Introducing the First Issue of Dispatch
Dear Colleagues,
I am very pleased to welcome you to the first issue of Dispatch, an electronic publication for executive liaisons from Internet2 member institutions and organizations. You represent the leadership level of the Internet2 membership community, and your direct involvement in Internet2 activities and governance ensures that we can provide leading-edge, cost-effective, advanced network environments for the U.S. research and education community. Dispatch will serve as a vehicle for sharing the type of news and information that will enable executive liaisons to maximize the benefits of Internet2 membership within their organizations.

Internet2 exists because of the foresight of individuals like you, who nearly a decade ago saw the opportunity to catalyze the next major wave of advanced networking in support of research and education.  Today, Internet2 is a community of more than 300 organizations dedicated to developing and deploying advanced networking capabilities, including 207 U.S. research universities, nearly 70 corporations from diverse industry sectors, and nearly 50 non-profit organizations and associations.  These members are joined by more than 45 international partners that extend the support for research and education around the globe. 

Because Internet2 is funded by its members, we've been able to make, and importantly, sustain advances that provide value to the whole community. Collectively, we have deployed a leading-edge, high-performance networking infrastructure that has helped drive down the total cost of connecting our increasingly wired community; created new forms of managing access to information resources that eliminate more costly local authorization and authentication mechanisms; fostered development of applications and tools that enable scientists, researchers, artists, clinicians, and educators to innovate and collaborate within and beyond their own disciplines; and built strategic partnerships with federal agencies and international networking organizations that will sustain these advances into the future.

As we look ahead to the next decade and to the opportunities presented by new capabilities and new requirements, it is your leadership and vision that will chart the path forward. We look forward to sharing your collective successes and experiences in this new newsletter.

Douglas E. Van Houweling, Internet2 President and CEO

Internet2 Moving Forward.
During his presentation Internet2: Focusing on the Future at the Fall 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting, Doug Van Houweling reviewed the values and goals that brought the Internet2 community together, examined the significant factors shaping the capabilities of and demands for advanced networking, and looked ahead to the potential for meeting the networking requirements of research and education. The presentation highlighted the Internet2 community's unique breadth, and the systems approach it has taken to meet the challenges facing the development, deployment and use of advanced networking. This system approach remains crucial to the Internet2 community as it considers the opportunities that new optical networking technologies and the increasing ownership of the underlying networking infrastructure provide. Furthermore, the possibilities offered by new technical capabilities can best be realized by considering new approaches for organizing the community, including increasing engagement of the network research community, and emphasizing coordination across local, regional, national, and international geographic scales. Van Houweling's complete Internet2: Focusing on the Future presentation is now available in PDF format.

Community Leaders Gather at Fall 2005 Forum.
More than 60 executive liaisons from Internet2 member institutions and organizations convened at a community leadership forum held during the Fall 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting. This “CIO Forum” served as a high-level briefing and dialog on key priorities for the Internet2 community, with a focus on helping IT leaders—in their roles as the Internet2 executive liaison for their organization—track and contribute to the community's work in developing, deploying, and using advanced networking technologies. The Fall 2005 CIO Forum included presentations on Internet2's member assessment activities and a report on progress by the Campus Expectations Task Force with their work to define how member campuses can support each other so they can better utilize advanced technologies for research and education. The CIO Forum also featured a lively discussion of the advanced networking community's recent response to Hurricane Katrina and how Internet2 members can work together in planning for disaster preparedness.

Doug Van Houweling, Internet2 President & CEO and Tom West, National LambdaRail President & CEO, facilitated a discussion on Internet2 and National LambdaRail consolidation activities. Van Houweling and West each presented brief opening statements and then fielded a variety of questions from the audience on topics such as priorities for the merged organization, models for a national optical network infrastructure, proposed services, membership and governance models, and cost. The objective of these consolidation activities is to create an organization that will provide the U.S. research and education community greater access to experimental networking facilities and cutting-edge Internet applications and services. By participating actively in this dialog, CIO Forum attendees provided valuable input to this important process. IT leaders are encouraged to continue submitting thoughts, ideas, and questions about the consolidation to Internet2 staff by sending email to consolidation-info@internet2.edu and to check the Internet2 consolidation web site.

As the work of building the next generation of a secure, high-performance, integrated and globally connected R&E infrastructure unfolds, Internet2 wants to ensure that the leadership in the community is aware and engaged. Therefore, another Community Leadership Forum will be held at our Spring 2006 Internet2 Member Meeting in Arlington, VA. Internet2 would appreciate your input regarding the kind of presentations or activities to include at future CIO Forums and at our member meetings and in identifying additional ways to engage this group more fully in Internet2.  Please send your comments and suggestions to Laurie Burns (lburns@internet2.edu), Internet2 Executive Director for Member and Partner Relations.

Internet2 Members Provide Valuable Input through Survey.
During summer 2005, Internet2 conducted a survey to capture feedback from IT leaders at our member organizations about the services they value and to provide input as Internet2 looks ahead to serving the needs of the research and education networking community. This was the most comprehensive survey that Internet2 has conducted and over 135 individual responses were received, of which, 80.8% were from university members with slightly more than 50% of those from doctoral-research/extensive institutions. The final results of the survey are now available online for viewing.

The survey consisted of a main section with 70 rating-scale and open-ended questions, supplemented by four smaller sub-surveys on network services, network performance, corporate relations, and member communications.  In addition to providing basic demographic data, respondents were asked to give feedback on the services their organization values, how their organization participates in Internet2-related activities, how their organization learns about Internet2-related opportunities, the services they use, and their future needs.

The survey was announced in mid-July to Internet2 executive liaisons, with additional targeted invitations for the sub surveys. A second invitation to complete the survey was issued to the membership at large on August 1. In addition, approximately 25 individuals volunteered to be in focus group to advise Internet2 on next steps. Internet2 IT leaders should contact Jill Arnold, Director for Member and Partner Relations (jillar@internet2.edu), if they are also interested in participating.

Task Force Examines What It Means to Be an Internet2 Member Campus.
The Internet2 Campus Expectations Task Force (CETF) is charged with articulating a current set of expectations for what it means to be an Internet2 member campus with the goal of facilitating the adoption of advanced technologies in support of research and education at U.S. research universities. The CETF, chaired by Bill Decker, Senior Associate Vice President for Research at University of Iowa, has begun work on defining a set of recommendations describing commitments that member campuses will make to each other and then strive to meet to the best of their abilities.

During a presentation at the CIO Forum for Internet2 IT leaders—held in conjunction with the Fall 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting—CETF member Ray Ford, associate vice president for Information Technology at University of Montana, provided an overview of task force activities and described three general areas of focus. These focus areas are now represented by subcommittees, each chaired by a task force member:

1. Commitment to the combined membership's shared vision for the advancement of research, education, and service. (Marilyn McMillan, marilyn.mcmillan@nyu.edu)
2. Commitment to the provision, accessibility, availability, and maintenance of appropriate infrastructure in support of the shared vision. (Ron Hutchins, ron.hutchins@oit.gatech.edu)
3. Commitment to participation and activities that facilitate the use of the resources and sustain the future and vitality of the endeavor. (Lois Brooks, lbrooks@stanford.edu)

Task force deliverables will include examples, best practices, and/or statements of aspiration to illustrate “compliance” with each area. CETF members can also be contacted using the cetf@internet2.edu mailing list. Each subcommittee's progress will be documented on the CETF website, and Internet2 IT leaders are invited to contact the CETF representatives listed above with comments and input. Ford's complete CETF presentation at the CIO Forum can be found here: http://www.internet2.edu/presentations/fall05/20050920-cetf-decker.ppt.

The CETF was initiated by the Internet2 Applications Strategy Council (ASC), and is co-sponsored by the ASC and Network Planning and Policy Advisory Council. For more information on the task force charge, membership, and minutes from past meetings, refer to http://www.internet2.edu/cetf/.

Community Leaders Discuss Disaster Preparedness Strategies.
Disaster preparedness is always a concern for managers charged with the daily operations of complex IT organizations. However, the experiences of the fall 2005 hurricane season have elevated disaster preparedness and recovery to a much higher priority for Internet2 community members. Lively discussions that addressed the question, “what happens when an institution finds itself in a situation where it can't recover services using its own resources?” occurred during the CIO Forum and the Network Planning and Policy Advisory Council meeting—both held in conjunction with the Fall 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting. Participants discussed ways in which the Internet2 community could come together and create a sustained, organized disaster backup activity and stressed the importance of creating a shared set of best practices that could help institutions recover their email, web, administrative, and other services. Ideas for both short term and long term solutions were shared and the implications of being in the role of “disaster victim” and the role of “disaster respondent” were examined. The recent EDUCAUSE 2005 conference featured several presentations on disaster recovery and EDUCAUSE is planning additional activities that include workshops, surveys, and collecting and publishing best practices. IT leaders in the higher education community are clearly eager to keep these discussions going and Cheryl Munn-Fremon, Internet2 Executive Director for Deployment & Infrastructure Delivery, is convening a volunteer group to further explore disaster preparedness issues and solutions for the Internet2 member community. If you are interested in participating in, or perhaps leading, this group please contact her at cmfremon@internet2.edu. If you have suggestions you'd like to share with the group, send them to prepare@internet2.edu.

Leadership Profile: Tim Lance.
Tim Lance is president and chairman of Internet2 Affiliate Member NYSERNet, the New York State Education and Research Network. He also chairs the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany, where he holds the rank of Distinguished Service Professor, and previously served as the campus CIO. Under Tim's leadership, NYSERNet has successfully carried out an ambitious suite of optical networking initiatives to take advantage of the new opportunities made possible by ownership of fiber assets, at a time when technology, institutional priorities, and economic pressures have been rapidly shifting. Over the last four years, NYSERNet has accomplished an extraordinary transformation from dependence on carrier circuits to control of transport, beginning with a still-expanding fiber deployment for the research and education, medical, and cultural communities in New York City, and then building a statewide dense wavelength division multiplexing optical infrastructure. As in New York City, this work is ongoing, with extensions of the backbone and transition of institutions to optical local loops to take full advantage of this facility. NYSERNet has also created a carrier-neutral collocation facility in Manhattan, home of the Manhattan Landing (MAN LAN) high-performance exchange point for U.S. and international research and education networks. This facility will also house nodes for Internet2's Hybrid Optical Packet Infrastructure testbed, the Global Lambda Integrated Facility, GEANT and other international networks, and the National LambdaRail infrastructure. Guided by Tim's vision, NYSERNet did all of this in a fiscally-sustainable way. With NYSERNet's new technological foundation solidly in place, Tim is now focused on harnessing its power for research and education in New York while continuing to extend the network's optical reach.

Worth Quoting...
NYSERNet has a talented staff and a visionary board, but our success also hinged on critical contributions such as Internet2's locating the MAN LAN switch in our collocation facility. As new genres of network-dependent applications mature—some completely unexpected—and international resources like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN come online, the real adventure in discovery begins.

Internet2 Annual Report Now Available.
The 2004 Internet2 Annual Report is now available and printed copies were mailed to all Internet2 executive liaisons in October. The report highlights some of the significant accomplishments of the Internet2 community during 2004. As a supplement to the printed version, an online version of the annual report features links to additional information and related efforts. Internet2 members may request printed copies of the annual report by sending email to: publications@internet2.edu.

Dispatch is published four times annually. To contribute or suggest an article for Dispatch, please send email to publications@internet2.edu.

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