CENIC News

Sitting in a computer lab in UCLA, renowned innovators are about to attempt communication with their colleagues hundreds of miles away at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) along a cutting-edge, blazingly fast, dedicated network connection. The work they are doing may someday revolutionize the world of research and education, and even beyond.

Thanks to the burgeoning and vigorous use of networks like CalREN, we've all grown used to events like this, although the innovations that come forth from them continue to astonish us. However, in any succession of events there has to be a beginning, and that's what this was. October 29, 1969 was the first day in history that anything like this had happened, and it was in the lab of Leonard Kleinrock at UCLA where he and a team of some 40 students and other researchers were in the process of attempting to log in from their computer to a similar machine located at the Stanford Research Institute. The bandwidth of the connection was an impressively fast 50 kb/s, top data speed for such bleeding-edge connectivity. This day has been recognized as the beginning of the Internet and it was celebrated at an anniversary event I attended at UCLA on October 29. Kleinrock himself was there to both recount this day and to oversee a day of speakers who addressed many of the outcomes of the Internet's creation in fields as diverse as network research and promising applications, politics, the arts, and today's most pressing social issues.

Nowdays of course, connectivity between California's top research universities, as well as between all K-20 public institutions, is provided by our multi-Gigabit CalREN network. Broadband connectivity has been taken as a matter of course by Kleinrock and his modern counterparts, and such networking is robust enough to attract and support far more than research on itself. In fact, this philosophy played an enormous part in the design of CalREN as a network that would support both network research and day-to-day applications. It was determined by the community that came to be called CENIC that any such network would have to attract not only the best network specialists who might expect (or even cause!) the occasional computer or connectivity crash such as the one that truncated the first shared message between Kleinrock's lab at UCLA and SRI from "LOGIN" to the more prophetic "Lo!" Specialists in many domains of science far from low-level network research have come to regard advanced networking not as an end in itself but as a means to a different scientific end. Furthermore, educators, artists, and the general public have put the network to the use that Kleinrock himself has called the most surprising -- connecting not computers, but people who expect nothing short of flawless, perfect performance.

And that's the biggest indicator of the magnitude of the revolution conceived that day by Kleinrock and his fellow researchers. A cutting-edge technology must, after a period of time, simply be taken for granted. Yesterday's revolution becomes today's pocket convenience, and that speaks more than anything could about the level of success that the Internet now enjoys in serving the world's needs. CENIC also pursues that same standard of invisible perfection, where the community it was created to serve can take advantage of what advanced networking has to offer, while remaining entirely unaware of doing so. Strange though it may sound, we actively welcome being taken for granted because it means that CENIC is accomplishing what it was created to do.

The story of the spread of the Internet beyond the first four nodes (two of which, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara, would later become CENIC Charter Associates eighteen years later, while the SRI had originally been created by a third Charter Associate, Stanford University) is yet another chapter in the ongoing story of the transformation of worldwide culture by technology. From those four nodes, the network grew to include a 64 kb/s trunk line across the Atlantic some years later, introducing the Internet to the rest of the world and beginning an era of global collaboration that is still growing. Today, multi-Gigabit transoceanic fiber-optic connections have made it possible to create Earth-sized computers and laboratories. Geographic distances have shrunk steadily for decades as the possibilities for collaboration and connection have grown nearly infinite.

However, it's important to learn the lessons of history at times like this, especially the history of technology. Just when one might imagine that everything that could be invented has been, history teaches us that the next revolution is right around the corner. Given that the last revolution, brought to life by California network researchers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute, is still taking shape in many ways, it's enough to make one wonder what on Earth the next one might look like. Whatever it is, I'm sure that California's research and education community will play a big role, and that it will also in due time be taken as a matter of course by our great-grandchildren.

During the month of October, California's Community College System has been the recipient of seven new Gigabit circuits which are currently in production. Los Medanos College, Solano Community College, Skyline College, Pasadena City College, San Joaquin Delta College, and Victor Valley College are all currently enjoying Gigabit connectivity to CalREN, while Mt. San Antonio College received a second Gigabit connection.

And once again, in support of SC09, CENIC's NLR L1 Engineering group is implementing 18 10-Gigabit Ethernet WAN circuits from various points on the National LambdaRail network into the Portland Convention Center as part of SCinet, the ultra-high performance network built from the ground up each year to provide the most advanced networking possible to conference attendees and researchers on the show floor.

From November 16-20, the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, OR will host some of the world's most cutting-edge network-based experiments and demonstrations as part of this year's Supercomputing conference, SC09. The conference has built a reputation for revolutionary demonstrations and challenges as well as a top-flight technical program, bringing together the best and brightest researchers and exhibitors in the world of high-performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis.

Facilitating some of the most groundbreaking research is the distributed international network peering facility Pacific Wave. At Booth 451 on the SC09 show floor, researchers in the arenas of ocean study and sustainable computing will showcase their innovations made possible by global advanced networking provided by Pacific Wave and other advanced networks. The booth theme will be Advanced Networking for a Fragile World, and the presentations that will take place will spotlight the high-performance research being carried out thanks to Pacific Wave in disciplines of vital importance to our changing planet. Featured presenters will include:

• The University of Washington's John Delaney, speaking on the Regional Scale Nodes of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) during the Monday evening gala from 6pm to 7pm,
• UCSD/SIO's John Orcutt, also speaking on the OOI
• UCSD/Calit2's Tom DeFanti speaking on the sustainability and green computing flagship Project GreenLight, and
• UCSD's George Papen speaking on the Scalable Energy-Efficient Datacenter (SEED) project on Tuesday at 2pm

among others to be announced. You can also learn more on the web about PacWave at SC09, including an updated list of presenters and presentation topics, the schedule of presentations as it is created, a map of the showfloor, a list of organizations associated with CENIC, PNWGP, and Pacific Wave that will also be exhibiting at SC09, and a signup link to a PacWave@SC09 Twitter feed that will feature reminders, presentation info, and other live updates from the SC09 showfloor.

CENIC likes to shine the spotlight on researchers and educators in California who are putting CalREN to creative uses of interest to the rest of the K-20 R&E community and beyond. This month however, we found it fitting to spotlight one of the first people who carried out such work, and whose efforts have made possible all the others that we've brought to your attention during the past year. Of course with the UCLA anniversary celebration already discussed in the President's Message in this issue of CENIC Today, it should come as no surprise that this month's CENIC Star Performer is UCLA Professor of Computer Science Leonard Kleinrock.

Well before the Internet even existed, Kleinrock and others were already contemplating the structure of such a large-scale network that could enable computers to communicate with one another as transparently as if they were in the same room together. While a graduate student at MIT, he developed much of the mathematical underpinnings of packet-switched networks, which exchange information by taking larger files and breaking them into smaller "chunks" of data, each possessing a header that could be interpreted by intermediate computer equipment (later called switches and routers) containing both its point of origin and its destination address, among other things such as its reassembly instructions. When sent from an originating computer, these packets are scattered to the network, passed along between switches and routers to their ultimate destination, reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle which has been broken into its component pieces each mailed to a single address, and then presented to the recipient as a complete file.

This is still the way in which today's Internet works, and one of the biggest secrets of its robustness. All of the "pieces of the puzzle" need not arrive in order nor arrive by the same route, creating a robustness and flexibility of response to interruption of service that still makes the Internet one of the hardest-to-bring-down methods of exchanging information that has ever been invented.

Below, you can see and hear Kleinrock explain the first instance ever of a piece of information being exchanged over the embryonic Internet:

To learn more about the other Star Performers that CENIC has featured, please visit our website at www.cenic.org.

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 CENIC 2009-10 Survey, you'll find questions covering the technical performance both of our people and the CalREN networks, CENIC project management, CalREN Video Services, and how much your participation in CalREN benefits you and your institution. The entire survey will take between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.

The CENIC 2009-10 Survey will be open until June 30, 2010.

CENIC is delighted to announce that online registration for its 2010 Annual Conference, FULL SPEED AHEAD, is now open!

At FULL SPEED AHEAD, you can register as well as find other information such as the Call for Presentations, the Call for Award Nominations for the 2010 Innovations in Networking Awards, and directions on how to reserve your hotel room before February 5, 2010 at the special discounted rate for single or double occupancy. Companies who are interested in sponsorship opportunities can also learn about the benefits of sponsoring the premiere advanced networking event for research and education in the Golden State.

Attendees will enjoy the same flexibility in payment and processing as in previous years, with the ability to register online and pay via check or major credit card. If using a major credit card, you will have the option to pay online at your leisure or at the conference.

We're also delighted to announce that, on Monday afternoon, March 8, the conference will shift venues to the campus of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), ending the day with an on-campus reception hosted by our Titanium Sponsor Cisco Systems that evening.

Presentations will include:

• A plenary address by Dr. Karl van Bibber, Vice-President and Dean of Research at NPS,
• A showcase of projects by the Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation (MOVES) Institute,
• A live CineGrid presentation between NPS and Calit2 at UCSD using the 4k projector housed at NPS,
• Presentations featuring advanced visualization technologies and research, and
• Student-powered poster sessions during the reception.

Conference attendees are asked to plan on walking to the campus from the hotel. Transportation will be provided as needed upon request.

Due to security requirements, all visitors to the NPS campus must be listed on an event attendee roster and must present photo identification (e.g., a valid Driver's License) at the entrance gate.

Your name on the attendee roster must exactly match your name as it appears on your photo identification. Do not use nicknames unless they match your photo identification exactly.

In order to assist CENIC in complying with NPS regulations, you must register for the event online and provide your name exactly as it appears on the photo identification that you plan to use.

If you have any questions about valid forms of identification, please contact CENIC at cenic10-info@cenic.org or Cassandra Patrizio at (714) 220-3471. If you'd like to stay up-to-date on all news related to FULL SPEED AHEAD, please subscribe to the RSS Feed for conference updates, and keep an eye on future issues of CENIC Today.

Information Week is one of the most trusted sources in print and on the web for up-to-date information of interest to technology specialists of all kinds, and last month they published their list of the top 50 government CIOs. Each was considered in terms of their skills and the unique and often enormous challenges they have met and are meeting in what is possibly the most demanding service sector in the world: government.

Among the professionals named is California CIO Teri Takai at number 34. In her profile, the specialists at Information Week recognized Takai's own history and skills as well as the daunting obstacles facing her given the challenges currently at play in California, and moreover as the state's first CIO.

At the foot of the article, registered users of InformationWeek.com have the option to download the full report, while all users can access abbreviated profiles and the full list of CIOs and others who have merited recognition.

US & World Networking News:

On October 9, Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission seeking more funds to connect schools and libraries to the Internet.

Specifically, Rockefeller asked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to "expeditiously adjust" the commission's rules to address the inflationary decreases in funding available for the program.

At this week's 9th Annual LambdaGrid Workshop held in Korea, a Consortium of network researchers announced that they received a three-year grant from the U.S. Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) program to develop a major new national and international distributed infrastructure called "iGENI," the "International GENI." GENI is an open and broadly inclusive research initiative established by NSF to provide a virtual laboratory for exploring future internets at scale.

European Space Agency researchers recently experimented with running a grid inside a cloud in order to process massive datasets, using test data drawn from something astronomically large: data from the Gaia project.

Gaia is a European Space Agency mission that will conduct a survey of one billion stars in our galaxy -- approximately 1% of the Milky Way galaxy.

If you can spare a little space on your office wall about the size of a small Post-it Note, you may be able to host a tiny seismic sensor that will help the researchers of the Quake-Catcher Network delve deeper into the subterranean world of earthquakes.

The UC System shone brightly this year as their researchers and graduates claimed multiple Nobel Prizes. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine was claimed by UCSF's Elizabeth Blackburn and Johns Hopkins' Carol Greider for research on gene telomeres performed when both were at UC Berkeley. The prize was shared with Harvard Medical School's Jack Szostak. Berkeley reaped further honors when the Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to UCB economist Oliver Williamson.

During the week of November 9-13, schools, colleges, and other organizations will be showcasing their programs for current and prospective students. Additionally, the USDLA will be conducting a series of free webinars during NDLW, showcasing various types of distance learning providers.

About CENIC and How to Change Your Subscription:

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.