Advanced Networking

This 32-minute podcast recorded during the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference features John Delaney, Professor of Oceanography, University of Washington speaking on Transforming Earth Sciences via Next-Generation Internet Linkages Between the Oceans and Classrooms, Laboratories, and Living Rooms. The slides that accompanied the presentation are also available.The abstract from this session:

The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2006 Summary Report has just been released. This report summarizes data for the past fiscal year collected from more than 950 colleges and universities about their campus IT environments, practices, and policies. Respondents represent all enrollment sizes, Carnegie classes, and types of governance, as well as international institutions, providing a broad and deep view of the current IT environment in higher education. The full report can be viewed online free of charge.

Among the notable findings from the report are the following.

Vista, the next version of Microsoft Windows, is going to support IPv6 natively. IPv6 is the next-generation of Internet Protocol, which adds a swathe of enhancements to the more widespread IPv4 which has been used in previous versions.

IPv6 has a number of features to make autoconfiguration (when the computer works out all it needs to know about the network by looking at the network itself, rather than from endless dialog boxes) easier; multicast (when a single computer broadcasts a single stream of data to many other computers) more efficient; routing faster and the whole lot significantly more secure.

IPv6 is widely seen as key to allowing very large numbers of devices to connect to the Internet simultaneously. Whereas previously IPv4 supports 4.3×10^9 (4.3 billion) simultaneous connections, IPv6 supports 3.4×10^38 addresses: billions of addresses per person.

A research version of the IPv6 ``stack'' for windows has been kicking around for at least six years, and appears to be stable and interoperable, so it seems unlikely to be cut from Vista. While the stack implements IPSec (the optional security module of IPv6), it is not clear whether it is likely to be widely used in windows environments.

Net@EDU has established the Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working Group to help colleges and universities develop strategies and plan resource deployment for cyberinfrastructure technologies as well as harness them for research and educational purposes. The group plans to sponsor workshops, conferences, white papers, and other resources on cyberinfrastructure. They also will be working to secure funding from federal agencies and other sponsors for research and educational activities on cyberinfrastructure tools, methods, and technologies.

Individuals from Net@EDU member institutions are invited to participate in the group.

This 52 minute recording provides coverage of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session entitled Virtual Possibilities Network: A Public-Private Mixing Bowl.

Net neutrality, municipal networking, and innovation and global competitiveness are just a few of the national policy issues affecting IT in higher education that are on the program for Policy 2006, April 26-27 inWashington, D.C. Featured speakers include Michael A. Geist and Derek N. Pew. Low, early-bird registration rates are available through April 11.

 

 

This 39 minute recording provides coverage of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session entitled Internet2 and National LambdaRail: An Update on Consolidation.

You can now access proceedings from the 2006 Net@EDU Member Meeting. Resources include audio recordings of a panel discussion on net neutrality and sessions with Peter Cullen and Glenn Ricart.