CENIC Today: Volume 10, Issue 3

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

This month, I'd like to return to a recurring theme of CENIC's and one which I treated in our November 2006 issue of CENIC Today: broadband. In that issue, I noted that the Governor had issued an 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 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 San Bernardino Valley College was tested and is now being employed. With this connectivity, the San Bernardino Community College District can now proceed with their EduStream.org project. Last March at 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.

West Hills College's Lemoore location officially reached campus status, and the California Community College Chancellor's Office authorized installing a new DS3 circuit to West Hills College 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 Kings COE, Monterey COE, Santa Cruz COE, and the 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 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 CMS Technical Users Group, CENIC Project Manager Ed Smith provided a presentation on the various rich multimedia content available on the CalREN network, highlighting OSTN, Ruckus, and EduStream.

CENIC was also an active participant in the recently held CISOA (Chief Information Systems Officers Association) 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 CCC Chancellor's Office Lead Specialist for Information Systems and Analysis Catherine McKenzie.

Both of these presentations can be found 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 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 survey will take between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.

The 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, 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 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 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 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 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 Visualization Center at 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 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 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, 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 Trojan Vision as well, where they stand, what they offer, and how they plan to leverage the CENIC-OSTN partnership.

MIT Cable Television Team Leader Randy Winchester and 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.

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@ostn.tv to learn more about how to join and submit content to OSTN. More information can be found at OSTN's website and 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 Office of the Governor for the 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. Conference and hotel registration can be done online at the 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 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, the team used a modified version of TCP 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 Merger Planning Team (MPT) has been formed. The MPT will focus on the business aspects of work towards a merger of Internet2 and 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 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 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 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.

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