CEO’s Report December 2013

It’s been an amazing year of momentum for both AARNet and our shareholders, and this state of play will no doubt continue well into 2014.

Traffic Growth

Total traffic growth for the year, up to and including Q3 2013 (compared to same period 2012), has been 51%, with growth experienced in all traffic categories.

Here’s a snapshot of some (by no means all) of the projects we’ve been working on this year:

AARNet4

The AARNet4 project is in full swing with the rollout of equipment at all Sydney Network Access Points (NAPs) complete and all Melbourne NAPs together with Tully Rd – Perth; Hindley St – Adelaide, and ANU – Canberra scheduled.

National Research Network (NRN) Projects

Customer migration and upgrade is anticipated to be ready for Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) service delivery by mid-December, on schedule to achieve the RDSI milestone to complete connectivity and deploy Science DMZ at 3 Primary RDSI nodes.

The QLD Outer Metro Brisbane Fibre Ring NRN Adelaide to Perth/ NRN Perth Ring projects are complete and we’re in the process of organising and delivering customer services across these respective infrastructures.

The Sydney Basin Network Project is nearing completion and expected by the end of the year. Feasibility studies and route designs for the link from Parramatta to Penrith via Hawkesbury are continuing and we expect to finalise design and proceed to tender for the construction of this fibre route by the end of 2013.

 CloudStor & CloudStor+

Our CloudStor large file transfer service reached over 9500 registered users in early December. At the eResearch Australasia conference in October we conducted numerous CloudStor demonstrations. Compared to popular commercial cloud offerings, CloudStor proved to be a factor of 50 times faster for file uploads.

The CloudStor+ personal file storage system for researchers has reached a state where it is stable enough to be considered production grade for the purposes of all current and future walk-in beta testers.

Global Unified Communications Exchange

Progress continues for this global project led by AARNet with the take-up of the service expanding throughout Latin America in recent months. The Nordic countries reported they are making an investment in Session Border Controller (SBC) hardware to support the project.  JANET, the UK research network, is testing the technology on available number ranges

Product Solutions

In the Cloud Storage arena, AARNet has completed a deal with Box.net  to provide competitively priced cloud services tailored for the Australian Higher Education sector.

Enterprise Services

Enterprise Services has progressed very positively with engagement around 20 projects in its first 7 months of operation. Customers report that they value our sector experience and our ability to translate business needs into technical advice that exploits AARNet3 and AARNet4. Our key services areas are Enterprise Architecture (Technical) Services, Private, Hybrid and Public Cloud Services, Rich Media Collaboration Services and Enterprise IT Planning Services.

As is evident, the 2013 year has seen a massive contribution from all AARNet staff and we look forward to working with all of our shareholders and customers in 2014.

Chris Hancock 

Chief Executive Officer