specific here as some research may be about social media”

Comments from the Committee Use and Data Transfer

“Isolated computers are of little value.  We need a way to efficiently share data between computers on the high-speed research network and on our standard networks.”

“I think the restriction that workstations be used solely for research is silly.  ... the NSF and PSU are encouraging us to integrate our research into our teaching.”

The MOU implies that Globus is only approved way to move data across the network and any other use needs approval. This is going to be a hindrance to adoption if it is forced upon faculty.

General Comments from the Committee

“We need to make it easy for people to innovate.  I anticipate that some of the long-term most important use cases may not even be on our radar yet.  

If we set up too many barriers, then PSU researchers won't be the ones to break open those new opportunities.”