Welcome to QUESTnet 2013
This year's conference is hosted by Australian Catholic University. 
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 ICT professionals who work closely with network technologies. A key focus of the event is to provide an opportunity for delegates to develop their professional and technical knowledge and to gain an appreciation of key strategic issues underpinning the development, deployment and maintenance of national and international telecommunications networks.
The theme for this year’s conference is “Clouds: In our way or enabling change?” The sub theme is “Adopting and Adapting to a new paradigm for supporting Research and Education”.
Innovative advances within the IT industry in the past few years have led to a proliferation of new technologies and service offerings. Standing high, Cloud Computing has established a reputation for cost reduction across a host of services areas and is at the top of the agenda of almost all CIOs and IT Directors.
| While many offerings are yet to reach acceptable levels of maturity, there is no doubt that the cloud computing paradigm has and will continue to drive change within our organisations for the next few years. Cloud based services provide organisations with options to acquire various IT resources from a range of service providers, enabling great flexibility and increased agility, with cost models based on actual consumption. Constantly looking for ways to become more efficient and effective, these offerings are very appealing to the enterprise. While the cloud enables innovation and provides unimaginable opportunities, there are inevitably many challenges to overcome before the perceived advantages can be realised. Governance, risk and compliance issues, coupled with security, integration and reliability, confront many organisations looking to leverage the cloud. |
The adoption of cloud based services potentially changes the ‘business as usual’ model for many. As we strive to determine and plan our internal services offerings, we need to reconsider a number of business and technology related changes that we implemented during the heady days of ERP. Business processes, networking, infrastructure, software licensing, Identity and access management all need to be reviewed in the context of consuming services from the cloud. Intrinsic in our deliberations are determining our future workforce profile, reviewing business continuity arrangements and managing expectations - to name just a few items.
The high level challenge now is to craft a comprehensive cloud strategy to harmonise with the overall IT strategy of the enterprise.
How do we position ourselves to support research and education in these dynamic and exciting times?
With so much to share and discover, I am confident you will enjoy the 2013 Conference. QUESTnet has always been about the personal, social and technical networking experience and will once again provide value for Conference presenters and participants as well as for our sponsors, vendors and partners - AARNet, CAUDIT and the QRNO. Eduroam will be available on site at the conference to keep you connected. Look for the AARNet eduroam booth.
I look forward to seeing you at the QUESTnet 2013 conference.
Regards
Rick Van Haeften
Chair, Conference Organising Committee
Conference News
AARNet is delighted to introduce the inaugural AARNet Excellence Awards. More details are available at http://www.aarnet.edu.au/News/2013/05/09/AARNet-Excellence-Awards-2013.
The Awards will be presented at the QUESTnet 2013 Conference Gala
Dinner at the Gold Coast Royal Pines Resort, Queensland, on 4 July 2013.
Submissions are welcome from the Research & Education Information
Technology Services community that demonstrate the value of services
delivered to educators, researchers, staff and students.
