Snapshot 2021: Forging the Future

Supporting Interns from Connected Institutions

ORION is always excited for the opportunity to support young people from diverse backgrounds to gain industry experience. In 2021, we hosted students from the University of Toronto, George Brown College, and Humber College. Maham Bhatti, ORION’s Security Analyst Intern, joined us from the University of Toronto and said of her experience “My time at ORION was very hands-on and this internship gave me real-world experience and I was able to learn more about the day-to-day network and security operations. I gained many mentors at ORION.” Maham also identifies mentorship as a key component of her success and recognizes, through her work here, that “community is key” for success.    

Theme Two: Sustaining and Advancing a World Class Research Education Network

Strengthening and Expanding ORION’s Network

This is a responsibility we take very seriously – since our beginning in 2001, we have connected over 100 institutions, facilities and organizations to one another and globally through the ORION network. In 2021, we furthered that commitment with action, providing faster connection on high traffic routes, and by increasing the reliability and reach of the ORION network into Northern Ontario. 

Service for high-traffic routes including London to Toronto, Toronto to Ottawa and Peterborough to Sudbury received significant upgrades improving capacity, ensuring the network continues to meet community needs and enhancing access to high-quality connectivity. 

As part of our continued focus on enhancing connections for Northern Ontario, a core network span from York through Barrie to Sudbury was upgraded using next-generation optical equipment, increasing transport capability and to improving access between the North and Canada’s National Research and Education Network (NREN).  

Evolving and Strengthening Cybersecurity for the ORION Community

In 2021, the importance of cybersecurity for higher education was more important than ever. So many conversations with constituents and our partners focused on the increasing need to protect research, people, data and infrastructure across the whole community.

ORION’s second annual report on the state of cybersecurity in higher education was released with the goal of building equity in the cybersecurity capabilities for all institutions in Ontario. The report makes recommendations that we hope will facilitate conversation and contribute to our goal of improving the cybersecurity posture of the higher education sector, both in Ontario and nationally.

At our second annual ON-CHEC Day, members and panellists from Ontario and Nova Scotia came together to explore Emerging from the Pandemic Together, ultimately landing on three key themes that will drive the future of ON-CHEC:

• Do what makes the most sense for your institution
• Diversity in cybersecurity starts with making the field less intimidating
• Collaboration is essential

97% of attendees confirmed that, “Thanks to ON-CHEC Day, I am more likely to collaborate and share with other members of the consortium.”

Theme Three: Building and Sustaining Trusted Community Partnerships

In 2021, as part of our commitment to listening and collaboration, ORION worked together with the community and external partners to explore shared solutions for connectivity and cybersecurity.

ORION Cybersecurity Programs and Partnerships

Shared Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
With support from CANARIE and the participation of ORION community members, we completed the final year of our shared SIEM proof of concept. This has helped ORION to detect and manage threats to the NREN by enabling real-time monitoring of security incidents on the network. Likewise, both ORION and the participating institutions better understand the value, benefits and challenges of creating a rigorous managed security event and threat detection solution to be applied at a larger scale.

ORION Cybersecurity Awareness Training Advisory
Building on the success of our Cybersecurity Awareness Training pilot, ORION brought community members together with our collaborators CIRA and Beauceron to drive improvements for the ORION program and implement platform enhancements tailored to the needs of higher education.

ORION Community Training Returns

When the community asked us to restart Community Training workshops in late 2021, we were more than happy to oblige. Starting with two live online Certified Network Defender workshops and closing out with record setting registrations for our Certified Information Systems Security Professional workshop, ORION Community Training came back, ready to build much needed skills to support the emerging cyber landscape.

ORION Connectivity Services and Partnerships

ORION Cloud Connect

Thanks to the feedback and vison of the ORION Cloud Working Group, we launched ORION Cloud Connect, a new service that enables dedicated access to public cloud services and eliminates exposure to the internet by using the ORION network. Ultimately, this provides a cost-effective and flexible solution for dedicated cloud connectivity that offers predictable performance and hassle-free deployment.

New Video Conferencing Software

With the increased demand for online teaching and learning, Canada’s NREN Partners collectively identified the need for tools to simplify the experience for educators and students and offer robust, low-cost cloud-based video conferencing tools tailored to the unique requirements of education. To answer this challenge, ORION has secured access to two top tier services, designed to meet the unique needs of the education community. BlueJeans Meetings and Kaltura Education Video Cloud are now accessible to users across the NREN, including ORION constituents.