CENIC News

CENIC's primary role has always been to create and operate a robust, cost-effective network to support the education and research missions of our members. Because we were created chiefly to provide advanced networking to the California research and education community, unlike in some other states, the innovations themselves were primarily left within the purview of that community. CENIC recognizes exemplary uses of the CalREN network through showcasing them at our annual conferences and also through our annual Innovations in Networking Awards, but our primary role has been to create and maintain an advanced network which can be exploited by the Associate community as opposed to exploiting it ourselves.

From time to time we have dabbled in areas associated with uses of the network, for example when CENIC was asked by the Governor's office in 2000 to operate the Digital California Project to provide networking for California’s K-12 System -- but also to help stimulate the uses of the network for learning.  That project evolved into CENIC's current more limited role of providing networking to the K-12 segment.  CENIC has also helped support a number of initiatives associated with improved learning opportunities through the use of technology, the most recent of which is providing administrative support for a start up STEM (Science Technology, Engineering, and Math) initiative, the California STEM Learning Network or CSLNet.

While it can certainly be argued that CENIC is primarily a networking organization rather than one focused on what the network is used for, and should best concentrate our activities on those arenas where our expertise lies, a recently published study for the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine highlights the pressing need for the United States to find ways to exploit networking for the benefit of students and researchers,  and thereby contribute to innovation and a strong economy. So pressing is this need that it suggests broadening the scope of organizations like CENIC who have previously focused nearly exclusively on the "nuts and bolts" of the advanced networks that we create, operate, and maintain.

The report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited, is an update of a report produced in 2005 in response to a request by Congress to the National Academies to report on what federal policymakers could do to enhance the science and technology enterprise so that the US can successfully compete, prosper, and be secure in the global community of the 21st century. Some quotes from the report are reason for serious reflection:

"We also sense that in the face of so many other daunting near-term challenges, U.S. government and industry are letting the crucial strategic issues of U.S. competitiveness slip below the surface."

"Robert Solow received a Nobel Prize in economics in part for his work that indicated that well over half the growth in the United States ... in the first half of the twentieth century could be attributed to advancements in knowledge, particularly in technology."

" ... federal government funding of R&D as a fraction of GDP has declined by 60% in 40 years."

" ... it was found that United States firms spend twice as much on litigation as on research."

" ... our overall public school system... has shown little sign of improvement, particular in mathematics and sciences.  Finally, many other nations have been markedly progressing, thereby affecting Americans’ relative ability to compete effectively for new factors, research laboratories, administrative centers -- and jobs."

"Substantial evidence continues to indicate that over the long term, the great majority of newly created jobs are the indirect or direct result of advances in science and technology, thus making these and related disciplines assume what might be described as disproportionate importance.”

The report can be looked at as a call for action with recommendations that:

"Move the United States K-12 education system in science and mathematics to a leading position by global standards" and

"Double the real federal investment in basic research in mathematics, the physical sciences, and engineering."

Should CENIC take a more active role in helping address these issues and if so what can we do?  These are certainly important questions to consider, with no easy answers. If you have any thoughts, please feel free to share them with us.

During December, the bulk of CENIC's attention has been turned toward the installation of multiple point-to-point circuits to consolidate Associate traffic. However, in that time, the Whittier Union High School District has received a 100 Mb/s connection to CalREN to replace the 45 Mb/s DS-3 that was previously serving them.

The Sacramento County Office of Education also received a new ultra-high-speed 10 Gb/s connection to CalREN, although the connection has not yet been put into production. Sacramento joins the Orange County Department of Education, the San Diego County Office of Education, and the Los Angeles Unified School District in enjoying 10 Gb/s connectivity to CalREN.

Online registration is available for the CENIC Annual Conference Expanding Our Horizons, taking place in Irvine, CA on March 7-9, 2011 at the UC Irvine Student Center. Payment options are as flexible as ever, with the option for attendees to register now and pay online later at their convenience, or pay at the conference by check or major credit card.

Hotel and Travel information is also available where attendees can learn about the UC Irvine campus where the conference will be held, how to get to UC Irvine from the major area airports and freeways, and how to make your reservation online at the nearby Hyatt Hotel.

Readers of CENIC Today will also find Sponsorship information, where companies can learn how they can help make Expanding Our Horizons possible plus enjoy all the benefits from exposure to a select, decision-making research and education audience in the country's most populous and innovative state. Join Platinum level sponsor AT&T in making the premiere advanced networking event for research and education possible!

General questions may be addressed to Doug Hartline, Conference Chair, at cenic11-info@cenic.org, and more information can be found online at cenic2011.cenic.org. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and check out the conference Facebook page to stay up to date on news and announcements!

CENIC is pleased to offer its 2009-10 Annual Report to the CENIC Associate community. The Report can be downloaded or read online at the following link:

http://www.cenic.org/2009-10AnnualReport/

Once again, CENIC has chosen to offer its Annual Report in a cost-effective, flexible, and interactive electronic format that will make it easier for readers to navigate and share as well as saving money and paper. The Annual Report itself will introduce you to CENIC and the CalREN network, and demonstrate to readers the improvements that have been carried out during this past fiscal year, both to the CalREN backbone and to Associate connectivity, ensuring that CalREN remains at the pinnacle of high-performance, reliable R&E networks. Representatives of Charter Associates were welcomed on board, and the connectivity enabled by CENIC helped push the research meccas in California to the top of the list for network performance worldwide. The CENIC Network Operations Center continues to perform at a high level of professionalism and expertise, and CalREN Video Services enables educational and administrative collaboration -- and will continue to do so as K20Video in partnership with the Imperial County Office of Education's K12Video.

Outreach also continued apace with a strong presence at SC09 in Portland, OR last November for Pacific Wave, as well as a press conference at UC Santa Cruz to celebrate completion of a new fiber route to the campus with an associated tenfold increase in the campus's connectivity to CalREN and thus to colleagues worldwide.

The 2010 CENIC Annual Conference, FULL SPEED AHEAD, took place in Monterey and -- a first for that year -- the entire conference was webcast live with interact chat for those unable to travel to Monterey. The 2009-10 Annual Report features links to archived video of all presentations, enabling as many members as possible of our community and beyond to benefit from the 2010 Annual Conference, even in times of tight travel budgeting.

So check out our 2009-10 annual Report at http://www.cenic.org/2009-10AnnualReport/ and take a look at what CENIC helped you make possible!

When budget restrictions are becoming ever tighter while demand grows, California's research and education community is on the lookout for solutions that can help extend its reach in the most cost-effective way possible. One of those solutions, currently underway at CSU East Bay and CSU Northridge with the support of the CSU Chancellor's Office, is a VCL or Virtual Computing Lab, which enables students to access the computing power they need in a platform-independent way from their own desktops or laptops 24/7.

Not only does this solution allow students to perform their work at anytime and from anywhere, it also reduces the burden on the CSU itself to provide for the traditional classroom space dedicated to such computer labs as well as simplifying the interface for faculty as well and easing upgrades and the addition of information and new software. The VCL project involved creating a shared VCL cloud (interconnected by CENIC's CalREN network) for students and faculties at multiple CSU institutions, and is an excellent example of the ways in which advanced networks like CalREN can not only spur big-science innovation for their users, but can also be absolutely invaluable in times of budgetary scarcity as a means of continuing to meet and exceed the missions of research and education institutions.

The manager of the new project is the Deputy CIO for CSU East Bay Lee Thompson, who has been part of the senior IT management his arrival in 1999 as Director of the Common Management System (CMS) Project at Cal State East Bay, the computer system used by the CSU to perform ERIP or enterprise resources planning. Prior to coming to Cal State East bay, Thompson worked for seven years as an IT consultant for several major companies focusing on higher education although with some work in the nonprofit arena as well. Aside from his current employment, Lee has consulted for many other universities including Princeton, USC, University of Mississippi, and Fordham University.

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

New Orleans means more than gourmet food and top-flight jazz -- for the month of November, it also meant the ultimate global conference for high-performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis: SC10, taking place at the Ernest Morial Convention Center from November 13-19, 2010.

Once again, CENIC contributed its expertise as Project Manager Ed Smith and Core Engineer Chris Costa participated in the WAN team which brought SCinet to life, and the Pacific Wave distributed international peering facility run by CENIC and the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP contributed network support to various demonstrations taking place on the showfloor. Demo activities included:

• The GLIF "Automated GOLE Pilot" Project is an experimental project to automate provisioning of point-to-point VLANs (as lightpaths) across multiple GLIF GOLES and administrative domains. Participants in this project include JGN2 and Caltech (via Pacific Wave), StarLight, Netherlight, MANLAN, CzechLight, CERN, NorduNet, PSNC, and the University of Amsterdam.
• NTT and KDDI, using the PRESTA 10G Platform, demonstrated how they can dynamically switch circuits to improve steaming quality during a live presentation.
• KAUST, EVL, and CalIT2 streamed data onto the SC10 showroom floor to demonstrate a variety of developments.
• NICT, collaborating with Kyushu University, NTT GEMNET, the Nara Institute of Science and Technology and Osaka University presented live images from Japan and detailed PerfSONAR data renderings, including a 3-D version.

Pacific Wave also enjoyed exposure in the booth of CENIC Associate USC as Celeste Anderson, Director of the External Networking Group in the USC High-Performance Computing Center, gave presentations and hosted giveaways on the history and current state of Pacific Wave and global networking, and where the facility may be headed in the future.

US & World Networking News:

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, applying a state-of-the-art imaging system to brain-tissue samples from mice, have been able to quickly and accurately locate and count the myriad connections between nerve cells in unprecedented detail. The information was virtually stitched together all the slices in the original slab into a high-quality, three-dimensional image that can be rotated, penetrated, and navigated by the researchers.

Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego are now successfully receiving data from a surface current mapping radar on the British Petroleum-operated oil platform Atlantis in the Gulf of Mexico. Scripps also designed and implemented a national data system for NOAA to allow for continuous access to near real-time currents via the Internet.

Sometimes, a single cloud isn’t enough. Sometimes, you need the whole sky.

That's why a number of researchers are developing tools to federate clouds, an architectural concept dubbed "sky computing" in a paper published in the September/October 2009 issue of IEEE Internet Computing.

In Los Angeles in October, ePortfolio California co-hosted a fall summit with PESC, the Postsecondary Education Standards Council. The day's schedule of working sessions focused on the collaborative standards development work of the PESC Academic ePortfolio Workgroup and ePortfolio California, a California Virtual Campus project.

The Mantychore project is a very exciting new initiative funded under the European FP7 program. It builds on earlier work in Europe called Manticore and ultimately on pioneering concepts at Canada’s Communication Research Center called UCLP, funded originally by CANARIE. Mantychore plans to deploy pre-production facilities to enable virtual networks supporting a number of virtual organizations in Europe including the Nordic Health Data Network, the British Advance High Quality Media Services and the Irish Grid effort.

The GLIF Technical Working Group will hold its winter meeting on 24-25 February 2011 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Hong Kong. This is being held in conjunction with the APAN 31.

A collaboration between the University of Louisville, and the University of Southern Queensland is developing remotely and robotically operated astronomical facilities for research, teaching and informal education. Telescopes in the southern and northern hemispheres, with a longitude difference that enables students to observe the night sky in daytime classes, are linked by Internet2 to campuses in Louisville, Kentucky, and Toowoomba, Queensland. students in Queensland.

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.