NIU harnesses power of Internet2

by Joe King

NIU quietly crossed into a new frontier of Internet communication earlier this year.

With the “lighting” of the first leg of its NIUNet fiber optic communication network in January, NIU for the first time obtained a connection to Internet2 creating the potential for students, faculty and staff to use the Internet in previously unimaginable ways.

Researchers can download enormous databases they previously had to travel to use. For instance, a four terabyte file (one terabyte equals 1,024 gigabytes) that would take 23 days to download over the regular Internet could be downloaded in about one hour.

Musicians might play along with colleagues at universities across the globe as if they were in the same room.

Virtual classes and conferences could be offered in an online environment that all but duplicates face-to-face interaction with high definition picture and sound.

Created in 1996 by elite researchers who were already frustrated by the speed and capacity limitations of the existing Internet, Internet2 was developed as a separate network for use only by universities, national laboratories and other high-level, non-commercial users who often have a need to transfer enormous batches of data quickly.

From its inception, the system was designed and built to handle those demands – moving all traffic across fiber optic “pipes” that provide users a capacity akin to a water main, compared to the drinking straw-sized “pipes” of the commercial Internet. While its use is currently restricted to about 260 member institutions, one of the purposes of creating and operating I2 is to develop the next generation of the “commodities Internet.”

How best to take advantage of having access to such a resource will be the topic of the university's first-ever Internet2 Day, scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday, March 30.

This event, hosted by the Division of Outreach and Administration and the Office of the Provost, will provide deans and department chairs with an overview of what Internet2 can do for their faculty. Faculty and staff may also attend, but pre-registration is required and seating is limited. Those interested in attending the event can register online here.

“Internet2 has broadband capabilities far beyond those we are used to on the commodities Internet,” said Robert Brookey, a professor of communication who helps oversee the Laboratory for Interaction, Networking, and Communications (LINC). “We will use this day to give examples of how I2 has been used to facilitate research and pedagogy in the arts, humanities and sciences. We will focus on real-world examples from other universities, not hypotheticals.”

Guest speakers at the event will be Ann Doyle, Internet2 manager for arts and humanities, and Joel Mambretti, director of the International Center for Advanced Internet Research at Northwestern University.

Doyle will discuss her work with the Internet2 organization which includes collaborating with campuses across the nation to produce master classes and performance events enabled by high-speed networking. She has been the executive producer of the two largest collaborations in the performing arts. Mambretti will address his work at iCAIR (and as part of such organizations as Metropolitan Research and Education Network and I-WIRE), which is aimed at developing the next generation of high-speed communications networks.

Also speaking at the event will be Professor of Communication David Gunkel (co-director of LINC) who will focus on end-user software required to reap the benefits of I2, and NIU's Chief Network Architect Herb Kuryliw, who will discuss the build-out status of NIUNet.

Computer users on campus might already have noticed some improvement in computing services since the I2 connection was made, Kuryliw said. Since that time, any electronic communication with other I2 institutions (mostly research universities and national laboratories) has been diverted to that channel automatically, relieving the existing campus network of about 20 percent of its typical load and resulting in better performance.

The biggest benefits of I2, such as the ability to download huge files, are still a ways down the road for most users, said Kuryliw, explaining that some system upgrades will be required to make those services available to the average desktop computer on campus.

3-6-06