The KanREN Annual Meeting will still be held on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 from 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. as planned. We are moving the meeting entirely to Zoom, but still need people to register for it here. While we don't often think about it this way, KanREN is a non-profit charitable corporation; our annual meeting is an integral part of that, and we need member participation. Documents for the meeting will be posted on our member documents page by Thursday, April 16th (most are already there), and advanced balloting for rates & budget and the Board of Directors election will be sent out this week to the registered voter for each member institution.

We are all overwhelmed with a situation that is very likely the worst event any of us will encounter in our lifetimes. Good news is more important than ever, and I believe our annual meeting will hold plenty of good thigns. Please join us if you can!

With help from our university membership, LMH Health and Douglas County, KanREN has been placed on the Critical Infrastructure list. As Douglas County enters a “stay at home” order at midnight tonight, we want you to all be aware that we will be allowed and able to move about to effect repairs and maintenance as necessary to ensure continuity of service throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have been fielding a number of questions for many members in the last week that I thought would be helpful to share/remind everyone of:

• We have an information web site coronavirus.kanren.net which contains ONLY KanREN-specific information (we know you all already have the links to CDC, you don’t need those from us too!)

• KanREN has established a slack channel to provide the fastest answers to your questions. We would encourage members to join this channel. We also want to encourage the use of slack for discussions regarding common shared issues – if it gets too noisy for those just there for the info, we can split it into two: KanREN-Members Slack Workspace

• There have been many questions about network capacity moving online. To be super-brief, not having students on campus or in attendance centers is offsetting the additional load of having them all at home – the direction just changes in some cases where outbound is more busy than inbound. And so many services are cloud-based, that our network is largely not impacted. More information at http://snapp.kanren.net

We know that you are dealing with issues related to COVID-19 and we are here to help. As many of you are doing, the KanREN team transitioned to working remotely earlier this week to prevent any potential spread of illness among our group so that we can continue to provide superior support.

We want to be sure you are aware of the resources KanREN has available.

• First and foremost, support is available by phone at 785-856-9820 or email to support@kanren.net.

• We’ve added a Coronavirus channel to our KanREN-Members Slack Workspace. This is a good place for KanREN member-to-member conversation and idea sharing. Please take a moment to join.

• There’s also a new KanREN website, https://coronavirus.kanren.net/, for distributing information.

• Additional resources to assist with troubleshooting including Looking Glass and Snapp Graphs are ready for use at http://snapp.kanren.net/. If you need assistance using these tools, please reach out to our support team and we’ll get you started.

• KanREN provides video services through a partnership with Zoom. Contact us at 785-856-9800 or info@kanren.net to inquire.

Early next week, we’ll be sending our current list of contacts to each member organization. We would appreciate your review of the document and communication of any needed changes. Please pay special attention to the facility access contacts in locations where KanREN has equipment. If you have any temporary changes to the procedure for accessing equipment let us know and we will get that documented appropriately.

We are aware that the challenges facing your institutions are much greater than the relatively minor transitions required by our team. The KanREN staff team is grateful for the opportunity to assist you during these trying times and we appreciate your continued support.

KanREN is planning to submit a bulk order to Zoom over the weekend in order to add additional PRO licenses for the increased need for virtual meetings and classes etc.

If you are an existing KanREN Zoom subscriber and need additional PRO licenses, OR are a KanREN member or Non-Member interested in adding a Zoom subscription please complete the Google form below and provide us with information.

Google Form - https://forms.gle/j6QBphPfXWqirtHdA

The current rate sheet is attached. You can choose to upgrade to the tier needed to fulfill what you need OR you can add to an existing tier based on the pricing attached. Please note all pricing shown is monthly.

KanREN is working hard to turnaround quotes quickly and request that they be signed off by EOB Friday, March 13, 2020. If you have any additional questions, please email info@kanren.net. Additional information regarding KanREN member resources will be distributed soon.

I know that you are all dealing with the very real possibility of pandemic and quarantine conditions. Many of you have reached out to us already.

KanREN has a comprehensive and tested DR/BC plan in place that was written to deal with the extended unavailability of our office. The original plan was intended to address things like a tornado wiping out the office facility. KanREN is in the unique situation that our real “places of performance” are not a physical office or campus. Our network operation is distributed all over the state, and not dependent on any single point of operation.

The KanREN staff is fully equipped to work from anywhere we have cell coverage or otherwise any kind of Internet connectivity for extended periods of time. Part of how we equip ourselves for such an event is to practice it though telecommuting days. Rest assured that should we find ourselves quarantined to our homes, etc. we will continue to do what we do, and you likely won’t even know it. Even our phone system is virtualized. For years when you call our “office numbers” you may have actually been talking to someone on a soft client from their living room.

Because of our small staff size and the nature of our business, it is thankfully fairly easy for us to be prepared for such an event. We know it is not the case for you, our members. If there is anything KanREN can assist with in your own planning, or in the event of an actual emergency, we stand by to assist in any way we can. We’re ready, and that makes us ready to continue our focus on helping you!