News

Fall 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting: Call for Participation

The Call for Participation for the Fall 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting is open! This includes calls for Proposals, Working Meetings, and Sponsors.

The theme for the Fall 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting will build upon concepts that were introduced at the spring meeting: “Community. Innovation. Transformation.”

The meeting program will focus on all three aspects of the theme, further defined as follows:

• Community:  Understanding and embracing our community’s ability to innovate and transform research, education and economies
• Innovation: A deeply programmable, bandwidth-abundant innovation platform creating an environment for next-generation service delivery
• Transformation: Community developed services and applications that transform global research and education

While the Areas of Interest will remain the same as the spring meeting, the content of the sessions will be expanded to include examples of what we are learning as we move along the innovation platform continuum and demonstrations of the progress we are making in transforming service models.

Full explanations and examples of related topics, as well as the submission form, are provided in the Call for Proposals web page.

Internet2 Statement Regarding Launch of US Ignite

Internet2 released the following statement regarding the official launch of US Ignite by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy.

“Internet2’s and US Ignite’s missions fit well with each other, especially our mutual interest in strengthening the nation’s position as a global leader in research, education and innovation,” said Internet2 CEO and President H. David Lambert. “We value working with US Ignite to share our expertise in software-defined networking, the National Science Foundation’s GENI project, broadband needs of public and community anchor institutions, and advanced applications and services for ultra-fast networks.”

Internet2 plans to leverage its networking and technology expertise as a member of US Ignite, engaging in advisory committees on a range of issues affecting next-generation networks and applications. In addition, US Ignite will become a member of Internet2.

The national high-performance Internet2 Network connects America’s colleges and universities to research and education collaborators worldwide. The newly upgraded 100G-enabled and 8.8 Terabit per second optical network will allow Internet2 member institutions to keep pace with the exponential growth in “Big Data” scientific research being driven by the nation’s collaborative researchers in labs and universities.

The network will also enable advanced networking features for more than 200,000 of the country’s essential community anchor institutions, including libraries, hospitals, K-12 schools, community colleges and public safety organizations as part of Internet2’s United States Unified Community Anchor Network (U.S. UCAN) project. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) helped fund Internet2’s network upgrade and U.S. UCAN project.

Internet2 K20 Initiative - Behind the Scenes with the Poet Laureate

On Friday, May 4, Philip Levine, the 18th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress, connected with five high schools and five public libraries across the U.S. via video conference over Internet2 to read and discuss three of his poems: “Our Valley, ” “The Simple Truth,” and “What Work Is.” The readings and discussions were followed by a wonderfully engaging and honest Q&A that touched on varied topics such as what inspired him during his youth, the joys of marriage and gardening, and suggestions on how poetry should be read. Watch the complete program on demand.

Philip Levine was born in Detroit in 1928, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, and educated at Wayne University (now Wayne State), the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Stanford University. He is the author of twenty collections of poetry, and his honors include the Pulitzer Prize, two National Book Awards, and two National Book Critic Circle Awards. Learn more about Philip Levine.

The event was made possible through a partnership between the Library of Congress, Internet2 K20 Initiative, and MAGPI. For a complete list of the participating schools and libraries (most have benefited from recent BTOP grants), please see www.loc.gov/poetry/pdf/levine-videoconference.pdf.

New Internet2 NET+ SIP Services

Internet2, Tulane University, and Texas A&M University are partnering with two voice services industry leaders, Aastra and Level 3 Communications, to offer cost-effective SIP services as an alternative to traditional voice services. The Aastra offering will deliver a cloud-based hosted PBX service that includes unified communications, call center and other services. Level 3 will provide SIP-based services such as local trunks, long-distance trunks, toll-free, conferencing and other services. Industry-standard SIP protocols provide flexibility, local control and local survivability, and empower institutions to customize the solution to meet their unique campus needs.

Visit the Hosted PBX, SIP Trunking and FAQ pages to learn more about this offering, or view the recording from a recent webinar that discusses the service.

Internet2's InCommon Reaches 400 Participants

InCommon, the U.S. research and education trust service operated by Internet2, has passed the milestone of 400 participants. InCommon provides a secure and privacy-preserving trust fabric for research and higher education institutions, and their partners, in the United States. The total number of InCommon participants has grown from 264 at the beginning of 2011 to 412 today.

“InCommon has demonstrated a consistent pattern of growth since its inception in 2004,” said Jack Suess, chief information officer and vice president for information technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and chair of the InCommon Steering Committee. “It is especially gratifying to see that we now have over 100 commercial service providers that are leveraging the power of the InCommon Federation. We are especially pleased to see the interest from vendors and campuses interested in the Internet2 NET+ Service program, which requires InCommon participation.”

The 412 participating InCommon organizations include colleges and universities, research organizations, agencies of the U.S. government, and private companies that offer web-based resources and services. Participants can take advantage of federated identity management, the certificate service, the assurance program, and multifactor authentication services. For more information, see www.incommon.org.

EVENTS

Summer 2012 Joint Techs

The Summer 2012 ESCC/Internet2 Joint Techs is coming up! Hosted by Stanford University on July 15-19, 2012, the program for this summer’s edition will feature an entire day (Tuesday, July 17) focusing on Software Defined Networking (SDN), while the remainder of the meeting brings together presentations on Integration of Services Across Multiple Networks and Convergence, along with continuing focus on Performance and Measurement, Security and IPv6.

When you register, please remember that there are two workshops offered before the event (both 1-day OpenFlow workshops) and two offered afterwards (IPv6 and Network Performance Workshops). If you would like to attend either the Saturday or Sunday OpenFlow workshops, please register via the Indiana University website. If you are interested in attending either the IPv6 or Network Performance Workshops, they can be added to your Joint Techs registration.

Of special interest at this meeting, we have been able to schedule a single tour of SLAC during the Tuesday lunch. Please note, there is only space for 30 attendees; we are creating a participant list based on confirmed attendance at Joint Techs. If you are interested in attending, please forward your meeting registration confirmation email to Marie Modrell, indicating that you would like to participate in the SLAC tour. She will keep a list of the attendees, confirming if you have a secure spot or if you are on the wait list, and will order box lunches for each attendee. Alternate Tuesday lunchtime options are available online.

If you have not yet registered, please note that registration rates will increase after June 22. Additionally, the hotel will not extend the room rate past the block cut off of June 22. If you are planning to attend any of the workshops, the block rate is available from Friday, July 13 through Friday, July 20. Travel and lodging information is available on the event website.

Governance Updates

AMSAC

The Applications, Middleware, and Services Advisory Council (AMSAC) met and reviewed current and potential security activities within Internet2, including proposed documentation of campus expectations on security. AMSAC also received an update on activities underway on Shibboleth, Grouper, and CIFER (Community Identity Framework for Education and Research).

AOAC

The Architecture and Operations Advisory Council (AOAC) met on May 30. The Council viewed a demo of an Internet2 network performance portal and discussed the data provided through the portal. A community group will be organized to review the policies regarding data provided on the portal. Dave Gift provided an update on the AOAC fee subcommittee. The subcommittee is adding community members and will meet this summer to review network fee models. An update on the governance transition was provided. Board elections for the CIO, industry and R&E network constituencies are occurring now and will close on June 15. Subsequent to that, the transition from the Councils to the Program Advisory Groups will occur. Rob Vietzke provided an update on the Northern Tier build for the BTOP project. Work continues on a solution to meet the June 30, 2013 BTOP deadline.

ERAC

The External Relations Advisory Committee (ERAC), under the auspices of Chair Tim Lance and Vice Chair Don Welch, assembled for the final time on April 25 at the Spring 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting. In addition to welcome and introductions, discussion topics included a general governance discussion, including ERAC going forward; next steps and wrap-up. John Morabito, Vice President for External Relations and General Counsel at Internet2, was introduced. ERAC council members were given the opportunity to provide Morabito with input on areas of interest and future foci.

RAC

The Research Advisory Council (RAC) met and continued its discussions on Internet2 support for researchers, including how this impacts, and is impacted by, NET+ services. It also continued discussion of the Internet2 Innovation Platform Initiative, NET+ services, Big Data, and Virtual Organizations.