Middleware Announcements

[Ken Klingenstein <>]

Folks,

Thank you for agreeing to be the Internet2 Middleware liaison for your 
institution. These are proving to be interesting times in the land of 
middleware, and we are glad to be establishing communication mechanisms and 
opportunities to help our membership sort through the issues as this next 
layer of connectivity emerges.  We will be adding your contact information to 
our member database which will be maintained by the Membership area.

This message is to inform you of several efforts designed to assist in our 
emerging middleware deployments. These include:
        (1) Creation of a middleware announcement list 
(.)
 This list is intended to communicate items of broad interest and is expected 
to have a modest activity level. Typical postings might include pointers to 
new standards or discussion lists, major updates to widely-used middleware 
tools, information about white papers and best practices documents, etc. 
Posting to the list will be done by Internet2 staff with interested members, 
standards chairs, etc. invited to submit items to 
.
  
        (2)  Creation of a middleware discussion list 
(.)
 This unmoderated list is intended to allow members to exchange information 
and approaches to common middleware topics. This list may have significant 
activity. Typical postings might include requests for modules or plug-ins, 
exploration of higher ed adaptation issues for commercial packages, 
discussions about middleware tools, information about white papers and best 
practices documents, etc. It is not intended to be the location for extended 
technical discussions; such dialogues should be moved to other lists devoted 
specifically to the topic. Anyone can post to this list.  As we learn more 
about how the list is actually used, the membership may opt for moderation of 
the list or for other services.
        (3)  A first meeting of campus IT architects called CAMP (Campus 
Architectural Middleware Planning) will be held in Tempe, Arizona, on 
February 1-3,  2002. This will be an opportunity for the key middleware 
strategists on member campuses to come together for information exchange, to 
review draft standards and white papers, to participate on panels and in 
birds of a feather sessions (BOFs) on specific environments and products, and 
to discuss major middleware activities. Due to hotel limitations and our 
desire to foster effective exchanges, the number of participants is being 
limited to one per campus with a cap of 140.  Look for an announcement to be 
posted to the mw-announce list within the next week.

As middleware liaison, you have been automatically subscribed to the 
mw-announce list described in item (1) above and this is the first message to 
that list. If you do not wish to remain on this list, send an email to 

 with the following line in the body of the message:  unsubscribe 
mw-announce.  

Again, thanks for your interest and participation.

Ken

-----------------------------------------------------------mw-announce-+
For list utilities, archives, subscribe, unsubscribe, etc. please visit the
ListProc web interface at 

    http://archives.internet2.edu/

-----------------------------------------------------------mw-announce--