CENIC Today: Volume 10, Issue 10

Welcome to CENIC Today, the monthly newsletter of the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California. In this issue:

CENIC News:

President's Message: A Look Back at 2007's Federal Broadband Legislation

During the 2007 calendar year, broadband became a hot topic in the federal government, with various pieces of legislation moving through both the Senate and the House of Representatives. These focus on the degree to which broadband has become a requirement for modern life -- how best to define it, how best to measure its availability and use, and how to identify and deal with the barriers to its adoption faced by people in chronically underserved areas.

In the August issue of CENIC Today, I considered S 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which mandates updating the definition of broadband and the collection of better and more granular data on broadband penetration. Prior to that in the May issue, I discussed S 1032, the Rural Broadband Initiative Act, which 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 would help fund experimental and pilot rural broadband projects.

This month, I'd like to examine HR 3919, the Broadband Census of America Act of 2007, which was approved by the House on November 13. Many of the issues addressed in the previous two Senate bills (both still awaiting votes in House and Senate) are considered in greater detail by HR 3919, such as the appropriate definition of "broadband," the means by which the FCC defines broadband availability in a given zip code, and the means by which access and use information is gathered geographically. S 1492 would direct the FCC to reevaluate the current 200 kb/s standard for broadband, whereas HR 3919 would actually specify this new standard as 2 Mb/s for downloads and 1 Mb/s for uploads. S 1492 further directs broadband providers to use the ZIP+9 zip code definitions for availability reporting purposes, while HR 3919 would direct the FCC to discontinue the practice of claiming that a given zip code area has broadband coverage if only one resident in that zip code has access -- of great importance in determining the rural broadband access addressed by S 1032.

Both S 1492 and HR 3919 also address the more detailed ways in which providers and government organizations gather data on broadband penetration. S 1492 would direct the FCC to gather data annually as opposed to periodically, and it would also require the Census Bureau to include a question on computer use and connection speed. Further, it also would direct the General Accountability Office to develop metrics to provide consumers with improved broadband information as well as improving the data being used to compare the United States to other countries. HR 3919 treats these issues as well, also requiring the FCC to compare the United States to other nations in terms of broadband access and use, and directing the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to create a comprehensive nationwide inventory of existing broadband service and infrastructure, enlisting state and local governments to assist using grants.

Clearly, our elected officials in the federal government are growing cognizant of several aspects of broadband penetration. The first is obviously that we must agree on what constitutes "broadband." After that definition is arrived at, we must know what level of penetration we are at now as accurately as possible and how to identify the barriers between this level of broadband access and use and that required to keep the United States competitive in the coming century.

In other words, to arrive where we want to be, we need to know where we are now, in what direction we should to go, and how to get there. Hopefully, these Senate and House bills and other upcoming legislation will help the US address these questions thoughtfully as a nation and remain current and competitive in the 21st century.

-- Jim Dolgonas, CENIC

CalREN Update: Network Projects and Activities

Last month's CENIC Today listed a variety of updates for California's Community Colleges, and this month, California's K-12 system is the focus of the CalREN Update. Among the K-12 schools and sites, the K12 High-Speed Network (K12HSN) has authorized CENIC to upgrade various DS3 and OC-3 circuits currently serving K-12 sites with high circuit utilization. As a result, efforts are underway to upgrade eighteen existing circuits to Gigabit speeds.

The first of these to obtain Gigabit connectivity is the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), which was migrated off their previous OC-3 connection and onto their new Gigabit connection to CalREN in the middle of November. Be sure to check future issues of CENIC Today for updates on the next K-12 sites to obtain Gigabit connectivity.

And after months of hard work with the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) and other organizations involved in the WAN Transport Group for the SCinet network, CENIC was pleased to see the resounding success that was the SC07 conference in the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. You can read more about it in the other articles in this month's issue, but for now, I and my colleagues are proud to have played a central role in providing such unprecedented connectivity to the attendees and researchers at SC07, and we all look forward to what SC08 will bring next year in Austin, TX.

-- Ed Smith, CENIC

Past, Present, and Future: Broadband Networking Bringing Researchers Together Worldwide

Ed Johansen is the sort of person for whom frequent flyer programs were invented: Morocco, Russia, Egypt, and Kenya are just a few of the places that he's traveled to frequently in order to put together various high-performance networking based programs for three of his favorite subjects: archaeology (the past), orthopedics (the present), and nanotechnology (the future). Through these programs, CENIC Associates such as Stanford University, UCLA, UCSD, and USC along with several California museums and libraries have come together with colleagues on every continent for in-depth discussions on topics of global interest to educators, politicians, researchers, and average citizens. Other organizations that have participated in these international events include the World Bank, the International Society of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology (SICOT), the US State Department, the National Institutes of Health and National Library of Medicine, the Egyptian embassy, and the Bone and Joint Decade.

Longtime readers of CENIC's publications who pride themselves on their memories will recall the orthopedic program mentioned in the Winter 2003 issue of InterAct magazine, which can be found online in our publications archive. Focused on the California Orthopedic Research Network (CORN), which operates over CalREN, the article discussed the origins of CORN, the research and education activities enabled by it, and its future both within California and globally.

However, a lot has happened since 2003, and Johansen is not a person to sit still for long. Since March of 2006, CORN has organized fifteen programs on orthopedic surgery and six live telecasts of orthopedic surgery in conjunction with a team of representatives from the Orthopedic Surgery Working Group of Internet2, CENIC, the World Bank, SICOT and RedCLARA. Two more have taken place in 2007, and two more on December 5 and 6 are planned from USC and UCLA which will be telecast to countries in Latin America, North Africa, and Europe.

"We're planning more orthopedic (and archaeology and nanotechnology) programs with CENIC members," he says, "including UCLA, USC, and Stanford, along with other US universities like Georgia Tech and the Universities of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Toronto -- programs that will reach out to institutions throughout North Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and South, Southeast, and East Asia. It's all immensely exciting," he adds. Johansen's long-term goals for each area of interest include establishing:

• the California Archaeology Research & Education Network (CalAREN)
• the California Arts & Humanities Research & Education Network (CalAHREN)
• the California Orthopedic Research & Education Network (CalOREN)
• the California Nanotechnology Research & Education Network (CalNanoREN)

all of which will bring together CENIC Associates and their colleagues worldwide to share expertise not only within their disciplines, but also to create synergy through what Johansen calls "getting the right people to talk to each other." Ultimately, networks such as CalREN are created to bring together not only equipment such as switches or routers but people. And it's human networkers such as Ed Johansen working in tandem with the high-performance networking provided by CENIC who make sure that the real last mile is closed -- the last mile from one group of people working somewhere on the globe to improve the human condition and expand upon our common store of knowledge to another, working up to a half a world away.

-- Janis Cortese, CENIC

CENIC Heads WAN Transport Group to Create SCinet Super Network for Supercomputing Conference in Reno, NV

For five days in mid-November, the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, NV hosted some of the world's most cutting-edge network-based experiments and demonstrations as part of this year's SuperComputing conference, SC07. 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.

In order to make all this possible, a network that pushes beyond the boundaries of what's possible and yet performs with rock-solid reliability must be constructed -- the all-volunteer effort creating what is known as SCinet. Over a hundred volunteers from industry, government, and the research and education community created a network at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center composed of multiple 1, 10, and 40 Gb/s connections and which delivered more than 200 Gb/s to the show floor. When SC07 departs, the fiber infrastructure supporting the SCinet network will be left intact in the convention center for future uses.

A significant part of the effort to build the SCinet network was spearheaded by the SCinet Wide-Area Network Transport Group (WTG), responsible for the 27 circuits worth of WAN connectivity that make up the bandwidth used by the presenters and attendees. The WTG itself was composed of volunteers from Florida LambdaRail, National LambdaRail (NLR), the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE), Texas A&M University, the University of Wisconsin, Ciena, Cisco Systems, Infinera, Level 3, and Nortel, and was led by CENIC, the nonprofit corporation that owns, operated, maintains, and deploys the leading-edge, ultra-high-bandwidth California Research & Education Network (CalREN). All of the state's K-20 public educational institutions and the vast majority of its most prestigious independent universities, including California's K-12 system, the California Community Colleges, California State University, the University of California, Caltech, Stanford, and USC, among others connect to one another and the world via CalREN.

Since SC07 was slated to take place in Reno, CENIC, together with the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE), was the natural choice to head up the WTG effort, and prior to last year's SuperComputing conference, held in Tampa, FL, CENIC Core Engineer Chris Costa (at right above) and Project Manager Edwin Smith were tapped to function as WTG co-chairs. With twenty years of logistical and networking experience between them, Costa and Smith brought immense knowledge and experience to the task.

(The complete press release can be found online.)

-- Janis Cortese, CENIC

SuperComputing 07: CENIC Associates Pushing the Envelope in Reno, NV

Given SC07's reputation as the premiere international event for high-performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis, it's no surprise that CENIC Associates are well-represented as both attendees and exhibitors. A network such as that described above and constructed by the SCinet volunteers is there to be pushed to its limits, and when the checkered flag drops in any bandwidth-based race, it's a sure bet that there will be some CENIC Associate-based researchers among the top finishers.

This year, the Caltech team headed by Harvey Newman was again among those who obtained groundbreaking results. Using the MonALISA monitoring system, a CENIC Innovations in Networking award winner for 2006, the team was able to confirm a milestone of 70 Gbps of disk-to-disk throughput using a single rack of server equipment, running Caltech's FDT with a kernel containing the Caltech FAST TCP patch, and reached a peak in one direction of 41 Gbps. Using 4 + 4 servers reading and writing, the team maintained 18-19.9 Gbps between Reno and Caltech (bidirectionally), even in the presence of some packet loss. Says Dr. Newman, "Given the relative maturity of [the application] and its ability to achieve linear very high throughput over long distances even in the presence of packet loss, we expect this work to have a significant impact on the modes of use of the Internet, and as a consequence the future evolution of the Internet itself."

UCLA was also prominently featured in the Bandwidth Challenge for this year, gaining an Honorable Mention for not only achieving a high – and extremely smooth – data rate, but for doing so with a live application and one that mandated low latency, exchanging high-definition video frames during the live manipulation of a remote data set at UCLA. (A MOV file of the application in operation between UCLA and Reno can be found here.) "We hadn't actually planned to do this specifically for the Bandwidth Challenge," says UCLA researcher Scott Friedman at UCLA Academic Technology Services. "We had already performed a long-distance test between UCLA and UC Davis and wanted to see how the latency between here and Reno would affect the behavior of the application." UC Davis and UCLA both enjoy 10-Gigabit connectivity to CalREN, and as such high data rates are possible between the two campuses. The next steps for this project involve further testing between UCLA and UC Davis in order to increase performance and test the limits of acceptable latency for the visualization application. Friedman hopes to present on this topic and feature a live demo at the 2008 CENIC Annual Conference, Lightpath to the Stars, which will offer attendees Gigabit connectivity to CalREN. He also looks forward to participating in the Bandwidth Challenge at SC08, to be held in Austin, TX.

Other star performers on the SC07 show floor include UC San Diego and Calit2, the San Diego Supercomputer Center/TeraGrid, and the NASA Ames Research Center. Keep in touch via CENIC Today for updates on the conference achievements of these CENIC Associates as well.

CENIC Associates exhibiting at SC07 included NASA, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Caltech, University of Southern California, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, as well as the Research Channel, a participant in the Pacific Wave international peering facility through Pacific Wave collaborator and Research Channel member the University of Washington. Pacific Wave is a state-of-the-art international peering exchange facility designed to serve research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and the world. A joint project between CENIC and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop in collaboration with the University of Southern California and the University of Washington, Pacific Wave enables any US or international network to connect at any of three locations along the US Pacific coast, as well as offers the option to peer with any other Pacific Wave participant, regardless of physical location.

-- Janis Cortese, CENIC

CENIC 08: Lightpath to the Stars: Online Registration, Call for Award Nominations

Online registration for CENIC 08: Lightpath to the Stars is officially open, and we've expanded payment options for our attendees for increased convenience. Your options now include payment by check before the conference as well as three options for payment by major credit card:

• You can register and pay online at the same time.
• You can also register now and pay later. If you choose this option, you will receive a Payment ID via e-mail and link that you can use at any time.
• You can also register and pay at the conference, using your Payment ID and a major credit card.

Even more exciting announcements are in store in the weeks and months ahead, so to make sure that you can take part in "Lightpath to the Stars," be sure to register today!

CENIC's Annual Conference features the annual Innovations in Networking awards which are presented during our conference, and as such we are also searching for Award Nominations for the 2008 Innovations in Networking Awards. These awards highlight network applications and projects by identifying exemplary innovations that leverage the network and have the potential to improve the way instruction and research is conducted, even when the impact of the innovation may not be felt immediately. We are especially interested in collaborative efforts developed in 2006-07 which engage multiple segments of the K-20 community and/or international partners. A committee selected by the CENIC Board of Directors will determine the award winners on the basis of submitted materials, and additional interviews if necessary.

The deadline for submissions is December 7, 2007, and more information about the Call for Award Nominations can be found at http://cenic08.cenic.org/cfa.html, including the proper format and categories for submissions and where and how to submit a nomination. Summaries for past award winners can also be found at the Call for Award Nominations if you would like to see the types of projects and applications that have been honored in previous years.

The conference will be held this year at the Oakland Marriott City Center, located in the heart of downtown Oakland and convenient to fabulous shopping and dining as well as historical sites such as Jack London Square and Oakland's Chinatown. The conference hotel is also extremely conveniently located within easy walking distance to BART and conference website features Hotel & Travel information as well as links to local points of interest when visiting Oakland. We're also happy to announce that you can now reserve your hotel rooms at the Oakland Marriott City Center online; be sure to do so soon to get the conference room rate!

We look forward to seeing you in Oakland in March 2008!

-- Janis Cortese, CENIC

National Networking News:

Canadian Cancer Researchers Take Work to World Community Grid

Canadian researchers expect to accelerate the war on cancer by tapping into a global network of hundreds of thousands of people who volunteer their idle computer time to tackle some of the world's most complex problems.

The research team, led by Dr. Igor Jurisica at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI), and scientists at Princess Margaret Hospital and University Health Network, are the first from Canada to use the World Community Grid, a network of PCs and laptops with the power equivalent to one of the globe's top five fastest supercomputers.

The team will use World Community Grid to analyze the results of experiments on proteins using data collected by scientists at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. This analysis would take conventional computer systems 162 years to complete.

Source: GRIDToday

CineGrid Demonstrates International Networked Distribution of 4K Motion Pictures

In a historic proof-of-concept demonstration that could revolutionize the way movies and other media are distributed globally, CineGrid, the international media networking research organization, successfully demonstrated how high speed networks can be used to deliver cinema quality 4K digital motion pictures at four times the resolution of HDTV, streaming 'on demand' in real-time from seven different playback servers situated in Japan, Europe and North America to an audience in Prague watching on a large screen with surround sound. The CineGrid 4K global-scale streaming demonstration was presented as part of the GLIF 2007, the Seventh Annual Global LambdaGrid Workshop, held 17-18 September 2007 in Prague, Czech Republic. Workshop demonstrations were held at Charles University in central Prague and at CinePOST, a cinema post-production facility within Barrandov Studios, one of the largest and oldest film production centers in Europe.

Source: GLIF Press Release

Report finds achievement gaps, disparities in Calif. Schools

A UCLA report released on November 8 reveals a "national opportunity gap" in education, with California lagging behind most other states in student outcomes and fundamental learning conditions.

The report, issued by UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA) and the University of California All-Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (UC ACCORD), finds that systematic inadequacies and inequalities in the public education system leave California students from all backgrounds unable to compete with their counterparts in most other parts of the country.

In addition to the gap between learning opportunities in California and other states, the "2007 Educational Opportunity Report: The Racial Opportunity Gap" and its supplemental studies examine the gap in learning opportunities between different California public schools and between the state's racial groups.

Source: UCLA Newsroom

Teraflow Network -- A High Performance Facility for Distributing and Sharing Large E-Science Data Sets Announced at SC07

At the SC 2007 conference in Reno, NV, a consortium of researchers announced the Teraflow Network (TFN). The Teraflow Network is a unique international facility for working with, and for sharing, large remote and distributed data.

The Teraflow Network is the first advanced network dedicated to linking together large e-science data sets so that they are easier to integrate with each other and easier to share with colleagues.

The Teraflow Network employs specialized transport protocols and dedicated lightpaths using 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps and multiple 10 Gbps data streams that connect Teraflow Network sites around the world. With the ability to move the data at 10 Gbps and higher, the Teraflow Network provides as much bandwidth between its distributed sites as most grid computers have between their nodes that are in the same room.

The design and implementation of the TeraFlow Network is being led by the National Center for Data Mining (NCDM) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern University. Other members of the consortium include StarLight, an international communications facility in Chicago, and National LambdaRail.

Source: NLR E-mail News & Updates

Submissions Now Being Accepted for Internet2 IDEA Awards; Awards to Recognize Revolutionary Uses of Advanced Networking

Submissions for the 2008 round of the Internet2 IDEA Awards are now being accepted. Open to existing or proposed applications, the Internet2 IDEA awards are designed to showcase Internet2 member projects that apply the latest in advanced networking capabilities to enable transformational progress in research, to enhance teaching and learning, and to potentially increase the impact of next-generation networks around the world.

New this year is the "Wave of the Future" category for advanced applications that specifically require or make use of a dedicated optical circuit with capacities up to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps). The winning application in this category will receive a dedicated, point-to-point optical circuit of up to 10 Gbps, sponsored by Level 3 Communications, on the new Internet2 network infrastructure between two connector sites for a one year period. The circuit will be provided specifically to support and enable the award-winning project.

Source: Internet2

The Green Grid -- the new imperative for grids and VOs

The Green Grid is a consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to improve energy efficiency in data centers around the globe. The Green Grid takes a broad-reaching approach to data center efficiency focusing on data center "power pillars" that span the gamut of technology, infrastructure and processes present in today's data center environments. The consortium's working focus includes research, standards writing, published studies and continuing education.

Comprised of an interactive body of members who share and improve current best practices around data center efficiency, The Green Grid scope includes collaboration with end users and government organizations worldwide to ensure that each organizational goal is aligned with both developers and users of data center technology. All interested parties are encouraged to join and become active participants in the quest to improve overall data center power efficiencies.

Source: CAnet News, The Green Grid

National LambdaRail Going Live With Cisco Telepresence

National LambdaRail (NLR), a consortium of leading U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies, announced December 3 it has implemented the Cisco Telepresence solution to be accessible to the universities and other NLR affiliates that have telepresence capabilities. With NLR's nationwide optical network infrastructure connected to nearly 20 regional optical networks, the solution deployment makes it simple for researchers, educators and administrators to leverage this next generation service.

"NLR's deployment of Cisco Telepresence provides the ability to meet "in person", as it enhances and supports direct face-to-face discussion needed between the geographically distant teams of our research group members," said Erv Blythe, NLR Board Chair and Vice President for Information Technology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Source: NLR News

Historic School District Merger Approved

Voters Tuesday called for historic changes to schools in northern Sacramento County. They approved Measure B by 60 percent to 40 percent, voting to form a new K-12 school district.

It means the Grant Joint Union High School District, along with the Rio Linda, North Sacramento and Del Paso Heights elementary districts, will cease to exist by the end of June 2008. On July 1, 2008, they merge into a new K-12 district that will serve about 30,000 students.

The unified district will improve education by keeping kids in one system from kindergarten through 12th grade, supporters argued, and will spend tax dollars more efficiently. After many failed attempts to reorganize north-area school districts, supporters said they were finally vindicated. Source: K12HSN News

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.

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