At the recent SC2002 Conference, the Internet2 booth featured live demos including University of Tennessee's Video IBPster--High Bandwidth Video Over the Internet Backplane Protocol and two demos from the Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative: H.323 Beacon and Abilene Active Measurements: OWAMP 1-WAY PING. http://oldwww.internet2.edu/apps/html/sc2002-demos.html
SCinet, the high-performance network built to support the annual SC Conferences, provided direct wide area connectivity to Abilene and many national and world wide networks during the conference. Internet2 assisted with measurement and performance monitoring of the network and contributed wireless access points used on the show floor.
More details about "Distance Learning and Far Away Places", the theme of Megaconference IV, are at: http://www.mega-net.net/megaconference/
Chinese Research and Education Networks Upgrade Connection to STAR TAP CERNET (the network connecting higher education institutions in China), CSTNET (the network connecting Chinese Academy of Sciences sites) and NSFCNET (a high-performance network connecting together several institutions in Beijing) are now connected at 45 Mbps to Internet2 networks and other research and education networks around the world at the STAR TAP international exchange point in Chicago. The Chinese networks previously had a 10 Mbps connection to STAR TAP. CERNET, CSTNET and NSFCNET are reachable via the International Transit Network (ITN) service provided jointly by CANARIE's CA*net, STAR TAP and Internet2's Abilene network. The Chinese networks also have a 10 Mbps connection to APAN in Tokyo.
CERNET: http://www.edu.cn/HomePage/english/index.shtml
CSTNET: http://www.cstnet.net.cn/
NSFCNET: http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/
STAR TAP: http://www.startap.net/
Shibboleth
The Internet2 Shibboleth team is pleased to announce the availability
of release 0.7 of its Shibboleth implementation. This new release contains
many improvements and enhancements, including: a rewrite of the target
side implementation, a new C/C++ based implementation of OpenSAML, improved
support of using an LDAP directory as an Attribute Repository, new extkeytool
utility for private key import/export, more extensive logging throughout
the code, an improved, simpler install process, and numerous fixes and
improvements, including fixes to utility script and a tool for managing
ARPs. Shibboleth and OpenSAML can now optionally be installed by building
from source. The release has been tested on Ret Hat Linux versions 7.2
and 7.3, and on Solaris 2.8. Distribution packages and documentation for
deployment are available at: http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/
Deployment and testing of Shibboleth by an increasing number of pilot institutions and corporations, such as; WebCT, WebAssign, and several content providers, continue to move forward on schedule.
The first public Liberty Alliance Newsletter features an interview with
Ken Klingenstein, Director, Internet2 Middleware, describing the shared
objectives between Internet2 and the Liberty Alliance, particularly with
regard to interoperability and federated identity management. The newsletter
can be found at: http://www.projectliberty.org
National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative (NMI)
The NMI PIs will be gathering at a Strategic Planning Meeting in Chicago
December 12 to discuss measures of success, support, documentation,
authentication, and inclusion of components from other sources. Submissions
from those interested in contributing components for Release 3, due
out in April 2003, are welcome. Interested parties should contact Ken
Klingenstein at <kjk@internet2.edu>
Registration for the Base CAMP (Campus Architectural Middleware Planning) to be held in Tempe, Arizona, February 5th - 7th, 2003, is now open. For more information go to: http://www.educause.edu/conference/nmi/camp031/
For more information on the NMI Project and Release 2 components, see:
http://www.nmi-edit.org
http://www.grids-center.org
http://www.nsf-middleware.org
Attendees are responsible for making their own room reservations. To schedule a BoF, contact one of the co-chairs, Janet Brown <brown@psc.edu>, Paul Love <epl@internet2.edu>, or Bill Wing <wrw@ornl.gov>
Joint Techs Workshop Winter 2004
January 26 - February 1, 2004 Honolulu, HI
Internet2 would like to showcase our members' efforts on our homepage. We encourage Internet2 members to share advanced networking milestones, as well events, collaborations and efforts in the advanced networking community. Members are also encouraged to submit a profile of a person in the Internet2 community whose efforts in advanced networking merit a showcase on the website. Include a brief description (less than 100 words), all appropriate links and images, and contact information. If you have suggestions about projects, people or news that might be featured, please contact Adam Csillag <acsillag@internet2.edu>.
RSNA 2002 Annual Meeting
1-6 December 2002
Chicago, IL
http://www.rsna.org/rsna/index.html
ACUTA
12-15 January 2003
Tempe, AZ
http://www.acuta.org
globusWORLD
13-17 January 2003
San Diego, CA
http://www.globusworld.org
NANOG 27
9-11 February 2003
Phoenix, AZ
http://www.nanog.org
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana -- In December of last year, Governor Frank O'Bannon symbolically launched I-Light, a fiber optic network connecting Indiana University Bloomington, IUPUI, and Purdue University's West Lafayette campus to each other, and to the national Internet2 infrastructure. One year later, the network is already enabling important new research and applications while realizing cost savings for the campuses and the State. These achievements will be celebrated at the I-Light Applications Workshop, December 4, at IUPUI.
The I-Light Network was the first fully operational network of its type and a distinction for the State of Indiana. "I-Light strengthens Indiana's growing reputation as a major center for information technology and telecommunications, and positions the State's research universities at the forefront in the development of advanced telecommunications applications," said Indiana University Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Michael McRobbie.
On December 4, researchers and technologists from IU Bloomington, IUPUI, and Purdue will demonstrate some of the advances in science and information technology already made possible by I-Light. At the first I-Light Applications Workshop, to be held at the IUPUI University Place Conference Center in Indianapolis, participants can learn how the I-Light network is being used for applications in advanced computing, visualization, and remote collaboration, and about how the I-Light networking environment can enrich research programs in a wide variety of disciplines.
The keynote speaker for the workshop is the internationally acclaimed Larry Smarr.
Smarr is a pioneer in prototyping a national information infrastructure to support academic research, governmental functions, and industrial competitiveness, and is the founding director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at the Universities of California at San Diego and Irvine. Smarr previously served as founding director for both the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the National Computational Science Alliance Presently, Smarr is a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee.
"I-Light has allowed IU and Purdue to pool their high-end computational resources and create a facility with an aggregate peak capacity well over one trillion mathematical operations per second," noted Dr. Craig Stewart, IU's Director of Research and Academic Computing. "As a result, scientists from both universities have the ability to run extremely large applications, including biomedical applications used by researchers working in the Indiana Genomics Initiative at IU, as well as homeland security applications being used by researchers at Purdue."
I-Light supports highly advanced research applications and makes possible virtual, real-time collaborative workspaces for scientists and technologists on the core campuses of Indiana's major research universities. In addition, I-Light enables scientists and researchers to exchange tremendously increased volumes of scientific data.
In the year since its inception, I-Light has made possible greater independence in telecommunications through decreased dependence on telecommunication providers. "With multiple strands of optical fiber, I-Light increases current networking capacity by many orders of magnitude, providing more than enough capacity to meet demand over the next 10 to 20 years, " said Brian D. Voss, IU Associate Vice President for Telecommunications. "For example, in August of this year, IU was able to achieve a near four-fold increase in capacity for normal Internet traffic -- at no increase in cost - by leveraging I-Light and its connectivity and co-location with the national internet infrastructure in Indianapolis."
This increased capacity, which is in addition to existing Internet2 connectivity, is allocated equally between the Halls of Residence at IUB, the IUB campus, and the IUPUI campus and its connections to the six regional campuses. As well, Purdue and the State of Indiana, via the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System, were able to obtain similar capacity improvements at no additional cost using I-Light.
The I-Light Applications Workshop provides an occasion for participants to explore opportunities for collaboration, research, and scholarship using I-Light. For more about I-Light and the upcoming workshop, see: http://www.i-light.org/.
Contact:
Christine Y. Fitzpatrick
Deputy Communications Officer
IU Office of the Vice President for Information Technology & CIO
317-278-1818 (voice)
317-274-4513 (fax)
cfitzpat@iu.edu
With successful demo of single-sign-on specification, WebCT continues to lead industry in support for important standards
LYNNFIELD, Mass., Dec. 16, 2002 — WebCT, the world’s leading provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher education, is helping break down campus walls by becoming the first e-learning management technology vendor to support "Shibboleth" access and authorization technology across its entire product line.
Shibboleth – an Internet2/MACE (Middleware Architecture Committee for Education) initiative – is an emerging open source standard advancing the cause of simplicity and privacy in higher-education e-learning and other Internet communications. It is designed to enable seamless sharing of multiple Web resources that are subject to access controls such as user IDs and passwords. Shibboleth uses "Clubs" to specify a set of parties who have agreed to a common set of policies. This moves the trust framework beyond bilateral agreements, and allows different systems, such as course management systems and library databases, to access one another securely without requiring manual integration or users to log in separately for every system they wish to access.
WebCT proved its software’s ability to both accept and transmit Shibboleth data in a demonstration with The Ohio State University at the Internet2 Fall 2002 Member Meeting held Oct. 27 through 30 in Los Angeles. The demonstration provided users with "single-sign-on" access to an EBSCO publications database and a repository of QuickTime video files at Brown University. WebCT preserved users' authentication and privileges across all systems instead of forcing them to log in separately for each one.
"Ohio State and WebCT together have made a strong statement about our vision for lowering the access barriers in higher education e-learning," said Steve Acker, director of Technology Enhanced Learning and Research at Ohio State University. "Single sign-on is important for us to be able to leverage our large investments in library databases for convenient access by our students, both on and off campus. Shibboleth also will be a key enabler for colleges and universities seeking to share access to courses and digital assets across institutional boundaries."
WebCT is one of the first higher-education learning management vendors in the Shibboleth initiative. Support for Shibboleth is available today through services provided by WebCT’s Professional Services Group.
In addition to providing users with selective access to content and systems, Shibboleth protects privacy by letting individual users choose which information about them can be released to each destination. "Working with Internet2 university members, WebCT has proven that privacy-preserving online authorization provides significant benefits to the education community," said Ken Klingenstein, director of the Internet2 Middleware Initiative.
Shibboleth is a project of Internet2, higher education’s initiative to harness advanced Internet technologies. "Initiatives like Shibboleth require a serious commitment by technology vendors, but the benefit to our customers is well worth it. This will make a major difference for our customers in terms of the quality of the e-learning experience and the cost of technology ownership," said Carol Vallone, WebCT president and CEO.
About WebCT
WebCT is the world’s leading provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher
education. Thousands of colleges and universities worldwide are using WebCT’s
products and services to transform the educational experience of their students.
Consortia in 24 American states, four Canadian provinces and two Australian
territories as well as the Consortium of Distance Education have licensed WebCT
for their member institutions, making it the de facto standard in higher education.
For more information, please visit www.webct.com.
Contacts:
Karen Gage
WebCT
(781) 309-1147
karen.gage@WebCT.com
Darby Johnson
Beaupre & Co. Public Relations, Inc.
djohnson@beaupre.com
(603) 559-5809
