Queensland Education, Science and Technology Network (QUESTnet) is the Queensland regional component of the Australian Academic and Research Network - (AARNet).

The QUESTnet conference is an annual event aimed at network technologists and those ICT professionals who work closely with network technology. A key focus of the event is to provide an opportunity for delegates to develop their professional and technical knowledge and gain an appreciation of the key strategic issues for network development.

The QUESTnet 2008 conference will be held from Tuesday 8th to Friday 11th July 2008 and is hosted by Queensland University of Technology. This year's conference theme is Social Engineering your Network.

Society is demanding that infrastructure reduce its environmental impact and meet minimum environmental standards. This can mean saving power, reducing water consumption, minimising travel, channelling heat, etc. What impact does this have on network design and implementation? What smart ways can we adopt to achieve these goals?

Society is also interacting in new ways through applications like Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Second Life and Youtube.  This innovative social re-engineering brings both opportunities and challenges to your organisation.  How do you re-engineer your infrastructure to manage the situation?

What are the implications of accessing Facebook & Myspace from a mobile device? Will Mobile Carriers replace cheap SMS with feature-rich mobile websites? Will this drive the demand for University websites to be Mobile Aware? How well designed is your network for Mobile device interaction?

Other topics include:

• Social / Community demographics
• Ubiquitous access, everything everywhere
• What's the implication of eResearch to the network
• Are massive data streams a real threat or still just a pipe dream
• Green Data Centre design
• Wireless mobile services - telephony, presence
• Green network architectures - more wireless, green storage, green servers, impact of "always-on"
• IPv6 is it finally relevant
• Security especially from mobile devices
• Sensor networks

Plus the hoary old favourites:

• Middleware
• Protocols
• Standards
• Topologies
• Wireless

In addition, do you have something of interest that doesn't fit the topics above? This could be an interesting case study, implementation of new technology or research in the field of telecommunications. Whatever it is, we would like to hear about it.

Speakers are encouraged from University, Research, Health, Government, Defence and Industry sectors.

For further information contact the conference organiser, Martin Lack and Associates.

Ross Gorham
Chair, Program Committee, QUESTnet2008.
Email: qnet08prog@questnet.edu.au