CENIC News: Special Post-Conference Issue

CENIC's annual conference, held in Monterey on March 8, 9 and 10, provided us a reminder of why CENIC exists as participants enjoyed presentations and demonstrations in a variety of fields and topics, from research to teaching to policy. Once again, green and sustainable sensibilities were in evidence with presentations on related topics, some presenters participating virtually, less paper and more interactive online materials, and complete conference webcasting with live interactive chat provided by Gold Sponsor NCast. Presentation topics further ranged from the arts and new digital media to international networking, and attendees were even treated to an offsite "field trip" to learn about the innovations made possible by advanced networking and even see them in action at the beautiful campus of the Naval Postgraduate School.

The 2010 Keynote Addresses were also highlights of this year's program. FCC Education Director Steve Midgley spoke about the realities of what's needed to enable broadband infrastructure to realize its potential to revolutionize education, and the University of Washington's Ed Lazowska did the same for what he referred to as eScience and how advanced networks can enable data-drive science and engineering to revolutionize our understanding of the world.

And of course, a major highlight of the year's conference were, as always, the winners of the CENIC Innovations in Networking Awards for 2010.

As I mentioned above, this year CENIC was pleased to offer webcasting and live, interactive chat of the entire conference, and I'm delighted to report that it was a great success, with as many people watching the live streams as attended the conference. All of the streaming video and slides from the conference were archived, so if you were unable to attend or missed any of the above presentations, demos, Keynote Addresses, breakout sessions, or the program from the Naval Postgraduate School, you can visit the online program and enjoy it all from your computer. CENIC looks forward to investigating similar options for saving cost, carbon, and convenience and expanding the reach of our annual conference next year as well.

I'd like to finish by thanking the 2010 Conference and Program Committees for their extraordinary efforts that made the 2010 conference such a resounding success, as well as members of the CENIC community for showcasing the wonderful things that they're achieving thanks to advanced networking. The conference is a great opportunity for all of you to share your achievements, but it's also a great opportunity for us at CENIC to take pride in the role we play to help you bring these accomplishments about.

Our corporate sponsors have also been valued allies in helping us help you scale these heights as well as making the conference possible, and I'd like to thank them as well:

• Titanium Sponsor: Cisco Systems
• Platinum Sponsor: AT&T
• Gold Sponsors: NCast, Juniper Networks, Qwest Business, Comcast Business, and Vidyo
• Silver Sponsors: Charter Business and Level3 communications

Readers of CENIC Today can see that most of this issue is taken up with post-conference reporting, but CalREN updates have continued throughout the month of March as well, and we have great news to report for many CENIC Associates.

Relevant to California's K-12 System, CENIC's application for E-rate Year 13 (2010-11) was funded by the USAC (Universal Service Administrative Company) Schools and Libraries Division. Preparation work needed to put the new circuits into production on or after July 1, 2010 is underway. Keep an eye out for future issues of CENIC Today for more updates.

Also, the first 10 Gb/s circuit for a K12 node site, the Los Angeles Unified School District, was tested and accepted in March and readied for production traffic.

California's Community Colleges also received several upgrades during the month of March, when new Gigabit connections were put into production for Napa Valley College, Santa Barbara City College, Mission College, and the Peralta Colleges.

A update on CENIC and network related activities affecting California's Community Colleges was presented at the annual CISOA (Chief Information Systems Officers Association) recently held in Ontario, California. Presentation slides can be found online.

The California State University Chancellor's Office closed its Los Alamitos facility in the WestEd building this past month. All servers previously housed at the WestEd site have been distributed to other campuses. The former Office of Government Affairs, now known as the Office of Advocacy & State Relations, will receive an upgraded connection to a DS3 (45 Mbps).

Finally, a 10 Gb/s circuit to Harvey Mudd College was put into production during March as well as a new 10 Gb/s circuit between Harvey Mudd College and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Distributed dance performances united across continents. Digital media installations made possible with extremely high-definition video and sound. Detailed discussions of the regional and international networks that make it all possible. Green and sustainability issues and how advanced networking can play a crucial role in meeting the challenges they raise.

The CENIC 2010 annual conference offered all of this as well as detailed presentations on advanced network and computing research in the Research & Technology Breakout Sessions, the latest STEM, videoconferencing, cultural learning, and disaster recovery innovations in the Teaching & Learning Breakout Sessions, a live CineGrid demo, a BoF session between Internet2 and NLR, and presentations from all of the 2010 Innovations in Networking Award winners.

On Monday morning, attendees were welcomed to the 2010 conference by Conference Committee Chair Doug Hartline of UC Santa Cruz, CENIC President & CEO Jim Dolgonas, and CENIC Board Chair David Ernst of UCOP. Following the opening remarks was a presentation by UC Santa Cruz's Ted Warburton demonstrating the artistic application of high-bandwidth networks via distributed live arts performances uniting both remote performers and performers-plus-data in an eye-catching example of an application that might have been unexpected to attendees focused on network research. International networking from the perspective of the University of Hawaii's David Lassner followed, with the morning's highlight being FCC Education Director Steve Midgley's Keynote Address wherein he discussed the realities of broadband networking in its current state and what will be needed before it can fulfill its promise in the education revolution.

Tuesday's program began with the arts again and University of Manitoba's Herbert Enns's presentation on digital media installations enabled by advanced networks and a panel discussion on regional networks featuring Mexico's CUDI, Florida LambdaRail, BCNet, and the Utah Education Network. The Keynote Address for Tuesday was delivered by the University of Washington's Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering Ed Lazowska, who also discussed broadband networking and what it will take for it to revolutionize data-driven eScience. Presentations by the 2010 winners of the Innovations in Networking Awards came after the awards luncheon, and the afternoon concluded with Breakout Sessions in Teaching and Learning, and Research and Technology, with a CineGrid demonstration and a Birds of a Feather session hosted by Internet2 and the National LambdaRail.

Wednesday focused on sustainability with Juniper Networks' Debbie Montano focusing on green networking and sustainability guru Bill St. Arnaud participating remotely via Cisco Telepresence to discuss the ways in which CENIC can empower California's higher education to reduce its carbon footprint.

Of course, no CENIC conference would be complete without the opportunities for "human networking," and FULL SPEED AHEAD provided ample chances for this in the beautiful Monterey setting, as well as opportunities to chat with the corporate sponsors happy to showcase their own innovations to a targeted community of education and network technology specialists.

Monday afternoon on March 8, conference attendees were treated to a change of venue from the Regency Grand Ballroom at the Hyatt Monterey to the campus of CENIC Associate the Naval Postgraduate School. What followed was an afternoon of top-flight presentations by cutting-edge researchers, a demo that put CENIC's advanced networking into the NPS through its paces and succeeded so well that the audience burst into spontaneous applause, and a reception in the beautiful and historic Hermann Hall, previous home of the Hotel Del Monte.

Upon arriving at the NPS, conference attendees were welcomed into the Mechanical Engineering Auditorium on the campus by a fascinating Plenary Address by Vice President and Dean of Research in Physics Karl van Bibber. Dr. van Bibber's presentation made it quite clear that to scientists doing computation-heavy research at the level currently taking place at the NPS, advanced networks such as CalREN have enabled a transformation in the way that science is done, enabling computation itself to take its place beside theory and experiment as the triple pillars supporting modern research. Using examples ranging from deep space astronomy to molecular dynamics and the physics of fluid flow, Dr. van Bibber demonstrated that high-performance networks and the vast stores of data to which they permit access have allowed a new understanding of processes relating to these areas of research that would previously have been unthinkable.

Following the Plenary Address was a presentation by Paul Sanchez on Data Farming, a further evolution of the accepted concept of data mining, where large sums of data (unmanageable without advanced networks) are actively "farmed" to create new understanding using a host of new techniques that permit interaction within the data on a scale that was previous impossible. When studying effects that rely not on one or two or even twenty or a hundred variables, such techniques mean the difference between mystery and understanding -- and fruitful applications of the new understanding.

The rendering of three-dimensional digital information has long been one of the "killer apps" for advanced networks, and Jeff Weekley and Jeff Haferman showed in their presentation on the visualization performed on the NPS's Hamming Supercomputer precisely how they've achieved their own rendering for researchers currently looking for scalable, affordable solutions to their own rendering-related challenges.

Geospatial data followed, a current hot topic the boundaries of which are still being determined, with a presentation by Don Brutzman and Dale Tourtelotte wherein they also demonstrated a scalable, affordable way to leverage enormous amounts of geodata in a way that can be applied by other researchers. Both presentations concentrated on stable commercial tools that "played well with others" and would remain accessible to the researchers using them.

In the final presentation, Jeff Weekley took the podium again with Pacific Interface's Laurin Herr to discuss extremely high-definition video and the ways in which it can be used to display and better understand underwater habitats. Joining them for their presentation was Dr. Atsushi Takahara from NTT Labs remotely in Japan as a live demonstration of the power of high-definition video. Viewers in the auditorium thousands of miles away in Monterey burst into spontaneous applause at the appearance of Dr. Takahara, literally larger than life and so clear as to appear almost more real than the live presenters. It was a stunning display of the robustness of the optical networks, including CalREN, between the two sites, and the way in which such performance can almost be assumed as the standard in any high-bandwidth research application.

The reception that followed in Hermann Hall was accompanied by a poster session of research being done in the Monterey area at California State University, Monterey Bay, the Defense Language Institute, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the NPS, and UC Santa Cruz. Hosted by Titanium Sponsors Cisco Systems and Brocade, the reception also allowed Vice Provost Leonard Ferrari the opportunity to present CENIC President and CEO Jim Dolgonas with a "portrait" of the NPS campus as a thank-you for CENIC support of the School.

As with the conference presentations that took place at the Hyatt Regency, the NPS segment of the conference program was also webcast live and archived for later viewing. Readers of CENIC Today are urged to check out the conference program to enjoy the presentations and demonstration.

One of the most significant advantages to a dedicated, owned advanced network designed specifically for research & education is the freedom it affords the community to develop complex applications secure in the knowledge that the infrastructure will support them. One such application is eTranscript California, which provides secure, streamlined electronic transcript exchange for 53 post-secondary institutions in the State (community colleges, California State University campuses, and many private and independent colleges). At its annual conference this month in Monterey, CENIC recognized the value of eTranscript California to the community we serve, and its value as a model to other regions, by awarding it the 2010 Innovations in Networking Award for Educational Applications.

With a statewide transcript system in place, many other things are made possible such as translating large numbers of transcripts into national standards, tracking, combining transcripts into a single Composite Transcript, interfacing with high schools, and longitudinal studies on student success. Also, the CA Community College Chancellor's Office estimates that the transcript-related costs for eTranscript California member colleges will drop from an average of seven dollars to less than fifty cents per transcript.

The team responsible for eTranscript California consists of Butte Technology Center's Tim Calhoon, Project Director, pictured at left, along with Lenny Robison (Butte Technology Center), Catherine McKenzie (CCC Chancellor's Office), Mark Howell (Butte Technology Center), Joseph Giroux (CCC Chancellor's Office), and the XAP Corporation -- along with many others.

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

If you couldn't make it to the CENIC conference this year due to travel restrictions or other issues, the conference can come to you!

Thanks to Gold Sponsor NCast, the entire CENIC 2010 annual conference was webcast live, with the ability to ask questions of presenters via live chat. Through webcasting the entire conference, CENIC has enabled even more members of that community to benefit from the presentations and demonstrations on teaching and learning as well as the latest in network research.

And the archived video ensures that the CENIC annual conference will continue to offer benefits to the California research & education community and beyond all year round! Archived video of all presentations is now available at the Program page. Slides for many presentations are online as well, so even if you missed the online webcast, you can enjoy the CENIC Annual Conference after the fact from your own home or office.

The Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI), National LambdaRail (NLR), Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) and Internet2 are partnering with SCinet to provide WAN services support for the SC10 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 13 to 19, 2010.  In order to plan the WAN and metro resources required to support conference participants, we are asking exhibitors and network entities to identify their WAN circuit requirements into the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. WAN circuits are needed for any exhibitor that requires point-to-point connectivity to a remote location to support a large scale booth demonstration.

The SCinet WAN Team will work with LONI, NLR, ESnet and I2 to implement the required circuits for SC10 from the LONI/LSU connection point in New Orleans to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.  The following WAN services are planned to be available: NLR's PacketNet and FrameNet, Internet2's IP Network and dynamic circuit ION Service, ESnet's IP Network and Science Data Network and commodity Internet.

If your organization will require additional WAN circuits (i.e. NLR WaveNet, Internet2 WaveCo, another provider, etc.), please respond to this message with the details of your particular requirements and include the following information:

• Circuit type and bandwidth: (i.e. OC-48c/STM-16c, OC-192c/STM-64c, OC-768c/STM-256c, GigE, 10GigE-LAN, Fibre Channel (specify type), HDTV, etc.)
• Carrier or provider: (i.e. Level3, Qwest, NLR, Internet2, etc.)
• Circuit origination point: (i.e. Level3 POP in New Orleans, MANLAN in New York, etc.)
• Circuit termination point on the SC10 show floor: (i.e. SCinet Layer2 network, directly to exhibitor booth via dark fiber, etc.)

Even if you are unable to provide all the above details please contact the SCinet WAN Team with your intentions as soon as possible.  The deadline for submitting your organization's WAN circuit requirements is May 28, 2010.  Unless otherwise expressly agreed to by the SCinet WAN Team, all WAN circuits will be terminated at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and all WAN circuits into the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center will be served by the LSU-Health Science Center pop located at 433 Bolivar Street, 7th Floor, Room 719, New Orleans, LA 70112.

Please send your circuit requirements, questions or concerns to the SCinet WAN Team  at wan-team@scinet.supercomp.org.

US & World Networking News:

Victor Valley College, a community college in Victorville, Calif., is partnering with SolFocus to add solar energy as a campus energy source and a part of its curriculum. It plans to install a 1-megawatt high-concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) solar farm on 6 acres of its campus.

"I remember attending the inaugural GridWorld conference in 2006 and hearing Argonne National Laboratory's Ian Foster discuss the possible implications of the newly announced Amazon EC2 on the world of grid computing that he helped create. Well, 2010 is upon us, and some of the implications Foster pondered at GridWorld have become clear, among them: For many workloads, the cloud appears to be replacing the grid."

Today, with the right kind of support, students can play the role of innovators -- by leading the way in the development of broadband applications. [...] Now is the time to launch an initiative that would cultivate, with student involvement, such a wave of innovation.

The FCC plan outlines the goal of providing these institutions with one Gigabit per second (Gbps) connections as well as support for the development of a "Unified Community Anchor Network" (UCAN) that could be built leveraging existing non-profit research and education networks like Internet2 and NLR and their partner regional networks.

Dr. Fred Sherman, Vice Chancellor of Technology, Foothill De Anza Community College District was recognized for Technology Planning. Lee Krichmar, Director of Information Technology, Cerritos College, recieved an Award of Distinction. CISOA President Gary Moser, Chief Technology Officer, Information and Instructional Technology, Sierra College, served as master of ceremony and handed out the association awards.

Attracting students to the STEM disciplines is the first hurdle, and retaining student interest in these areas is the second. But once student interest in STEM-related fields is established, they will discover they are on a successful path not just for higher education, but for the workforce as well.

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.