Internet2:
Implications for Higher
Education
Douglas Van Houweling
President & CEO -- UCAID
Overview
History
Today’s Internet
Barriers to Progress
Internet2
Advanced Internet Projects
Applications
Network Requirements and Abilene
Implications
Comments & Questions
History
ARPAnet origins
1987 -- NSFnet
• Privatization in 1995
Higher ed planning in 1995/1996
• Are our research and education needs
being met by today’s internet?
Today’s Internet
Growing at 10 - 15% per month
Challenges to higher education
• The “world wide wait”
• Human interaction awkward
 Virtual meetings and seminars
 Shared authoring
 Browsing publications
• Distributed large scale computing and data base
efforts not feasible
Today’s Internet
Inadequate for mission-critical
applications
• Authentication
• “Best efforts” not good enough
Intranets and Extranets instead
• Match capacity and demand
• Provide a more secure environment
• Don’t reach the public at large, though!
Barriers to Progress
Providers swamped attempting to
match capacity to demand
Advanced applications can’t be
deployed
No large scale development
environment available
Negative-sum competitive
environment inhibits investment
Commercialization
Privatization
21st Century
Networking
SprintLink
InternetMCI
Agency
Networks
ANS
Interoperable
High Performance
Research &Education
Networks
ARPAnet
Active
Nets
wireless
WDM
gigabit
testbeds
Research and
Development
NSFNET
Quality of Service
(QoS)
Internet2, Abilene, vBNS
ESNET, NREN, DREN
Partnerships
The Establishment of Internet2
10/96 -- I2 organizing meeting
• 34 institutions signed up
• Membership commitment
 $25,000/year in membership dues
 I2 connectivity and campus upgrades
9/97 -- University Corporation for
Advanced Internet Development
• Home of Internet2 and Abilene
• Offices in Washington, DC and Ann
Arbor, MI
UCAID Organization &
Budget
University CEO’s are voting
representatives for regular members
Structured as an agile organization
capable of responding to rapid change.
4 Councils with Board seats
•
•
•
•
Applications
Policy & Operations
Network Research
Industry
Member dues provide income base
UCAID Board
 Chair -- David Ward -- Chancellor, University of
Wisconsin/Madison
 Henry Bienen -- President, Northwestern University
 William Bowen -- President, Mellon Foundation
 Molly Corbett Broad -- President, University of North Carolina
 Larry Faulkner -- President, University of Texas/Austin
 Steven Sample -- President, University of Southern California
 Graham Spanier -- President, Penn State University
 Gary Augustson -- Chair, Network Planning and Policy Council
 Tom DiFanti -- Chair, Applications Strategy Council
 Larry Landweber -- Chair, Network Research Liaison Council
 Doug Van Houweling -- President and CEO
Internet2 Project Goals
Enable new generation of applications
Re-create leading edge R&E network
capability
Transfer capability to the global
production Internet
Internet2 Universities
133 as of September 1998
University of Puerto Rico not shown
Internet2 Corporate Partners
3Com
Lucent Technologies
Advanced Network MCI Worldcom
& Services, Inc.
Newbridge Networks
AT&T
Nortel Networks
Cabletron Systems Qwest
Communications
Cisco Systems
FORE
IBM
StarBurst
Communications
Internet2 Corporate Sponsors
Bell South
Packet Engines
SBC Technology
Resources
StorageTek
Torrent
Technologies
Internet2 Corporate Members
 Alcatel Telecom
 Ameritech
 Apple Computers
 AppliedTheory
 Bell Atlantic
 Bellcore
 British Telecom
 Deutsche Telekom
 GTE Internetworking
 Hitachi
 IXC Communications
 KDD
 Nexabit Networks
 Nokia Research Center
 Novell
 Pacific Bell
 RR Donnelley
 Siemens
 Sprint
 StorageTek
 Sun Microsystems
 Sylvan
Learning
 Telebeam
 Williams
Communications
Internet2 GigaPoPs
Advanced Internet
Projects
Next Generation Internet (NGI)
• Focused on:
 Federal mission agency needs
 Maintaining US Internet leadership
Internet2
• Focused on:
 Higher education needs
 Moving the public Internet to the next level
Advanced Internet
Projects
The whole is greater than the sum of
the parts
• NGI provides partial financial support for
university Internet2 projects
• Internet2 and NGI coordinate technology
development and deployment
• Industry has strong incentive to implement
resulting capabilities
Advanced Internet Benefits
Richer content through higher
bandwidth
• Video, audio
• Virtual reality
• Dynamic not static
More interactivity via minimal delay
Reliable content delivery through
quality of service model
Applications and Engineering
Applications
Motivate
Enables
Engineering
Internet2 Applications
Deliver qualitative and quantitative
improvements in the conduct of:
• Research
• Teaching
• Learning
Require advanced networking
Many Disciplines and Contexts
Sciences
Arts
Humanities
Health care
Business/Law
Administration
…
Instruction
Collaboration
Streaming video
Distributed
computation
Data mining
Virtual reality
Digital libraries
…
Application Attributes
Interactive
research
collaboration and
instruction
Real-time access
to remote
scientific
instruments
Images courtesy of the
University of Michigan
Attributes, cont.
Large-scale, multisite computation
and database
processing
Shared virtual
reality
Any combination
of the above
Images courtesy of Old Dominion University
and Univ of Illinois-Chicago
American Sign Language
and English Captions
Gallaudet University
Georgetown University
Remote Scanning
Electron Microscope
University of Michigan
Philips XL30
Distributed Image
SpreadSheet
University of MissouriColumbia
3D Brain Mapping:
“Watching the Brain
in Action”
University of Pittsburgh
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Upper Atmospheric
Research Collaboratory
University of Michigan
Teleimmersion
Shared virtual
reality
University of
Illinois at
Chicago
Virtual
Temporal
Bone
Images courtesy
Univ of IllinoisChicago
Globally Interconnected
Object Databases
California Institute of
Technology
Real-Time Remote
Surgical Collaboration
Ohio State University
GeoWorlds
USC/ISI
Middleware Challenges
Identify technologies that are
scalable and interoperable
Increase deployment of middleware
technologies as part of a precommercial production environment
Examples:
• Distributed storage
• Video tools
• QoS implementation
Engineering Objectives
Deploy a production network to
support applications R&D
Establish quality of service (QoS)
Support native multicast
Establish gigaPoPs as effective
service points
Abilene Project
Complement vBNS Internet2
backbone
Provide advanced network testbed
Support Internet2 applications
development
Demonstrate next generation
operational and quality of service
capabilities
Create facilities for network
research
Abilene Network
January 1999
Seattle
New York
Sacramento
Denver
Indianapolis
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Atlanta
Abilene Router Node
Abilene Access Node
Operational January 1999
Planned 1999
Houston
Abilene Characteristics
2.4 Gbps (OC48) among gigaPoPs,
increasing to 9.6 Gbps (OC192)
Connections at 622 Mbps (OC12) or
155 Mbps (OC3)
IP over Sonet technology
Access PoPs very close to almost all
of the anticipated university
gigaPoPs
Abilene Schedule
Spring 1998: enrollment discussions
with members
Fall 1998: Demonstation and preproduction
January 1999: Initial group of around
30 members connected
1999: Other members connected as
mutually planned
International Activities
Focus on researcher partnerships
working on advanced applications
Cooperate on QoS, etc. to maintain
global interoperability
Use STARTAP (Science, Technology,
and Research Transit Access Point)
Execute MoU’s with comparable
organizations across the globe
•
•
•
•
Canada
Nordic countries
Netherlands
Others in progress
Current Priorities
Expand and enhance backbone
connectivity
Identify and facilitate first phase
applications development & deployment
Facilitate middleware standardization and
implementation
Support network research
Build international collaboration
opportunities
Result
The Internet and its applications will
subsume other services:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
telephone
mail
television
print news
movie rental
virtual meetings
classroom-based education
advertising and sales
will be universally accessible
Implications
From casual & important uses to
mission-critical uses
From delayed interaction ->
immediate interaction
From regulated media -> less
regulated communication
From mass media (munication?) ->
personalized communication
Interactive electronic communities
will proliferate and thrive
Trend -Information -> Collaboration
Today’s Internet focuses on access
to and delivery of information
Tomorrow’s Internet will support
human collaboration in an
information-rich environment
The Internet is global, and is creating
a global capability to build
knowledge-based communities
Intangible Value
The world is moving from an
economy based on tangibles to one
based on intangibles
• slower growth in physical flows of material
goods & products
• faster growth of ethereal streams of data,
images, and symbols
Supporting human interaction less
constrained by geography & time
Distributed Organizations
VISA International
The Internet
Higher education
• The Internet could have scaled nowhere else
All created to convey intangible
value
All dependent on information and
flexible interorganizational and
interpersonal relationships
Implications for an Internet
World
The future will undoubtedly be
different than we and predict, but we
can observe a powerful confluence:
• intangible value represented in and
transportable though information technology
• increasing success of distributed global
organizations
• an Internet designed to support a world built on
human collaboration in an information-rich
environment
Are We Ready?
We still think about mass
communication, not personal
interaction
We still measure the economy in
terms of tangibles
We still assume organizations are
hierarchical
Can the higher education community
provide the model for our future?
Are We Ready?
The higher education research
community is already global
But learning is still focused on
physical classrooms and “seat time”
Knowledge-based enterprises are
working to build a global base of
human resources
• based on lifelong education, not the earlycareer degree program
Are We Ready?
To build global learning
environments around the global R&D
communities now being developed?
• The global market for highly specialized
knowledge may sustain offerings not feasible
for even the largest campus
• Faculty will need to collaborate in teaching just
as they have in research
If we don’t, others will
Are We Ready?
Information technology will provide
the capability
Faculty will build the research and
learning environments
Can our institutions support the
required organizational & financial
innovations?
More Info ...
www.Internet2.edu
DVH@Internet2.edu
Doug Van Houweling
Internet2
3025 Boardwalk Suite 100
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
+1.734.913.4250