GPN & ARE-ON Joint Conference 2026

Find out the latest on research computing in your state, including what's available for you, your students, and your researchers. 

This presentation will explore how Hewlett Packard Enterprise Networking solutions are helping transform student housing environments through AI-driven connectivity, automation, and security. We’ll discuss how modern campus networks can improve resident experiences, streamline IT operations, and support the growing demand for smart devices and high-bandwidth applications. Attendees will also learn how AI-powered analytics and management tools can proactively identify issues, optimize performance, and enhance operational efficiency across student living communities. The session will include practical use cases, emerging trends, and strategies for building scalable, future-ready housing networks.

As organizations scale AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and data-intensive workloads, traditional air-cooling methods are increasingly challenged by rising power densities and thermal demands. Liquid cooling technology offers a transformative approach to data center infrastructure, enabling organizations to achieve higher performance while improving energy efficiency and sustainability outcomes. This session explores how Lenovo's advanced liquid cooling solutions help organizations optimize compute performance, reduce energy consumption, and increase rack density without compromising reliability.

Leaders from state research and education networks across the Great Plains Network region will give brief updates on what's driving their work and strategy. Each network representative covers the priorities, projects, and challenges shaping their state's R&E network, offering a fast-moving, multi-state view of where the region is headed.

The OAK Supercomputing Consortium's Cimarron high-performance computing system is nearing operational status and will be available at no cost to researchers at institutions across Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Chris Frennell, Interim Director of the OAK Supercomputing Consortium, provides an overview of Cimarron's capabilities, how regional researchers can gain access, and what the consortium's shared infrastructure model means for HPC availability across the three-state area.

This keynote presents research on how IT organizations can build resilience in the face of environmental turbulence by focusing on the foundational pillars of IT service quality (people) and IT governance (process). Drawing on a study of 157 IT leaders, it demonstrates that resilience is not reactive, but proactively developed through mature governance practices and a strong service culture. Attendees will gain practical, research-backed insights on how to strengthen their IT organizations to adapt, recover, and lead through disruption.

Attendees will leave with a clear, actionable framework to strengthen IT organizational resilience by intentionally advancing IT service quality (people) and IT governance maturity (process), enabling them to lead their organizations more effectively through disruption.

Meeting Audience: CIOs / CTOs, VPs of IT

Join this conversation with veterans and newcomers to the field of project management and grants acquisition to explore ideas and options as the funding scenarios for science and education evolve. 

Max Attendee Tickets Available:40
*IMPORTANT REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Attendees must first complete their Joint Conference registration prior to attending this workshop. In addition, pre-registration for this workshop session is required at: https://gpnandareonjointconference2026.eventbrite.com/

Data-Intensive workloads are becoming ever more common in both research and education across the country. However, the necessary skills and technologies needed to optimize these workloads are too often overlooked. In this tutorial, the GP-ENGINE team will provide an overview of containerization, docker, distributed computing, and Kubernetes for data-intensive workload optimization using the National Research Platform (NRP). Participants will gain hands-on experience utilizing the NRP to perform data-intensive workloads and gain insight into how to build and accelerate their own workloads.

Participants will gain knowledge and insight in utilizing the National Research platform to run, scale, and accelerate research workflows.

Audience: HPC & Research Computing Professionals, Faculty and Academic Researchers, New and Emerging IT Professionals

*Max Attendee Tickets Available:30
IMPORTANT REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Attendees must first complete their Joint Conference registration prior to attending this workshop. In addition, pre-registration for this workshop session is required at: https://gpnandareonjointconference2026.eventbrite.com/

Description:  This hands-on tutorial will walk participants through the process of setting up a perfSONAR test point, central archive and dashboard to make measurements and view the results.  The tutorial will be led by one of perfSONAR's core developers and will also be a great chance to ask questions.  Participants will need to provide a laptop with a working secure shell (SSH) client.  Mac users will have one built in; Windows users can install PuTTY, available at https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html.