CENIC Today -- April 2007
CENIC Today
cenic-today at lists.cenic.org
Wed May 9 08:45:50 PDT 2007
[]
Volume 10, Issue 3
May 9, 2007
Welcome to CENIC Today, the monthly newsletter of the Corporation for
Education Network Initiatives in California.
IN THIS ISSUE:
CENIC News:
* President's Message: The Rural Broadband Initiative Act
* CalREN Update: Network Projects and Activities
* CENIC 2006/2007 Is Online -- help us to improve!
* The CalREN Video Services Roadshow: teaching, learning, and coming
together
* Experts Ponder the Technology of Disaster Response at San Diego State
University
* CENIC and OSTN Host Web Seminar with help from UCTV, USC, MIT, ORION,
and NLR
National Networking News:
* Sen. Hillary Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Initiative Act
* Gov. Schwarzenegger Appoints David Long Secretary of Education
* Swarthmore ITS Undertaking Trial of Google Apps Education Edition
* Hayward USD Unveils World's First Citywide WiFi eDistrict & High-Tech
Learning Center
* High-Performance Distributed Computing 2007 (HPDC2007)
* New Internet2 Land Speed Records Set
* Internet2-NLR Merger Update: Merger Team, New Website Created
* SC07 Bandwidth Challenge: Call for Participation
About CENIC:
* About CENIC
* Subscription Information
[]
CENIC News:
President's Message: The Rural Broadband Initiative Act
This month, I'd like to return to a recurring theme of CENIC’s and one
which I treated in our
<http://www.cenic.org/publications/cenictoday/ctv9_10.html>November 2006
issue of CENIC Today: broadband. In that issue, I noted that the
Governor had issued an
<http://www.cenic.org/pressroom/news/GOV_102706.html>Executive Order
establishing a Broadband Task Force the purpose of which would be to
identify administrative actions that can result in immediate
promotion of broadband access and usage within the State. As the President
and CEO of CENIC, I am generally aware of the activities of this task force
and am looking forward
to the publication of their final report next October. In the meantime, I
believe we’ll see an interim report which will contain some of the task
force's initial findings and recommendations.
Following on the heels of the establishment of this task force, Senator
Hillary Clinton has introduced a bill, the
<http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/5434>Rural Broadband Initiative Act
of 2007 as an amendment to the
Rural Electrification Act of 1936 to bring affordable broadband to rural
America. The bill, S. 1032, would establish an Office and Undersecretary
of Rural Broadband Initiatives
within the Department of Agriculture to coordinate federal broadband
programs, to develop a strategic vision, and to conduct research.
Importantly the bill will help fund
experimental and pilot rural broadband projects. S. 1032 would be a major
contribution to the country by helping to put broadband on the national
agenda, something that is
sorely needed.
In the meantime, CENIC continues to pursue ways in which it can contribute
to broadband deployment in California. Stay tuned for future updates on
this important subject.
- Jim Dolgonas, CENIC
CalREN Update: Network Projects and Activities
Community College Update:
Since the last issue of CENIC Today, new Gigabit Ethernet connectivity to
CalREN for <http://www.valleycollege.edu/>San Bernardino Valley College was
tested and is now being employed. With this
connectivity, the <http://www.sbccd.cc.ca.us/>San Bernardino Community
College District can now proceed with their
<http://www.edustream.org/>EduStream.org project. Last March at
<http://cenic07.cenic.org/>CENIC's Annual Conference, EduStream.org was
honored with a CENIC Innovations in Networking Award for 2007, in Education
Applications. Telecourses can be a perfect solution to meeting educational
demands for colleges,
but they often face limitations where face-to-face class time is often
dedicated to testing instead of quality interactions between students and
faculty and students themselves.
Solving this problem with video-on-demand can be costly, but EduStream.org
empowers colleges to offer educational rich-media content to enhance course
offerings while
addressing producers’ authentication and copyright concerns.
<http://www.westhillscollege.com/>West Hills College's Lemoore location
officially reached campus status, and the <http://www.cccco.edu/>California
Community College Chancellor's Office authorized installing a new DS3
circuit to <http://www.westhillscollege.com/lemoore/>West
Hills College <http://www.westhillscollege.com/lemoore/>Lemoore in Lemoore,
California.
California K-12 update:
CENIC is well underway with the installation of new Gigabit circuits for
several K-12 node sites. Specifically the
<http://www.kings.k12.ca.us/>Kings <http://www.kings.k12.ca.us/>COE,
<http://www.monterey.k12.ca.us/>Monterey
<http://www.monterey.k12.ca.us/>COE, <http://www.santacruz.k12.ca.us/>Santa
Cruz <http://www.santacruz.k12.ca.us/>COE, and the
<http://www.sbcss.k12.ca.us/>San
Bernardino Superintendent of Schools can look forward to upgraded
connectivity to CalREN. Be sure to read upcoming issues of CENIC Today for
updates!
While awaiting the needed construction work to prepare for a Gigabit fiber
connection to CalREN for the <http://www.vcss.k12.ca.us/>Ventura County
Office of Education, a second DS3 circuit was ordered
for this site for sorely needed bandwidth relief.
Conferences and Presentations:
At the request of the Chair of the
<http://cms.calstate.edu/T5_MTeams%26Rosters.asp>CMS<http://cms.calstate.edu/T5_MTeams%26Rosters.asp>
Technical Users Group, CENIC Project Manager Ed Smith provided a
presentation on the various rich multimedia content available
on the CalREN network, highlighting <http://www.ostn.tv/>OSTN,
<http://www.ruckus.com/>Ruckus, and <http://www.edustream.org/>EduStream.
CENIC was also an active participant in the recently held
<http://www.cisoa.org/>CISOA (Chief Information Systems Officers
Association) <http://www.cisoa.org/index.php?mo=cm&op=ld&fid=1>2007
Conference. CENIC was able to showcase our literature
and perform outreach in our conference booth, and a CalREN State of the
Network Update was jointly given by Ed Smith and
<http://www.cccco.edu/>CCC<http://www.cccco.edu/> Chancellor's Office Lead
Specialist for
Information Systems and Analysis Catherine McKenzie.
Both of these presentations can be found
<http://www.cenic.org/publications/presentations.html>online at CENIC's
website. Be sure to check them out!
-- Ed Smith, CENIC
CENIC 2006/2007 Survey is Online -- help us to improve!
CENIC is keenly aware of the importance of what we provide to our
community: cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support the needs
of faculty, researchers, staff, and
students. This requires not only expertise and commitment, but a constant
desire to improve -- and to do that, we need your help.
We would like you to complete a survey to help us continue to improve. In
our <http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB226B7B3GSW2>CENIC 2006/2007
Survey, you'll find questions covering the technical performance both of our
people and the CalREN networks, our promotional and informational
materials, CENIC project management, CalREN Video Services, and how much
your participation in CalREN
benefits you and your institution. The entire
<http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB226B7B3GSW2>survey will take
between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.
The <http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB226B7B3GSW2>CENIC 2006/2007
Survey will be open until June 30, 2007.
The CalREN Video Services (CVS) Roadshow: teaching, learning, and coming
together
During the month of April, <http://cvs.cenic.org/>CalREN Video Services
(CVS) went on the road, working with host sites to create regional
opportunities for Video Administrators around California to
get together and learn more about <http://cvs.cenic.org/>CVS and the
innovative uses of videoconferencing that are being enabled by CVS. These
half-day seminars took place at Cerritos College,
Palomar College, and San Jose State University and included presentations
by Video Administrators on creative uses of videoconferencing, and a
tutorial by Cassandra Patrizio,
CENIC's CVS Coordinator, on the advanced features of the
<http://pcs.cenic.org/>CVS Scheduling Desk.
18% of the CVS video administrators attended the sessions, and attendees
were quite enthusiastic about the opportunity to learn more about the
<http://pcs.cenic.org/>CVS Scheduling Desk firsthand,
and also to meet and share ideas and solutions to common challenges.
The CVS Roadshows were well-received, and CENIC is planning to hold
additional events in the future, including Web-based seminars or “Webinars”
for Video Administrators, and
other events to demonstrate ways in which videoconferencing can be used to
enhance educational offerings. Topics of interest for the future include
recording, archiving, and
streaming of video conference content and updates on the latest
technologies, such as “high definition” videoconferencing. Another topic
of interest is the ability to split a screen
for display of both people and content, where speakers from a given site
can participate in a videoconference while simultaneously sharing
information such as Power Point
presentations.
We'd like to thank everyone who participated in making the first series of
CVS Roadshows a success! Special thanks goes to our gracious hosts:
Bernice Watson at Cerritos
College, Phil Cerda and Luke Bisagna at Palomar College, and Alfred Eclipse
and the Academic Technologies department at San Jose State University.
Be sure to check out future issues of CENIC Today for updates regarding
<http://cvs.cenic.org/>CalREN Video Services and to ensure that you don't
miss future CVS events!
-- Cassandra Patrizio, CENIC
Experts Ponder the Technology of Disaster Response at San Diego State
University
On April 24th, civilian and military experts in the fields of humanitarian
assistance and disaster response came together in the renowned
<http://map.sdsu.edu/visual/>Visualization Center at
<http://www.sdsu.edu/>San Diego
State University. Their purpose was to discuss the need for and potential
shape of a "common operational picture," of great use to various
organizations and professionals in the
midst of any humanitarian crisis such as a natural disaster or terrorist
attack. In any such crisis situation, information must be gathered,
organized, and made highly available to
users from many areas, civilian and military, hospitals, police and fire
fighting teams, and other non-government organizations such as the Red Cross.
Each of these organizations often collects certain kinds of data, some more
efficiently and accurately than others. For example, hospitals possess
in-depth knowledge about
the nature of casualties and their own capacity to treat them, while the
Red Cross may have a more accurate picture of property damage. Police and
military personnel may
know more about infrastructure issues such as collapsed roadways, while
public health agencies and utilities will have a more complete picture of
possible release of toxins
or power and water service interruptions. All of these organizations,
however, require a complete "common operational picture" or COP to optimize
their response to any crisis.
Naturally, in an ideal world a complete COP would include rich media, such
as audio and video information or even 3-D models of affected areas that
can be manipulated on-site,
as well as real-time data such as the fluctuating capacity of nearby
hospitals. Remote medical assessment and videoconferencing could be of
vital importance as well, allowing
medical specialists to view casualties remotely in hard-to-reach areas and
prepare for them before their arrival, or allow disaster response
professionals to collaborate while still
en route in mobile response units in order to view a hazardous site
together virtually and design a response plan before arriving at the site
itself.
And of course, all of this requires networking and bandwidth which must be
made accessible over low-cost, portable, and easily deployed networking
equipment, often wireless.
As a consequence, these experts are often keenly interested in the
potential of advanced networking to meet their needs, and research into
what are often referred to as
hastily-formed networks is at a high point after recent highly visible
natural disasters such as the December 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.
-- Janis Cortese, CENIC
CENIC and OSTN Host Web Seminar with Help from UCTV, USC, MIT, ORION
Network, and NLR
On April 27th at 1PM Pacific Time, CENIC and the <http://www.ostn.tv/>Open
Student Television Network (OSTN) co-hosted a one-hour web seminar
addressing both how CalREN Associates can
put the CENIC-OSTN partnership to use and how other major institutions such
as MIT and the <http://www.orion.on.ca/>Ontario Research & Innovation
Optical Network (ORION) have already worked
together with OSTN to enhance the teaching and learning environment for
themselves or their own network members.
The Presidents of both OSTN and CENIC, Prashant Chopra and Jim Dolgonas,
kicked off the event by welcoming the speakers and attendees and giving
everyone a bit of
background on their respective organizations. Most attendees were part of
the California research & education community, but many were not, and
everyone was able to take
information away about both OSTN and CENIC.
Following this, <http://www.uctv.tv/>UCTV Communication Manager Alison Gang
gave an excellent overview of UCTV's mission and programming, and how they
hope to utilize OSTN to expand
their audience and their impact within California. USC TV Executive
Director Don Tillman described the mission and offerings of USC's
<http://www.trojanvision.com/>Trojan Vision as well, where they stand,
what they offer, and how they plan to leverage the CENIC-OSTN partnership.
<http://web.mit.edu/mitcable/www/>MIT<http://web.mit.edu/mitcable/www/>
Cable Television Team Leader Randy Winchester and
<http://www.orion.on.ca/>ORION Public Affairs Director André Quenneville
spoke as well, both representing organizations which are already
members of OSTN and hence offering valuable experience and lessons learned
on how they had put their membership to use.
<http://www.nlr.net/>National LambdaRail's Tom West spoke next, outlining
his organization's motivation in partnering with OSTN as well, and what he
hoped the institutions that connect to NLR
could accomplish through the partnership between NLR and OSTN.
Both OSTN and CENIC are delighted with the high registration figures for
the web seminar and we're especially pleased at the broad participation
across all of California's K-20.
CENIC was of course created to serve the communities that comprise the
state's K-20 research & education, and we're very happy to see so many
representatives of those
communities excited at what they can achieve through the CENIC-OSTN
partnership. Interested institutions are invited to contact OSTN's VP of
Membership Development
Anthony Davis at (216) 973-7564 or anthony_davis at ostn.tv to learn more
about how to join and submit content to OSTN. More information can be
found at <http://www.ostn.tv/>OSTN's website
and <http://www.cenic.org/OSTN/>CENIC's OSTN page.
-- Janis Cortese, CENIC
[]
National Networking News:
Senator Hillary Clinton Introduces Rural Broadband Initiative Act
Building on the success of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, which
allowed the federal government to make low-cost loans for the purpose of
bringing electricity to rural
America, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has introduced the Rural Broadband
Initiative Act of 2007 to bring affordable broadband to the same demographic.
Introduced as an amendment to the original Electrification Act, Clinton's
bill would establish an office of rural broadband initiatives within the
Department of Agriculture to
coordinate all federal broadband programs as well as develop a strategic
vision, conduct outreach, coordinate federal resources, assess all relevant
technologies, and act as a
resource for effective practices at the local level. The bill would also
help fund experimental and pilot rural broadband projects.
The bill appears to support the higher education community's stated goal of
a national broadband strategy, and Clinton's high profile as a presidential
candidate should improve
the chance that broadband will be on the agenda for the upcoming
presidential election. To read the bill, go to http://www.thomas.loc.gov
and search for S. 1032. For more
information on the Rural Electrification Act go to
http://www.answers.com/topic/rural-electrification-act.
Gov. Schwarzenegger Appoints David Long Secretary of Education
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of David
Long as secretary of education.
“David will add tremendous knowledge and skill to our great education team
and I know he will work in a bipartisan effort to make sure our kids come
out on top,” said Governor
Schwarzenegger.
Long has more than 40 years of experience in the field of education and for
21 of those years he taught in a classroom. Since 1999, he has served as
the superintendent of
schools for Riverside County where he oversees 23 school districts and more
than 400,000 students. Long previously was the superintendent for the Lake
Elsinore Unified School
District from 1992 to 1999 and held the same position with the Banning
Unified School District from 1989 to 1992. Prior to becoming
superintendent, Long was assistant
superintendent for Mason City Community Schools in Mason City, Iowa from
1987 to 1989 and principal of Roosevelt Middle School from 1985 to
1987. He also served as
associate principal for Mason City High School from 1982 to 1985.
Please visit the <http://gov.ca.gov/>Office of the Governor for the
<http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/5753/>full text of the press
release.
Swarthmore ITS Undertaking Trial of Google Apps Education Edition
For the many students who are already forwarding their college e-mail to
Gmail accounts, life is about to get a lot easier. ITS is currently
undertaking a trial of the Education
Edition of Google Apps to see whether a switch in Swatmail service from the
current interface to a Gmail-based one would benefit the campus community.
According to
Associate Director of Enterprise Systems Glenn Stauffer, a trial is
necessary to determine the practicality of making such a large-scale change.
“Anytime we want to implement any comprehensive system, we have to test
things out,” Stauffer said. “We thought the best way to test things out is
to run a limited pilot [of
Google Apps] using a selected group of students and staff.”
Source: http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2007-03-22/news/17061
Hayward USD Unveils World's First Citywide WiFi eDistrict & High-Tech
Learning Center
Hayward USD and Hayward Partners in Education (PIE) are launching the
world's first web-based, globally-converged, continuously available,
citywide wireless school district.
eDistrict is powered by a wireless Nortel network and features an
"On-Demand Learning System" that escalates student learning and assessment,
professional development and
facilities/document management. The entire Hayward community will have free
Access to the citywide network through the eDistrict portal. HUSD's
eDistrict deployment also
includes the implementation of the most advanced classroom/curriculum
technology available, designed to sync and interact with eDistrict programs
and an Education Resource
Center, which serves as the vital bloodline between the eDistrict and the
community.
Source: http://www.viptone.com/news_01.html
High-Performance Distributed Computing 2007 (HPDC2007)
High-Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC) combines the advances in
research and technologies in high speed networks, software, distributed
computing and parallel
processing to deliver high-performance, large-scale and cost-effective
computational, storage and communication capabilities to a wide range of
applications.
The intent of this meeting is to provide a forum in which researchers
report on new ideas and technical insights, application teams express the
challenges of constructing
wide-area or scalable high performance applications, and technology
creators report on future developments.
HPDC 07 will meet in Monterey Bay California, June 27-29,
2007.
<https://www.epd.engr.arizona.edu/epdform.php?form=hpdc_2007_form>Conference
and
<https://resweb.passkey.com/Resweb.do?mode=welcome_ei_new&eventID=43230>hotel
registration can be done online at the
<http://www.isi.edu/hpdc2007/>conference website.
New Internet2 Land Speed Records Set
On April 24, 2007, Internet2 at its annual Spring Member
Meeting announced that an international team led by the University of Tokyo
has set two consecutive new Internet2 Land Speed Records (I2-LSR) in the
IPv6 single and
multi-stream categories. These records mark the ninth and tenth time a
University of Tokyo-lead team has achieved an Internet2 Land Speed record.
As an open and ongoing
competition for the highest-bandwidth, end-to-end networks, Internet2 LSR
awards represent the fastest rate at which data is transferred multiplied
by the distance traveled.
For <http://data-reservoir.adm.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/lsr-200612-01/>the first set
of IPv6 records, a team from the University of Tokyo, WIDE Project, NTT
Communications, JGN2, SURFnet, CANARIE, Pacific Northwest Gigapop and other
institutions collaborated to create a network path over 30,000 kilometers
in distance, crossing 6 international networks - over 3/4 the circumference
of the Earth. In doing so, the
team successfully transferred data in the single and multi-stream
categories at a rate of 7.67 Gbps which is equal to 230,100 terabit-meters
per second (Tb-m/s). This
record-setting attempt leveraged standard TCP to achieve the new mark.
The next day, <http://data-reservoir.adm.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/lsr-200612-02/>the
team used a modified version of
TCP<http://data-reservoir.adm.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/lsr-200612-02/> to achieve an
even greater record. Using the same 30,000 km path, the network was able to
achieve a throughput of 9.08
Gbps which is equal to 272,400 Tb-m/s for both the IPv6 multi and single
stream categories.
Internet2-NLR Merger Update: Merger Planning Team, New Website Created
The Internet2-NLR
<http://www.internet2-nlr.org/statements/mptformed.shtml>Merger Planning
Team (MPT) has been formed. The MPT will focus on the business aspects of
work towards a merger of <http://www.internet2.edu/>Internet2 and
<http://www.nlr.net/>National LambdaRail.
It is the MPT’s responsibility (with the assistance of counsel) to prepare
the definitive agreement that will be presented to the NLR and Internet2
Boards.
Tracy Futhey and Jeffrey Lehman, the respective Chairs of National
LambdaRail and Internet2, will jointly lead the MPT, which will consist of
Hud Croasdale, Executive Director
of the Quilt; David Lassner, CIO of the University of Hawaii and chair of
the Internet2 Applications Strategy Council; Harvey Newman Professor of
Physics at Caltech; and Dan
Updegrove, Special Assistant to the VP for IT at The University of Texas at
Austin and Vice-chair of National LambdaRail, have agreed to join the team.
Internet2 and NLR have also created a <http://www.internet2-nlr.org/>joint
website where community members can track merger activities. All of the
current statements from the chairs are available as is a
detailed set of <http://www.internet2-nlr.org/faqs/>FAQs.
SC07 Bandwidth Challenge: Call for Participation
10 Gbps network links are becoming ever more prevalent; however, achieving
data rates close to 10 Gbps or even 1 Gbps across those high bandwidth
networks is still
unattainable by most users.
Those who can achieve high data rates, who can take full advantage of
high-bandwidth links, need to serve as models. They need to show the
researchers at their institutions and
their colleagues around the world new ways to truly utilize high-bandwidth
networks.
While network speeds now include multiples of 10 Gbps (on the same fibers
or aggregated together) and 100 Gbps standards are underway, full
utilization of 10 Gbps links is still
a challenge for many.
This year the Bandwidth Challenge will focus on showcasing those who can
serve as a model for end-to-end achievement which should be emulated by
others. We’ve put these
great networks in place, now let’s make sure everyone can use them to the
fullest extent.
This is a Call for Participation in the Bandwidth Challenge at SC07. The
intention is that your participation not only will benefit your home
institution, but that your example will
serve as a model for other institutions to follow.
To enter the Bandwidth Challenge, please submit your entry by July 31, 2007
to the <http://www.sc-submissions.org/>SC07 Submissions website.
[]
About CENIC:
California’s education and research communities leverage their networking
resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in
California, in order to obtain
cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and
answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students. CENIC designs,
implements, and operates CalREN,
the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth,
high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique
requirements of these communities, and
to which the vast majority of the state’s K-20 educational institutions are
connected. In order to facilitate collaboration in education and research,
CENIC also provides connectivity
to non-California institutions and industry research organizations with
which CENIC’s Associate researchers and educators are engaged.
CENIC is governed by its member institutions. Representatives from these
institutions also donate expertise through their participation in various
committees designed to ensure
that CENIC is managed effectively and efficiently, and to support the
continued evolution of the network as technology advances.
For more information, visit www.cenic.org.
Subscription Information:
You can subscribe and unsubscribe to CENIC Today at
http://lists.cenic.org/mailman/listinfo/cenic-today.
[]
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