How many wired sockets will the network of 2030 have? How many IP connected devices per person? Will Open Source, Open Hardware and Software Defined Networking take over from proprietary technologies? And is the networking function at universities and colleges simply another thing to be commodized and outsourced, or does it have huge potential to support tech innovation in the UK? Slides from my talk with Jeremy Sharp at the UCISA Network Futures conference looking at some new and emerging technologies and trends and the impact they are likely to have in the next 10 to 15 years.

1. Martin Hamilton & Jeremy Sharp, Jisc
The Network in 2030
UCISA Network Futures
Photo CC BY-NC-SA Flickr user expressmonorail
January
2015
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2. Themes
The Network in 2030
UCISA Network Futures
1. Back to the future
2. Trends and signifiers
3. Prototype to production
4. IT as Innovation inTechnology
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3. Themes
The Network in 2030
UCISA Network Futures
1. Back to the future
2. Trends and signifiers
3. Prototype to production
4. IT as Innovation inTechnology
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4. Back to the future
Hands up if you remember:
› SERCNET, X.25 PADs
› nfsnet-relay
› Coloured Books, NRS
› PP & QUIPU
› JIPS/Shoestring
– UKNOF Internet History
Project:http://www.uknof.org.uk/history.html
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5. Back to the future
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Hands up if you remember:
› VampireTaps
› DIY thin ethernet usingTV
coax cabling
› Trumpet WinSock
› Mosaic
› Archie, Gopher,WAIS, …
› WaveLAN
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6. Back to the future
Consolidation postY2K:
– Gigabit Ethernet (then 10GigE)
– Structured cabling
– IP telephony
– Wireless goes mainstream
– Student residences
– eduroam
– Support via LAN/MAN, SRIF
› The network (LAN andWAN) is now
“mission critical” for everyone
Photo credit: CC-BY Flickr user dbarsky
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7. Themes
The Network in 2030
UCISA Network Futures
1. Back to the future
2. Trends and signifiers
3. Prototype to production
4. IT as Innovation inTechnology
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8. Trends and signifiers
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9. Trends and signifiers
Shared data centre:
› £900K HEFCE investment
› Anchor tenants: Crick, KCL, LSE, QMUL, Sanger, UCL
– www.jisc.ac.uk/shared-data-centre
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10. Trends and signifiers
Amazon cloud portal:
› Monthly invoicing - credit cards are no
longer required for payment
› Itemized billing - consolidated across
users/departments
› Billing in GBP, not dollars
› Setting of budget limits for individual user
accounts or departments
› The retrieval of service usage information
within own areas of responsibility
› Volume-discounts through aggregation
across multiple educational institutions
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www.ja.net/amazon

11. Trends and signifiers
Moonshot:
› Single, unifying technology that enables
you to effectively manage and control
access to a wide range of web and non-
web services and applications.
› These include cloud infrastructures,
High Performance Computing, Grid
Computing and commonly deployed
services such as email, file store, remote
access and instant messaging
– www.ja.net/moonshot
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12. Trends and signifiers
Reach:
› £4M funding from BIS to work
towards a Janet which is "open and
accessible" to industry
› Provides industry access to
university e-infrastructure facilities
to facilitate further investment in
science, engineering and
technology with the active
participation of business and
industry
› Modelled on Innovate UK
competition process
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www.ja.net/janet-reach

13. Trends and signifiers
Safe share:
› EncryptedVPN infrastructure between
organisations
› Providing enhanced confidentiality and
integrity per ISO27001
› Requirement to move electronic health
data securely and support research
collaboration
› Working with biomedical researchers at
Farr Institute, MRC Medical Bioinformatics
initiative, ESRCAdministrative Data
Centres
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14. Trends and signifiers
Equipment sharing:
› Brokered industry access to £60m
public investment in HPC
› Working with EPSRC to pilot the
Kit-Catalogue software, sharing
details of 10,000 items of high
value equipment
› Newcastle University alone is
sharing £16m+ of >£20K value
equipment
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Photo credit: HPC Midlands
www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/
equipment-sharing-made-easy

15. Trends and signifiers
Conclusions:
› Growing emphasis on what the network enables
› Sharing facilities to reduce the friction of collaboration
– And achieve operating efficiencies
› Astronomical volumes of data – LHC, SKA, 100,000 Genomes
› Joining the dots across the R&D landscape – Catapults,
industrial connectivity, industry access to e-Infrastructure
› But is the network itself a “done deal” or is there a period of
further rapid evolution to come?
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16. Trends and signifiers
Conclusions:
› Growing emphasis on what the network enables
› Sharing facilities to reduce the friction of collaboration
– And achieve operating efficiencies
› Astronomical volumes of data – LHC, SKA, 100,000 Genomes
› Joining the dots across the R&D landscape – Catapults,
industrial connectivity, industry access to e-Infrastructure
› But is the network itself a “done deal” or is there a period of
further rapid evolution to come?
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17. Themes
The Network in 2030
UCISA Network Futures
1. Back to the future
2. Trends and signifiers
3. Prototype to production
4. IT as Innovation inTechnology
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18. Prototype to production
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19. Prototype to production
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20. Prototype to production
Example: AutonomousVehicles
› Capability:
– Do we have it in house?
– If not: build, buy or broker?
– New model or updated? Retrofit?
› Capacity:
– Can we do it at scale?
– How do we respond to changes in demand?
› Sector specific:
– Shift from buying cars to renting them
Photo CC BY-NC-SA Flickr user traftery
Photo credit: Google
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21. Prototype to production
Example: 5G communications
› From Samsung, China Mobile and Huawei:
– 50Gbit/s peak
– 1Gbit/s generally
– Speeds up to 500km/hr
– Millisecond latency
› Underpinning technology
– mmWave based?
– Massive MIMO arrays?
– Software defined networking / radios?
– New generation of backplanes?
Photo credit:CC-BY-NC
Flickr user Rain Rabbit
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22. Prototype to production
Example: 5G trends (projected)
› Bandwidth:
– From streaming Despicable Me 5 in 8K
– To smart sensors in street furniture
› Latency:
– From Call of Duty 12 on HS2
– To tracking your next Amazon Drone delivery
› Massification:
– From 90,000 FACupVines
– To a telepresence session with two rooms
Photo CC BY Flickr user mariusb
Photo credit: CC BY-NC Flickr user willrich
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23. Prototype to production
Coming up in today’s session:
› Design considerations forTerabit networking
› Internet ofThings – from connected homes to connected
institutions?
› Public wifi – eduroam everywhere?
› New paradigms – driven by shared services and cross sector
collaborations
› Software Defined Networking and Network Function
Virtualization – no more baked in silicon?
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24. Themes
The Network in 2030
UCISA Network Futures
1. Back to the future
2. Trends and signifiers
3. Prototype to production
4. IT as Innovation inTechnology
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25. IT as Innovation inTechnology
IT == Innovation inTechnology
› Conventional wisdom: IT as a cost centre
– Is that howTesco and Amazon see it?
› Can you be replaced with a robot?
– Or an outsourcerer / shared service / SaaS / …
› What do (or can) you do that gives your
institution a unique advantage?
– May not be what you are doing now 
› Are we actually entering a new golden age?
– Discuss!
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Photo credit:CC-BY-NC
Flickr user Rain Rabbit

26. PS
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networkshop.ja.net

27. Find out more…
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Except where otherwise noted, this
work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND
Martin Hamilton, Futurist
martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
Jeremy Sharp
Head of StrategicTechnologies
jeremy.sharp@jisc.ac.uk