The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) will participate in the first-ever National Internet2 Day on Thursday, March 18. This nationwide virtual event will consist of nearly 40 leading research universities from across the country, including four major Ohio institutions: The Ohio State University, University of Toledo, Case Western Reserve University, and University of Cincinnati. Events will run from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and the proceedings will be netcast to accommodate different bandwidth capabilities. For more information on how to connect go to http://events.internet2.edu/2004/Internet2Day/.
National Internet2 Day will feature a series of virtual presentations, demonstrations and performance events across multiple disciplines that originate from member campuses across the country and will be carried over the Internet2 network. National speakers from disciplines including collaboration and integrated technologies, science and research, teaching, and the performing arts will be featured in the presentations. Speakers will cover timely and relevant topics such as security, cyber-infrastructure, applications, performance initiatives, Internet videoconferencing, and many others.
“We are pleased to announce the first virtual National Internet2 Day in hopes that we can generate greater awareness of Internet2 capabilities at institutions around the country,” said Ted Hanss, Internet2 Director of Applications. “Internet2 applications can make a tremendous difference in how we live and work each day. Through this event we aim to further demonstrate the potential of advanced network applications on member campuses and institutions, making a difference in how students learn, professors teach, and researchers collaborate.”
Internet2 members have committed to actively collaborate in developing advanced networking technologies and applications. For Internet2 universities this means providing high-performance networking on their campuses, investing to upgrade their campus networks, and connecting to a national Internet2 backbone network.
Ohio is home to 10 of the 206 universities nationwide that are members of the Internet2 consortium. All Ohio institutions connect to Internet2 through OSC’s networking division. OARnet is the Gigapop, or regional access point, that allows Ohio schools to connect to the Internet2 backbone network. OARnet is also home to ITEC-Ohio, one of only three Internet2 Technology Evaluation Centers in the country.
OSC and OSU will host local and national webcast presentations from 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. at OSU’s new Digital Union on the third floor Science and Engineering Library. Local presenters include Dr. Robert Dixon, Chief Research Engineer for OARnet, and OSU’s Office of the CIO; Prasad Calyam, Systems Developer/Engineer for OARnet, ITEC-Ohio and the Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative; Steve Acker, Director of Learning Technologies Research and Innovation at OSU; Cindy Gaillard, Producer for WOSU-TV; and Dan Boord, Associate Professor of Theatre at OSU.
OARnet’s Calyam will be showcasing new technology he has developed during the past two years. His research in network performance measurement studies is part of a network-wide advanced Internet measurement infrastructure that will be deployed on Ohio’s Third Frontier Network when it goes online this spring.
OARnet is currently using newly developed Internet technology, called H.323 Beacon, to conduct traffic characterization tests with networks in 15 countries to help understand how Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can better handle real-time videoconferencing traffic in conjunction with other network data traffic. Calyam is presenting the latest research on H.323 Videoconferencing traffic analysis, which utilized the H.323 Beacon.
“The H.323 Beacon was used to obtain data from sites in multiple continents, connected via disparate network paths that included research networks, commodity networks, and last-mile cable modem connections, DSL modem connections, and Satellite connections,” Calyam said.
About OSC
OSC is Ohio's high performance computing and networking center. Established in 1987 by the Ohio Board of Regents, the Center provides scientific computing, networking, educational outreach, and information technology resources to state and national high performance computing and networking groups. OSC empowers its academic, industrial, and government partners to make Ohio the education and technology state of the future. For more information, go to www.osc.edu.
About ITEC-Ohio
OARnet plays a major role in the national effort to develop and deploy the next generation of Internet technologies through its leadership of the Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center (ITEC-Ohio). Designated by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) in 1999, ITEC-Ohio is a consortium of Ohio universities, government agencies, and corporate partners whose mission is to examine critical new applications and infrastructure problems in order to meet the emerging academic, engineering, and industrial needs in research, education, government, and commerce.
ITEC-Ohio takes ideas from the laboratory, deploys them in large-scale test environments, evaluates them, and then passes them on to educational institutions, government agencies, and the corporate community. These technologies address important issues that are barriers to the development and commercialization of broadband network applications, and include Quality of Service, Voice and Video over IP, network management, engineering, security, hardware components, and interoperability. For more information go to www.itecohio.org.
About Internet2
Internet2 is a consortium being led by 206 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 is recreating the partnership among academia, industry and government that fostered today´s commercial Internet in its infancy.
A key goal of this effort is to accelerate the diffusion of advanced Internet technology, in particular into the commercial sector. In this way, Internet2 will help to sustain United States leadership in internetworking technology. Internet2 will benefit non-university members of the educational community as well, especially K-12 and public libraries. Internet2 and its members aim to share their expertise with as wide a range of computer users as possible. This approach characterized the first Internet and it can work again today. For more information go to www.internet2.edu.
