Middleware Announcements

["Lee Perlis" <>]

Internet2 (R) Members Update
October 2004

<> Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting
<> New Internet2 Land Speed Record Set
<> Spring 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting: Arlington, Virginia
<> Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey
<> Penn State and Internet2 Announce Release of Academic File-Sharing Open
Source Code
<> Corporate Relations Update
<> Applications Update
<> International Update
<> Middleware Update
<> Security Update
<> End-to-End Performance Initiative Update
<> Internet2 Showcases and Spotlights
<> Request for Internet2 Website Feedback
<> Internet2 Employment Opportunities
<> New Internet2 Members
<> Future Internet2 Events
<> Internet2 Days
<> Internet2 Related Events

Member updates are archived at: http://members.internet2.edu/memberupdates/

<> Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting
+ Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting Sets a Record
Record-setting attendance (735) at the Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting
was matched by a record number of technical and non-technical sessions and
organized sessions (130). The start of the meeting was further enhanced by
the appearance of Richard Perry, Governor of Texas, and David Dewhurst,
Lieutenant Governor of Texas.

Out of the 735 attendees nearly 400 were from Internet2 universities and
over 100 were from Internet2 corporate members, 77 were from international
partners, and approximately 160 were from other research and educational
organizations.

+ Member Contributions
Internet2 would like to thank the University of Texas at Austin as host, and
the significant sponsorship by members Cisco Systems, Global Crossing,
Juniper Networks, Nortel Networks, Polycom, Sun Microsystems, and Qwest
Communications and IXIA. In addition we’d like to thank the Integrated Media
Systems Center (IMSC) at the University of Southern California for their
production of the performance event. Each organization’s generous
contributions helped make the Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting possible.
http://events.internet2.edu/2004/fall-mm/sponsors.html

+ Comments Welcomed:  Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting Evaluation
The Member Meeting Program Committee wants your comments about the recent
meeting.  Your input is invaluable in helping us make these meetings
responsive to member needs. The evaluation form is available at:
http://events.internet2.edu/2004/fall-mm/meeting-evaluation.html

Presentations:
http://events.internet2.edu/2004/fall-mm/agenda.cfm?event=219

Video-on-Demand of the netcast sessions:
http://events.internet2.edu/2004/fall-mm/netcast.cfm

<> New Internet2 Land Speed Record Set
A team from Sprint Corporation and the Swedish University Network (SUNET)
has set a new Internet2 Land Speed Record. The record was set using the same
IPv4 protocols deployed throughout the global Internet today. The team
successfully transferred over 1830 gigabytes of data in approximately 60
minutes across nearly 29,000 kilometers of networks at a rate of 4.31
gigabits per second--4000 times faster than a typical home broadband
connection.
http://lsr.internet2.edu

<> Spring 2005 Internet2 Member Meeting:  Arlington, Virginia
Mark your calendars for the Spring 2005 Member Meeting scheduled for 2-5
May, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel, in Arlington, Virginia.  The
Internet2 website will begin posting further details of this meeting
starting in January 2005.

+ Call for Participation:  Spring 2005 Member Meeting Program Committee
Individuals who are interested in serving on the Spring 2005 Internet2
Member Meeting Program Committee are encouraged to contact Marianne Smith,
Program Manager, Internet2 Member and Partner Relations
<>.

<> Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is surveying experts about the
future of the Internet and Internet2 would very much like its members to
participate in Pew’s research. The survey asks participants to assess
several predictions about the future impact of the Internet and to
contribute thoughts about what will happen in the next 10 years. This is a
confidential survey. When you start the survey, please use this personal
identification number (PIN): 760

The Pew Internet & American Life Project will issue a report based on this
survey later this year. Survey organizers hope the results will be useful to
policy makers, scholars, and those in the information technology industry.
The goal is to include material from this new survey in the predictions
database.
http://surveys.spss-sb.com/spssmr/survey/surveyentry.aspx?project=p3280003

<> Penn State and Internet2 Announce Release of Academic File-Sharing Open
Source Code
Penn State and Internet2 announced the release of open source code for their
collaborative software project, LionShare. Funded by a grant from the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation, LionShare is a secure, high-powered, peer-to-peer
(P2P) file sharing technology designed for academia. The open source code
will provide interested programmers and developers the opportunity to
contribute valuable feedback and suggestions. At the same time, LionShare
partners including Internet2, Simon Fraser University of Canada; and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will continue to fine-tune the
project software which is slated for official beta release for universities
and institutions in the first quarter of 2005. To learn more about LionShare
and to access the new open source code - or to join the developers
community, go to:
http://lionshare.its.psu.edu/main/

<> Corporate Relations Update
+ Sun EduSoft Portfolio Pricing Program Announced
Internet2 and Corporate Partner Sun Microsystems, Inc. have signed an
agreement by which Sun will offer university members an annual renewable
subscription for nearly 100 Sun software products at a low and predictable
price. The Sun EduSoft(TM) portfolio consolidates nearly 100 Sun enterprise
software products, including Enterprise Directory Management;
Application/Integration Servers and Messaging; Application Development;
Security; Desktop Applications; Operating Systems; Systems Administration
and Internetworking Technologies. Internet2 looks forward to creating
similar agreements for the products and services provided by corporate
members to encourage mutual collaboration and technology transfer. For more
information contact Kristen Hyland, Sun Microsystems,
<>.
http://www.internet2.edu/services/sun.html

<> Applications Update
+ Transatlantic Howl!: Internet2 Multicast Poetry Event
Internet2, and several collaborators, will host a transatlantic poetry
reading on 14 October at 2:00 pm EDT (GMT -4) honoring Allen Ginsberg and
his epic poem HOWL.  Poets will perform at venues in London, Paris, and
across the United States in celebration of Ginsberg, the renowned poet and
champion of human rights. This live, interactive event will be
simultaneously streamed across JANET, Renater, and Internet2 advanced
networks to audiences at each site. It will also be netcast to an
Internet-wide audience for viewing with QuickTime, or Windows Media Player.
Featured readers include Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, Anne Carson, and many
more. Anne Waldman and Ann Doyle, Internet2 Program Manager for Arts and
Humanities Initiatives, will serve as MCs for this event.
http://arts.internet2.edu/howl.html

+ Internet2 Member Discount for Fall VON 2004
In an effort to bring the Internet2 and VON communities closer together, new
Internet2 corporate member Pulver.com is extending its commitment to
Internet2 by offering Internet2 university members a discounted registration
rate for the Fall VON 2004 Conference and Expo taking place 18-21 October at
the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA. Internet2 university members are
invited to register for the "Full Conference" package at the rate of $600 by
visiting: http://www.pulver.com/von/register.html
Register with the priority code "INTERNET2".
https://mail.internet2.edu/wws/arc/wg-voip/2004-08/msg00002.html

+ MegaConference VI Call for Participation
Please submit your proposals for interactive presentations as part of
MegaConference VI, 9 December, now. This year's MegaConference is designed
to emphasize interactive and global videoconferencing. The successful
proposal should entice audience participation in the form of Q&A, direct
participation, contribution or other dynamic interaction. Additionally,
co-presenters from more than one site are encouraged. You are invited to
include examples (tapes or streams) of previous interactivity as part of the
real-time presentation. Prior arrangements for participation, made in
cooperation with other sites, are welcomed. Presentations may include
musical, dramatic, or other performances. Presentations should be
approximately 15 minutes in length. The deadline for proposals is 29
October. Early submissions are encouraged.

General info: http://www.megaconference.org
Proposal submissions: http://www.megaconference.org/call

<> International Update
+ Internet2 and IEEAF Agreement
At the Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting, Internet2 and the Internet
Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF) announced a formal agreement to
work in partnership with the goal of extending regional, national, and
international networking infrastructure to reduce the global disparities in
access to high-performance Internet connectivity and related resources. The
agreement builds on a track record of successful collaboration between IEEAF
and Internet2, including the establishment and subsequent management of
high-performance transatlantic network circuits between Amsterdam and New
York City dedicated to the research and education (R&E) community. Also,
just this past June, the IEEAF's Transpacific Link connecting Pacific Wave
in Seattle to the Tokyo Lambda Exchange (T-LEX) became active.
http://www.ieeaf.org

+ Astronomers Demonstrate a Global Internet Telescope
On 22 September, European and US collaborators demonstrated the use of
advanced networks to link the radio telescopes electronically in real-time
to perform radio astronomy experiments. The 20-hour long observations used
the European VLBI Network (EVN) and involved radio telescopes in the UK,
Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, and Puerto Rico. The combined resolution of
the antennas was at least 20 milliarcseconds which is about 5 times better
than the Hubble Space Telescope. Including the antenna at Arecibo, in Puerto
Rico, also increased the sensitivity of the telescope array by a factor of
10. Each telescope was connected to its country's advanced research network,
and the data routed at 32 Mbps per telescope across GEANT, the pan-European
research network; SURFnet, the Dutch network, and Internet2's Abilene
Network. The data were then delivered to the Joint Institute for VLBI in
Europe (JIVE), the central processing facility for the EVN in the
Netherlands. There, the 9 Terabits of data were fed in real-time into a
correlator and combined to deliver the final data directly to the
astronomers. For more information see:
http://www.evlbi.org/evlbi/first_science/first_science.html

+ International Activities at Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting
To find the final programs and all presentations from the International Task
Force meetings and all international activities that took place during
Member Meeting, please visit:
http://international.internet2.edu/resources/events/2004/FallMMintl.html

<> Middleware Update
+ MACE-MLIST Working Group
The MACE-MLIST Working Group has prepared a Survey of Mailing List
Administrators in order to:
- learn what features are most important (or least important) to higher
education
- ensure that at least one open source product meets our needs
- publish the community's requirements for the benefit of other product
vendors

Responses are encouraged and should be completed and returned by Friday, 15
October 2004.  The Survey and further information is available at:
http://middleware.internet2.edu/mlist/docs/internet2-mace-mlist-campus-surve
y-200409.html

+ Shibboleth
International interest in Shibboleth continues to solidify.  The UK’s JISC
is hosting a Shib “install fest” in London the week of October 18th with
assistance from the Internet2 Shib development team.  Australia has begun
discussions about having a Shib “install fest” as part of a local middleware
CAMP planned for later this year.

+ VidMid-VC Working Group
The VidMid-VC Working Group is working on developing an Extensible Messaging
and Presence Protocol (xmpp) extension to H.350, for future submission to
the ITU as an extension to the H.350 standard. H.350 defines directory
services architecture for multimedia conferencing for H.323, H.320, SIP and
generic protocols.

Information about XMPP is available at:
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/OLD/xmpp-charter.html

Information about H.350 is available at:
http://middleware.internet2.edu/video/docs/H.350/

Further information will be available soon on the working group page at:
http://middleware.internet2.edu/video/

+ National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative (NMI).
- Register Now for the Upcoming CAMP Identity Management and Enterprise
Authentication Workshops
Join us for the upcoming CAMPs focused on Identity Management (15-17
November) and Enterprise Authentication (18-19 November) in San Diego,
California. To register and find out more information, refer to:
http://www.educause.edu/conference/nmi

- Upcoming Medical Middleware CAMP
Save the date of 8 - 11 February 2005, for the upcoming CAMP Med: Identity
and Access Management for Medical Applications in Tempe, Arizona. More
information will be available in November at the NMI-EDIT website:
http://www.nmi-edit.org

<> Security Update
+ SALSA-Netc Working Group
SALSA has formed a new working group called "Netc" (pronounced "Net-cetera")
to focus on issues that would benefit from promptly delivered position
papers, or are too limited in scope to justify a separate group. Topics will
be limited to those that will ultimately form architectural vision and also
have urgency and interest to the Higher Education community.
http://security.internet2.edu/netc/

<> End-to-End Performance Initiative (E2Epi) Update
The E2Epi organized five sessions at the Fall 2004 Internet2 Member Meeting;
summaries of these sessions and links to presentations can be found at:
http://e2epi.internet2.edu/FMM04/

+ E2E piPEs (End-to-End Performance Initiative Performance Environment
System)
E2E piPEs made the performance measurement points (PMPs) installed on the
Abilene network publicly accessible to research and educational institutions
worldwide. Six other institutions/networks have installed publicly
accessible PMPs, including some participants in Switzerland, Brazil, and
Japan
http://e2epi.internet2.edu/pipes/pmp/pmp-dir.html

+ Measurement Tools in Use
All four piPEs tools released new code this month:
-- Fourteen locations downloaded the code of the alpha release of the “glue”
software in September: http://e2epi.internet2.edu/pipes/
-- Thirty-eight locations downloaded Version 1.1b of BWCTL:
http://e2epi.internet2.edu/bwctl/
-- Twenty-one locations downloaded Version 1.6f of OWAMP:
http://e2epi.internet2.edu/owamp/, and
-- Sixty-five locations downloaded Version 3.0.20 of NDT:
http://e2epi.internet2.edu/ndt/

<> Internet2 Showcases and Spotlights
NDT (Network Diagnostic Tool) has become an integral component in the E2E
piPEs framework and will be accessible via the upcoming release of the
Internet2 Detective. Studies show that the majority of network performance
problems occur in or near the users' desktop/laptop computer. NDT is
designed to identify several of the most commonly occurring end-to-end
problems, such as duplex mismatch and various hardware failures. Test
results for both novice users and network engineers are available to assist
in problem resolution. An overview of the tool is available, as are links to
publicly accessible servers via the NDT home page.
http://e2epi.internet2.edu/ndt/

For more Internet2 showcases, see:
http://www.internet2.edu/pastshowcases.cfm

+ Member Spotlight: Joanne Hugi
Joanne Hugi, known throughout the Internet2 community for her leadership in
regional and national networking, is retiring following three decades of
service at the University of Oregon (UO). Hugi served most recently as
Associate Vice President for Information Services at the UO Computing
Center. Hugi served on the Network Planning and Policy Advisory Council for
Internet2. She also served on the board of EDUCAUSE, including serving as
chair in 1999-2000, and was a long-time member of Northwest Academic
Computing Consortium (NWACC), serving as chair from 1999 to 2004, as well as
serving on the board for several other organizations.
For more member spotlights, see:
http://www.internet2.edu/pastspotlights.cfm

Showcases and spotlights highlight exemplary milestones, events,
collaborations, and people within the Internet2 community. Send suggestions
about projects, people or news to 
<>.

<> Request for Internet2 Website Feedback
Internet2 is in the process of soliciting ideas for improving our web space.
The ideas and contributions of members are extremely important to us. Please
send us your feedback on what features you like dislike and improved. Send
your ideas to Louis Biely, Web Services Manager at 
<>.
Comments will be confidential.

<> Internet2 Employment Opportunities
Internet2 currently operates the national research and education network,
Abilene, the Manhattan Landing (MAN LAN) international exchange point, and
the FiberCo holding and assignment vehicle for dark fiber.  Internet2 is
seeking a director to oversee this ensemble of advanced networking services,
who will report to the Executive Director, Deployment and Infrastructure
Delivery (DID), and will direct all operational aspects of these projects
including current technology, finances, and partnership coordination. This
position will be located in the Ann Arbor, Michigan headquarters of
Internet2 and there will be frequent national and occasional international
travel. Internet2 is a 501.C.3 not-for-profit organization and equal
opportunity employer. Details of this position and other openings can be
found at: http://www.internet2.edu/about/jobopportunities.html

<> New Internet2 Members
+ Corporate Members
- ADVA Optical Networking
http://www.advaoptical.com

- Dell Inc.
http://www.dell.com/

- LifeSize Communications
http://www.lifesize.com/

- Marratech AB
http://www.marratech.com/

- Red Hat Inc.
http://www.redhat.com/

- Sprint
http://www.sprint.com/

<> Future Internet2 Events
+ Transatlantic Howl! A Dedication To Allen Ginsberg
14 October, 2:00 pm EDT (UTC-4)
Virtual Event
http://arts.internet2.edu/howl.html

<> Internet2 Days
+ University of Arizona
4 November
Tucson, AZ
http://computing.arizona.edu/internet2/internet2day.html

+ Wichita State University
11 November
Wichita, KS
http://www.wichita.edu

Hold an Internet2 Day for your Internet2 member organization. Technical
support for live demonstrations and informational materials are available.
For more information contact Marianne Smith 
<>
 or see:
http://apps.internet2.edu/host-Internet2-day.html

<> Internet2 Related Events
+ Online Calendar
For a complete listing of events for and of interest to the Internet2
community, see the online Internet2 Calendar. Be sure the Internet2-related
event you are holding or know about is listed at:
http://events.internet2.edu/calendar/main.php

+ Grant Makers in the Arts 2004 Conference
17-20 October
Cleveland, OH
http://www.giarts.org/conf_04/conf04_index.html

+ Voice on the Net (VON) - Fall 2004
18 - 21 October
Boston, MA
http://www.pulver.com/von/
Internet2 university members are invited to register for the VON full
conference package at the rate of $600 by registering with the priority code
INTERNET2.

+ EDUCAUSE 2004
19 - 22 October
Denver, CO
http://www.educause.edu/conference/annual/2004/

+ ACUTA Fall Seminars
24 - 27 October
St. Louis, MO
http://www.acuta.org/events/seminars/fse04.cfm

+ New Hampshire Telecommunications and Broadband Summit
27-28 October
Nashua, NH
http://www.nheconomy.com/nheconomy/dredweb/main/index.php?ID=179&ch_table=li
nk7&setdb=dredweb

+ SC2004
6 - 12 November
Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.sc-conference.org/sc2004/

+ Chinese American Networking Symposium 2004
30 November – 2 December
Miami, FL
http://www.canscouncil.org/