News

Spring 2010 Internet2 Member Meeting

There is still time to submit your proposals for the Spring 2010 Internet2 Member Meeting! The Call for Participation includes a Call for Proposals, Call for Posters, and Call for Side Meeting Requests. Full details on the Call for Participation, as well as the proposal submission forms, are available online. Track session submissions are due by January 29. The meeting will be held April 26-28, 2010, in Arlington, Virginia.

Winter 2010 Joint Techs

Registration is open for the annual Winter Joint Techs, January 31 to February 4 in Salt Lake City, Utah, hosted by the University of Utah. The meeting's focus areas are campus networking, performance measurement & monitoring, and emerging technologies, including cloud computing, network testbeds, and more. See the agenda for full details.

This event is also an opportunity for working groups, SIGs, and BoFs to meet, tutorials are planned for Sunday afternoon, and several small group tours of the University of Utah's renowned Scientific Computing & Imaging Institute are scheduled. Immediately following the Joint Techs meeting, an IPv6 Workshop will be offered, concurrent with the ESCC meeting. Registration, a general schedule, and descriptions of the focus areas/link to proposal submission are available at: events.internet2.edu/2010/jt-slc.

U.S. Departments of Commerce and Agriculture Release Notices of Funding Availability

The U.S. Departments of Commerce and Agriculture have released Notices of Funding Availability in the second and final round of ARRA funding for national broadband expansion under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and Rural Utilities Services (RUS) program. An additional $4.8 billion has been made available to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, and create jobs. Application processes have also been simplified to ease application and better target program resources.

CEO Search Update

The Internet2 CEO Search Committee met for the first time on January 7. At this initial meeting they began to lay out the framework for the search process and met with members of the senior executive staff and the council chairs. On January 15, the search consultants conducted a Town Hall meeting with the Internet2 staff, and throughout the month the search consultants met with the advisory councils. A further update on the search process will be provided in early February.

K20 Initiative Launches a Remote Instrumentation Working Group

Members of the Internet2 K20 Initiative are interested in learning more about how remote instruments are being used within the Internet2 membership community. In coming weeks, team members of the newly formed Remote Instrumentation Working Group will be reaching out to investigators who are using remotely accessible telescopes, microscopes, sensory arrays, web cameras and ROVs, and various data visualization tools to better understand how these tools are currently being used and whether opportunities exist to extend access to Internet2-enabled K-20 institutions in a mutually beneficial and sustainable manner.

An example of a successful outreach effort is Lehigh University's Imaginations Project which provides middle and high school students live remote access to a research quality, near-nano scale microscopy lab. This virtual lab includes full control of a scanning electron microscope, an energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer, an infra-red chamber camera to monitor the specimens, and simultaneous video conferencing with researchers and scope technicians assisting at Lehigh. Another K-20 outreach effort is the Southern Skies Digital Science Partnership, a collaborative project between the University of Louisville, and the University of Southern Queensland which is extending access to remotely operated telescopes at Mt. Kent Observatory in Queensland, Australia, and Moore Observatory in Kentucky.

To get involved or learn more about the activities of this newly formed working group, please visit https://wiki.internet2.edu:443/confluence/x/bBNG

Xena Networks and NORDUnet Collaborate on Network Performance Analysis Project

Internet2 Industry member Xena Networks continues its collaborations within the Internet2 community. Last summer, Internet2, MCNC and Xena published a report on a collaborative network performance-characterization project. This month, Internet2 International Partner NORDUnet has published a report on how network engineers have worked with Xena's test platform to analyze performance of different traffic flows in terms of throughput, quality of service (QoS), latency and a number of other parameters. The NORDUnet report documents these tests, which were conducted using two Xena testers configured with 10GbE interfaces connected to an Alcatel TSS 1850 switch. The NORDUnet and MCNC reports provide useful benchmark information for testing and analyzing the performance of network equipment and services. If you would like more information, representatives from Xena Networks will be attending the Performance Working Group meeting at the upcoming Joint Techs.

Governance Updates

AOAC

The Architecture & Operations Advisory Council (AOAC) met January 13 to kick off their 2010 activities. Shelley Storbeck and Susan Van Gilder of Storbeck/Pimentel and Associates, LLC joined the group to discuss the Internet2 CEO search and to hear comments on questions regarding opportunities and challenges that face the next CEO. As a follow-up to the MPLS vs SONET document created by the NTAC and previously endorsed by both the NTAC and the AOAC, the AOAC also reviewed a plan prepared by Internet2 staff that summarizes the enhancements and benefits of running the ION service over MPLS tunnels and describes a very high level plan to begin implementing that enhancement.

Advisory Council Election Update

The Governance and Nominations Committee has been working diligently over the last several weeks to develop the ballot for the upcoming Advisory Councils election. The election will open on Monday, February 1 and conclude on Friday, February 19. The ballot and bio information on the candidates will be available at www.internet2.edu/elections on February 1.