News

Internet2 Membership Model

The Internet2 Board of Trustees and Internet2 staff have been actively engaged over the past year in developing a new Internet2 membership model that would build a strong path forward for our community and provide members the greatest value for their participation. At its 8 July meeting, the Board unanimously endorsed this new membership model.

The new model, which will be implemented in 2010, creates four levels of membership that provide greater flexibility for institutions to participate in the Internet2 community based on institution size, area of interest and desired level of commitment. Through this structure, fees are simplified by combining membership and network participation costs into a single invoice. Additionally, as a result of this new tiered model, 43% of Internet2 members will see a reduction in their membership dues, while a new category invites direct participation by smaller orgranizations for which membership was formerly economically infeasible. For further details, please visit the Membership Model website, which provides an in-depth view of the new model as well as the benefits and expectations at each of the new levels.

FiberCo Update

FiberCo has extended its dark fiber acquisition agreement with its vendor partner. Established in 2003 by Internet2, FiberCo provides a means for acquiring, holding, and assigning dark fiber assets on both the national and the regional scales and on behalf of the higher education community. Through this agreement, which now extends to 2012, FiberCo has access to nearly 13,000 route miles of intercity dark fiber, metro dark fiber assets in select U.S. cities as well as colocation services, transition wave services and remote staff support services. Utilizing FiberCo’s national-scale wholesale pricing structure and streamlined fiber acquisition process, services are offered to the research and education community at highly competitive rates. To date, FiberCo has facilitated the acquisition of over 15,000 miles of dark fiber for the research and higher education community.

Governance Updates

Board of Trustees

The Internet2 Board of Trustees met on 8 July. The primary areas of discussion were: an update on the organization's financials; review and adoption of the revised membership model and fee structure which will go into affect January 2010; and an update on current activities regarding InCommon Futures along with a recommendation for the future structure of the InCommon program, which will be discussed in detail at a future Board meeting. The Internet2 CEO welcomed the new Chief Technology Officer, Randy Frank, and provided an update on the ARRA opportunities in which we are currently involved. The next Internet2 Board of Trustees meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, 23 September.

AMSAC

The Applications, Middleware, and Services Advisory Council (AMSAC) continues to closely track the progress of the InCommon Federation futures activity. It also formulated a recommendation, which it submitted to the Internet2 Board of Trustees, supporting the Identity and Access Management activities underway within Internet2, and encouraging increased support for them. In addition, the council has been discussing suggestions for additional focus areas for the coming year. The council is interested in input from the community and invites you to send your input to amsac-feedback@internet2.edu.

AOAC

The Architecture & Operations Advisory Council (AOAC) met on 10 and 24 June. Two topics, DCN and the ARRA Communications Plan, were discussed on both calls. In response to conversations with the AOAC at the Internet2 Spring Member Meeting, as well as an endorsement for the DCN service by the RAC, a new and simpler web interface for a production VLAN service. Internet2 staff are working with the DCN Working Group on the details. Internet2 staff also updated the AOAC on plans to call all connectors and network members to discuss potential stimulus funding opportunities. During the 24 June meeting, Internet2 staff reported that themes from the calls included: the need for network resiliency, redundancy and network capacity as well as the continued need for collaboration between Internet2 and the regional networks. A final summary has been sent to connectors, network members, and the AOAC in July. On the operational front, three Juniper MX routers will be deployed this summer in Atlanta, DC, and New York. Lastly, the Commercial Peering service upgrade in Seattle and the connection from Ashburn to McLean are progressing.

RAC

The Research Advisory Council (RAC) reviewed the research tasks in network science and engineering that have been forwarded to Internet2 senior staff for consideration in 2010 planning. These involve improving researcher access to data, members capitalizing on testbeds, and working with funding agencies to ensure sustainable funding for a broadly-agreed research agenda. The council also reviewed current funding opportunities through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Finally, the council reviewed current plans for the Internet2 Dynamic Circuit Network. This sparked a discussion of how the RAC should be involved in future service offerings that might interest researchers on campuses. The RAC's Network Research Review Committee also met in June to consider how to move forward providing to network researchers information that might be considered sensitive (e.g., by the general user community or the public), where that information benefits the national research agenda or an understanding of network behavior, as well as how to provide more outreach to the network research community to improve awareness of Internet2's available data, and understand current needs.

Events

Fall 2009 Internet2 Member Meeting

The Fall 2009 Internet2 Member Meeting is scheduled for October 5-8 in San Antonio, Texas. The overarching theme for this fall's meeting is: “Collaborations and Resource Sharing in Research and Education: How the economic crisis is fueling the expansion of networking technology, fostering global communities, and driving social change.” The full agenda will be available online soon.

Registration will open on 27 July. Register early to take advantage of discounted Early Bird rates. Also, meeting attendees are strongly encouraged to stay at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio, the conference hotel. The room block closes 4 September, so reserve your room now. Hotel and additional travel information is available on the meeting website.

ESCC/Internet2 Joint Techs

The Summer 2009 ESCC/Internet2 Joint Techs is hosted by Indiana University in Indianapolis from 19-23 July. The agenda features talks on Security, Campus Networking, and RONs-to-Campus Issues. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to go on a tour of the Global Research Network Operations Center (GRNOC). A special feature of the meeting will be a netcast of the Sunday Afternoon BGP Tutorial from 1-5 pm EDT on 19 July. Many other sessions of interest will also be netcast; check the agenda for details.

Community News

NCTrust K-20 Federation Pilot

North Carolina is using the UC Trust model, Shibboleth, and InCommon to explore opportunities to implement federated identity management in K-20 educational organizations. Led by MCNC, in collaboration with the North Carolina K-20 community, the Federated Identity Management Task Force (FIM-TF) first met in November 2007 as a spinoff of the MCNC Collaborative Services Working Group (CSWG). The NCTrust pilot includes participants from public and private 4-year universities, 2-year community colleges, K-12 school districts, and the NC Department of Public Instruction. Three service providers are participating including 1) the Virtual Computing Lab at North Carolina State University, 2) NCLive, a statewide digital library resource, and 3) the MCNC Confluence site. A federated trust model for the state of North Carolina would allow for the development and secure use of efficiently licensed media infrastructure that could be broadly licensed across the state. It would also provide a mechanism for relatively seamless integration of various digital media technologies and collaborative technologies used by the North Carolina K-20 community.

At the completion of the pilot, the task force will make recommendations on how a statewide NCTrust federation will be funded, operated and governed in the long term. Further information on the pilot project is available online or by contacting Steve Thorpe at (919) 248-1161 or Tim Poe at (919) 248-8417.