Internet2 Past Showcases
Internet2 would like to showcase our members' efforts on our website. We encourage Internet2 members to share advanced networking milestones, as well as interesting people, events, collaborations and efforts in the advanced networking community. Include a brief description (less than 100 words), all appropriate links and images, and contact information. If you have suggestions about projects or news that might be featured, please contact <info@internet2.edu>.
The University of Hawaii,
in partnership with Internet2 and TransPAC2, hosted the 25th Asia-Pacific
Advanced Network (APAN) meeting 20-25 January, 2008 in conjunction with the
ESnet and Internet2 Joint Techs Workshop.
The event was part of the third Techs
in Paradise (TIP) event co-sponsored internationally to bring together the Asia-Pacific
and North American communities for a week of meetings, workshops, and in-person
collaboration. In addition to the APAN Meeting and the Joint Techs/ESCC
Workshop, TIP2008 included meetings of the Internet
Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF), the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF), TransPAC2 and the Hawaii Intranet
Consortium, as well as a Network Performance Workshop and a Dynamic Circuit
Network Workshop.
Project updates and trends in advanced networking were highlighted throughout the week. APAN topics of interest included talks about TEIN2, CNGI and CERNET2, Everest Imja Lake Project, and AKARI. To view a specific presentation please visit the Jt. Techs/APAN Program. The 26th APAN Meeting will be held 4-8 August, 2008 in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Webinar: The Shift to Ethernet throughout the Wide Area Network Architecture
11 March 2008
1:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -04:00, New York )
To register: Click https://ciena.webex.com/ciena/j.php?ED=102357512&RG=1
A shift is underway in Wide Area Networks. For years, SONET/SDH networks brought reliability and manageability to wide area networks. As bandwidth continues to increase and to shift to IP and other data protocols, the inflexibility and inefficiency of SONET topologies has become operationally and economically constraining. In this webinar, Jeff Wabik of Ciena, an Internet2 Corporate Partner, will define the traditional Ethernet functions, identify and position supporting technologies and necessary standards developments, weigh the pros and cons of several emerging technologies to make Ethernet more connection-oriented, and introduce new service architectures and best practices for consideration when implementing Ethernet wide area networks. See the webinar webpage for more information.
Bill Decker, Facilitator, Internet2 Strategic Planning
Bill Decker, as CIO at The University of Iowa, was among the first 34 institutional representatives to commit to the creation of Internet2, Bill says, "My different career experiences have given me a variety of perspectives regarding the important roles that Internet2 plays in enabling research, education, and societal change. I am privileged to have this opportunity to work with old friends and new in a thoughtful examination of Internet2's future. In agreeing to take on this work, I insisted that Internet2's members write the plan. My role is to act as an informed but neutral facilitator to keep the process moving forward and to help insure that all input is in play."
Revisions to Internet2's governance structure have contributed significantly to a renewal of the member-led focus of the organization. With their December 2006 report, the Governance and Nominations Committee put wheels in motion that have led to changes to the Board structure and to a set of new Advisory Councils, both changes involving the presence of more perspectives and opportunity for improved member representation in decisions and organizational directions. The report also called for a strategic planning exercise, which the Advisory Councils collectively acted on in December 2007. They formed a Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC), a Leadership Team, and requested an outside facilitator. Though now retired from The University of Iowa, Bill Decker agreed to serve as the outside facilitator. The SPSC has been working since December on the planning effort and most recently met in Tempe on February 9 to advance the work.
The Strategic Planning process will also be a primary focus of the Spring Member Meeting. The Steering Committee will have a draft plan available for the community prior to the meeting, and the meeting will feature informational sessions and a forum for community input. The Committee and the Advisory Councils are deeply committed to gathering input from every part of the member community and from other important partners. Members of the Internet2 community are encouraged to take part!
The 2007 Internet2 Member Report provides a snapshot of the Internet2 community's efforts and accomplishments during 2007. Some key highlights covered in the report include the new governance structure, which includes a new membership category for regional networks and restructured Advisory Councils, and the deployment of a new nationwide network infrastructure. The report ends with a section that describes ways in which your organization might better utilize your Internet2 membership in the coming year. Copies of the member report are available online in html and pdf formats. To request a printed copy, please send email to publications@internet2.edu.
An important focus of the Spring 2008 Internet2 Member Meeting will be the strategic planning process now underway. The Strategic Planning Steering Committee will have a draft plan available for the community prior to the meeting, and throughout the meeting there will be informational sessions and a forum where the community can provide additional input and comments to help construct the Strategic Plan for Internet2. The meeting will also provide an opportunity to share and learn about the latest efforts by members to meet the challenge of developing, deploying, and using cyberinfrastructure to support research and education. Registration for the Spring 2008 Internet2 Member Meeting is now open.
perfSONAR-PS, a complementary set of network performance services developed under the umbrella of the global perfSONAR network performance measurement framework, enables users to generate near real time performance traffic monitoring and visualization. perfSONAR development is made possible through a global collaboration consortium led by ESnet, GÉANT, Internet2, and RNP (Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa) in Brazil. Because it can be used on both IP and optical networks, as well as hybrid networks like the Internet2 Network or the ESnet network, monitoring and measurement information can span and aggregate information from different network architectures and debug potential issues across those separate administrative domains--even if those domains are autonomous measurement systems. Its real-time, global analysis of network performance problems makes it possible for users to make immediate adjustments to their applications during run time. Implemented in the Perl programming language and currently in beta release, perfSONAR-PS enables network operators and engineers that already leverage a Perl-based environment to seamlessly integrate comprehensive performance measurement technology into their existing network management and measurement systems while still maintaining interoperability with other standards-based solutions.
Internet2, together with its collaborators, announced the beta release of perfSONAR-PS, a complementary set of network performance services developed under the umbrella of the global perfSONAR network performance measurement framework. Implemented in the Perl programming language, perfSONAR-PS enables network operators and engineers that already leverage a Perl-based environment to seamlessly integrate comprehensive performance measurement technology into their existing network management and measurement systems while still maintaining interoperability with other standards-based solutions.
As a set of software services that implement the perfSONAR network monitoring protocol, perfSONAR-PS provides users a window into the network to generate near real -time performance traffic monitoring and visualization. MORE>>
As part of the Techs in Paradise 2008 event hosted by the University of Hawaii, the Winter 2008 ESnet Site Coordinating Committee (ESCC)/Internet2 Joint Techs Workshop will bring together more than 300 thought leaders in the research and education community to explore and discuss important technology issues and the latest advancements in next-generation networking in Honolulu, Hawaii. The main plenary sessions held on January 21-23 will be netcast live and archived for worldwide viewing.
The ESnet Site Coordinating Committee (ESCC)/Internet2 Joint Techs Workshop is holding their annual winter session this week in Honolulu, HI. Hosted by the University of Hawaii, the four-day conference brings together thought leaders in the research and education community to explore and discuss important technology issues and the latest advancements in next-generation networking. The main plenary sessions held on January 21-23 will be netcast live and archived for worldwide viewing. As part of the Techs in Paradise 2008 event hosted by the University of Hawaii, the Winter 2008 ESnet Site Coordinating Committee (ESCC)/Internet2 Joint Techs Workshop will bring together more than 300 thought leaders in the research and education community to explore and discuss important technology issues and the latest advancements in next-generation networking.
The Internet2 IDEA Awards highlight innovation at member campuses and organizations, and recognize leadership in research, education, and application development. Previous winners have applied advanced networking to enable transformational advances in research, teaching and learning by researchers, faculty, and students. New for 2008, the Wave of the Future Award will recognize the innovators who are deploying advanced applications that specifically use a dedicated optical circuit with capacities up to 10 Gbps. The winning application in this category will receive a dedicated, point-to-point optical circuit of up to 10 Gbps on the new Internet2 network infrastructure between two Internet2 Connector sites for a one year period. See the Internet2 IDEA Award website for more information.
This year's workshop will include live demonstrations, an opportunity for hands-on experience with a range of equipment, and an in-depth look at relevant production values for successfully producing events. The workshop is designed for an audience of technologists responsible for setting up distance learning and remote interactive events in the performing arts. Administrators, deans, CIOs, network and audio engineers, and other hands-on technicians will also find this workshop useful and are encouraged to attend.
2008 Internet2 Board of Trustees Election
This year, Internet2 will hold an election for the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees consists primarily of representatives from members, including university presidents and CIOs, as well a leaders from industry and research. The member-focused Board provides strategic direction, leadership and oversight. Following an open nominations process, an election will be held to select the members of the Board.
The Call for Nominations will begin on January 14, 2008, and a nominations form will be available online. If you have questions, please send them to govnomcomm@internet2.edu.
Webinar: Managing Data Center Power & Cooling
1/15/2008, 1 PM EST ( -5 UTC/GMT)
Moderated by: Brian Cashman, Internet2 Network Planning Engineer
Presented by: Jeremy Stieglitz, Director of Marketing Force10 Networks
Optimizing the overall power efficiency of the high performance computing centers requires a comprehensive approach that focuses on technologies and strategies to minimize power consumption and maximize power efficiency at every level within the infrastructure, including CPU chips, power supplies, servers, storage devices, and networking equipment. In addition to measures that maximize power efficiency for hardware devices, there are also software strategies, such as server virtualization, that can play a significant role in reducing power consumption.
There are a number of potential benefits that can be derived from an increased focus on power consumption and power efficiency:
- Extending the life of existing data centers and HPC centers and minimizing retrofits
- Gaining at least partial control of growing expenses for power and cooling
- Optimizing new data center designs to be more energy efficient
A team led by Indiana University, with partners from the Technische Universität Dresden, Rochester Institute of Technology, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, won first place in an international competition for leading-edge, high-bandwidth computing applications at SC07, the world's largest international conference for high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis. Using the IU Data Capacitor, a system designed to store and manipulate massive data sets, the IU team achieved a peak transfer rate of 18.21 Gigabits/second out of a possible maximum of 20 Gigabits/second. This performance was nearly twice the peak rate of the nearest competitor. The IU team achieved an overall sustained rate of 16.2 Gigabits/second (roughly equivalent to sending 170 CDs of data per minute) using off- the-shelf server hardware, standard Linux TCP/IP stacks and several advanced networks around the world including Internet2, GÉANT2, DFN, NYSERnet, CIC OmniPoP, and Indiana Gigapop.
The call for participation for the Spring 2008 Internet2 Member Meeting is now open. The spring meeting, scheduled for 21-23 April in Arlington, VA, will offer sessions that highlight innovative uses of advanced networking for research and teaching, as well as technical sessions on the development and evolution of high-performance network infrastructures in support of local to global cyberinfrastructure. Sessions will focus on initiatives and projects that explore ways in which advanced network applications, services, tools, and digital content empower and enhance the capability of research and education communities. In addition, the program will focus on technical and policy work in the areas of middleware and security. Case studies of how advanced networking has succeeded in enabling research and education, why, and what others can learn from this success are also encouraged.
The call for side meetings and poster sessions is also available for your response. Internet2 is also inviting members to sponsor a reception, meals, and refreshment breaks during the member meeting.
The complete Call for Participation can be found here. The submission deadline is Friday, 18 January.
SCinet, the high-performance network built to support SC07, used perfSONAR to expose performance monitoring information for conference participants and network engineers. The performance information monitored by perfSONAR at SC07 was visualized in several ways: 1) the perfOMeter, a web based network speedometer for both live and historical data; 2) Google Maps, a geographical view of network performance; 3) perfAdmin, an administrative tool for managing perfSONAR deployments; and 4) perfSONAR-UI, a Java client capable of supplying various network visualizations. Demonstrations included the various components that comprise the perfSONAR framework, as well as monitoring and informational support for the Internet2 Dynamic Circuit Network and Phoebus demos. For more information, see the demo infosheet.
Dozens of Internet2 member and partner organizations participated in SC07, the international conference that brings together leaders in high-performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis on 10-16 November 2007. The Internet2 Network and Internet2 WaveCo are together provided more than 100 Gbps of connectivity to the SC07 showfloor for some of the most ambitious uses of advanced networking in the world. The Internet2 booth featured demonstrations that highlight the revolutionary Internet2 Dynamic Circuit Network. Internet2 also provided performance tools and engineering support for SCinet, the very high-performance network that supports all the activities at SC conferences.
This fall, the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida performed a classical piece written by David Sampson. Prior to the performance, the piece was rehearsed for the composer--who was hosted at New York University--using DVTS and large-format LCD displays to transmit high quality video and audio between NYU and NWS via the Internet2 Network. The composer watched the performance via DV25 digital video, and offered his feedback to the orchestra. Later that day, a live audience watched a discussion between the conductor and the composer, with the composer appearing "live" on a large LCD display via DVTS. Then, the orchestra performed the piece for the live audience. A video featuring highlights from the event is available online.
On October 11, 2007, Internet2 and Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), the national research and education networking organization of Brazil, signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate international telehealth and telemedicine collaborations. The new MOU builds on the organizations' existing long-term networking partnership that was established in 2000. It provides a pathway for the Internet2 and RNP communities to jointly lead and collaborate on the development of next-generation telemedicine and telehealth technologies and applications. In doing so, the organizations hope to accelerate the adoption of these important technologies within the U.S and Brazil as well as to promote and encourage the continued interconnection of advanced networks around the world in support of telemedicine and telehealth.
RNP is today leading a new project called Rede Universitária de Telemedicina (RUTE). Funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, the project seeks to build and update the communication infrastructure of 57 university hospitals that are connected throughout Brazil with the goal of enabling all participating hospitals to use the RNP network to run telemedicine and telehealth applications including video conferencing for information exchange, second opinion, continuous education and web conferencing.
At the member meeting last week, Internet2 announced the completion of a new nationwide advanced network infrastructure. With an initial capacity of 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps) nationwide and a revolutionary Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN) providing dedicated bandwidth-on-demand capabilities, the new infrastructure provides the potential to transform radioastronomy, telemedicine, network research, and the performing arts. At the meeting, Rick Summerhill, Internet2's chief technology officer, in collaboration with Dale Finkelson and Dr. Carl Lundstedt of University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), together with colleagues from ESnet, Fermilab, and the Great Plains Network, demonstrated the DCN's ability to support the networking demands of high energy physicists collaborating on the Large Hadron Collider experiment. Dr. Lundstedt, with one mouse click, set up a 10 Gbps dedicated circuit between the UNL campus and Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. The result was that the data traffic flowing across the shared IP network seamlessly switched over to the DCN and quickly transferred one-third of a terabyte of data (equivalent to the capacity 40 standard DVDs).
Internet2's annual Fall Member Meeting brings the future of the Internet to San Diego this October 8-11, 2007. Dr. Larry Smarr, director of Calit2, will present the opening keynote and Francine Berman, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center will chair a panel entitled ?Cyberinfrastructure: The Way Forward? at the second general session of the meeting. The conference will also include a wide variety of sessions including presentations on the new high-performance nationwide Internet2 network, advances in middleware technology, new optical networking technologies, network research, grid computing, as well as advanced applications in telemedicine, arts and humanities, K-12 educational programs, distance-learning, among many others. Many important sessions will also be netcast live and on-demand for worldwide viewing.
The Internet2 Commercial Peering (CP) Service has expanded significantly adding new routes and new connection points to enhance network performance, cost savings, and collaboration opportunities for participating members. Since its inception in late 2006, the CP service has provided settlement-free connections between the advanced Internet2 IP Network and major content and Internet service providers. As a service that is included in the Internet2 connector fee, CP
presents an opportunity for Internet2 connectors and participants to
realize savings on their commodity connections. With over 66,000 routes available through Internet2's nationwide peering partnerships, participants are already experiencing significant volumes of one gigabit per second (Gbps) or more of peak Internet traffic via the CP service.
Designing and Engineering Dynamic Circuits: A Hands-On Workshop for the R&E Networking Environment
At this 2-day workshop, attendees design and implement a real layer 2 (Ethernet) Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN) Testbed. Via lectures and four structured exercises, participants gain an overview of GMPLS architecture, RSVP and OSPF protocols, control plane design concepts, and specifics of DCN engineering as relates to campus, regional, and national network facilities in the R&E community, and construct a working DCN that allows end systems to allocate dedicated VLAN network resources across multiple administrative domains. Upon completion of this workshop, attendees will be able to design and implement a GMPLS-based DCN. For more information, click here >>
The Educational Webinar, Delivering Intelligent Ethernet Service to the Research and Education Community, took place on 19 September 2007.
Brian Cashman, Internet2 Network Planning Engineer served as moderator and Fred Ellefson, ADVA Optical Vice President, Etherjack Alliances, discussed delivery of Intelligent Ethernet Service.
As Ethernet services scale, the requirement for demarcation devices between end users and research and education national backbone networks is key to providing intelligent Ethernet services that support remote testing, monitoring and service level agreements (SLAs). Fred's presentation discussed new standards, technology and operations methodology that many service providers are using to roll out their carrier Ethernet services with an emphasis on Ethernet operations, administration and maintenance (OAM) capabilities, their use in demarcation devices and how they can migrate to the research and education environment.
Click here for the Webinar slide archive.
