NYSERNet, Inc. Annual Report

Alfred University

The American Museum of Natural History

ARTstor

Bank Street College

Binghamton University

Brooklyn Law School

Buffalo State College

CANARIE

Canisius College

Capital Region BOCES/NERIC

City University of New York

Clarkson University

Colgate University

Columbia University

Cornell University

Corning Community College

Daemen College

DANTE

Eastern Suffolk BOCES/ESRIC

Erie #1 BOCES/WNYRIC

Erie Community College

Fordham University

Genesee Community College

Hofstra University

IBM Watson Research Center

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Internet2

Le Moyne College

Madison-Oneida BOCES/MORIC

MAGPI

Marist College

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Monroe #1 BOCES/Monroe #1 RIC

National LambdaRail

Nazareth CollegeNYS

ERN

et M

embe

rs &

Pro

gram

Par

ticip

ants

The New School

New York Presbyterian Hospital

New York State Education Department

New York University

NORDUnet

NYACK College

Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES/CNYRIC

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rochester Institute of Technology

The Rockefeller University

SINET

Skidmore College

St. John’s University

St. Joseph’s College

St. Lawrence University

State University of New York at Alfred

State University of New York at Geneseo

State University of New York at Oneonta

State University of New York at Potsdam

State University of New York Central Administration

State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry

State University of New York Empire State College

State University of New York Information Technology Exchange Center

State University of New York Upstate Medical University

Stony Brook University

Syracuse University

Teachers College, Columbia University

TWAREN

University at Albany

University at Buffalo

University of Rochester

USLHCNet/CERN

Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Weill Medical College of Cornell University in Qatar

Yeshiva University

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to present the 2012 NYSERNet Annual Report, which differs from its predecessors in two ways. Largely because of the article on Hurricane Sandy, it is coming to you much later than usual. We have talked about Sandy in the NYSERNet blog and, for this report, gathered information about how institutions were affected and the ways they responded, delaying this report until that story was largely complete. In fact the Sandy narrative continues, with institutions not damaged by the storm still sharing facilities with those that were, enabling the city’s enormous research enterprise to continue.

The second change, a new feature, profiles three NYSERNet Board Members. Throughout its history NYSERNet has benefitted from the wisdom of the extraordinary people who have comprised its Board, so in subsequent annual reports we will continue these conversations. The annual report also explores the intellectual richness of the NYSERNet community’s work. In this issue we talk about OpenFlow at Marist College, as previously we have discussed the still vibrant high performance computing consortium and our collaborations with industry.

As in the past, some articles in this report address core competencies, helping articulate for a broader audience the work of the NYSERNet Board, staff, and community, and the possibilities enabled by advanced networks and network applications. Such efforts reach out to a continuously expanding community, driven by the understanding that we must collectively engage on very hard problems, in energy, climate, healthcare, finance, and building the new technologies required. We are all in this together.

Regards,

Dr. Timothy LancePresident and Chair, NYSERNet Inc.

1

An interconnection-friendly alternative to carrier-dominated colocation facilities, NYSERNet’s Colo@32 is where member net-

works constructed on NYSERNet’s Metropolitan Fiber Network meet to exchange traffic and connect to network service providers. The Colo@32 hosts national and international research and education network providers (like CA*net, GEANT, NORDUnet, and TWAREN) peering with each other through Internet2’s MAN LAN network exchange. The facility is also home to the northeast PoPs of Internet2, National LambdaRail and ESnet.

Conceptualized in the fall of 2000 as an interconnec-tion facility for participants in NYSERNet’s New York City dark fiber deployment, the Colo@32 has evolved into the most important exchange point for regional, national, and international research and education traffic on the east coast, while further serving as a compelling example of the benefits of inter-institution-al cooperation and collaboration. Colo@32 represents a unique and ongoing collaboration among NYSERNet, NYSERNet’s member institutions, Internet2, Indiana University, the international R&E networking community, and Rudin Management.

The year 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Colo@32. The intervening years have witnessed steady growth in the number of participating institutions and networks, with a commensurate increase in demand for power. Incremental increases in facility’s footprint and the colo’s power plant capacity have enabled us to continue to satisfy participants’ needs.

Today the facility is nearing full capacity, both in terms of room for additional racks and our ability to provi-sion power. In 2012 NYSERNet developed a plan to significantly increase capacity of the facility to ensure the colo’s ongoing technical and operational viability. The plan, which was approved by NYSERNet’s Board of Directors at its December 2012 meeting, calls for leasing additional floorspace adjacent to NYSERNet’s cage and phased upgrades to the colo’s DC power plant. The results will be an increase in the facility’s total rack capacity and a corresponding increase in our ability to provision power with high availability. Based on past growth patterns and anticipated rack additions, we believe these upgrades will be sufficient to satisfy demand into the foreseeable future.

Colo@32

Much of the excitement in the networking world during 2012 centered on an old concept with a new twist – Software Defined Networking, or SDN. NYSERNet was involved in SDN experiments

way back in 1999 with the NYSERNet2000 network. We have worked on related projects in the intervening years; however, nothing has received as much attention in both the research and commercial communities as the latest generation, called OpenFlow.

By allowing access to the internals of networking hardware – opening up the functions and capabilities that used to be available only to the vendors – OpenFlow makes it possible for anyone to write software that redesigns the way their network works. A natural appeal to researchers was the basis for its creation, and the realization that it enables dramatic changes for data centers, campuses, enterprises and network backbones has driven its further development. Today, OpenFlow-capable network equipment is available from all of the major vendors and software is being written by students, faculty and network engineers at universities all over the world.

Although OpenFlow-enabled networks are full of promise, there is a great deal of work to be done before that potential is realized. Research institutions and networks have the opportunity to contribute in unique ways, and NYSERNet members are involved in that process. Faculty, students and pro-fessional staff at Marist College are working in close collaboration with IBM to integrate their OpenFlow switches both as teaching tools and components of the campus network. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI), students working with a startup vendor are developing ways to improve the handling of data and maintain security and separation between users of their high-performance compute resources.

The Global Environment for Network Innovation (GENI) builds on OpenFlow for its network and open source tools for virtual computing. GENI is now into the fifth year of its spiral development process, with partici-pation from NYSERNet members New York University, Columbia University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Cornell University, the University at Buffalo and Colgate University. At these institutions researchers have deployed new networks, investigated ways to change the fundamental network protocols used in the Internet, and used GENI resources for teaching. Next year, we expect that four GENI experimental racks will be installed in New York State, including one hosted at NYSERNet and available to all our members.

In support of these research projects and in order to gain experience with this new technology, NYSERNet has built a parallel network, controlled and configured by OpenFlow, that can be used to explore the possibilities of SDN without risking any disruption to the production network. It takes advantage of one of the oft-claimed benefits of OpenFlow, the ability to combine inexpensive network equipment with open source software. In addition to supporting the connections for GENI, it is available for other research, teaching and development. What we learn from this testbed will guide our decisions about the next generation of networking.

Exploring OpenFlow

3

Board Retreat & New Strategic Plan

NYSERNet’s Board of Directors met in October at the Mohonk

Mountain House in New Paltz for our biennial strategic retreat.

The Board invited James Becker, CEO of ION Networks, to speak

during the meeting’s opening session. Mr. Becker offered the Board

his unique perspective on New York’s telecommunications

industry. Prior to leading ION Mr. Becker led Middleburgh

Telephone Company, one of roughly two dozen small rural

telephone companies operating in New York State. Christine Haile,

CIO at University at Albany, Ted Dodds, CIO for Cornell University,

and John Kolb, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute CIO, followed

Mr. Becker with presentations on the strategic initiatives

underway within their respective IT organizations, concluding

the first afternoon of the retreat.

The following morning Board members convened to consider

three questions: (1) what is the most important thing we as

NYSERNet should start doing to help your institution, (2) what

should NYSERNet keep doing, and (3) what should NYSERNet avoid

doing? Their responses and the ensuing discussion informed the

development of NYSERNet’s 2012-2014 Strategic Plan, which was

adopted by the Board at its December 2012 meeting. The plan

contains initiatives selected to ensure the viability of NYSERNet’s

core services, identifies new ways to serve member institutions and

expand NYSERNet’s advocacy of high performance networking and

computing, while emphasizing the distinguishing characteristics of

NYSERNet’s partnership with its members: responsiveness,

collaboration, and transparency.

CTO Advisory Council

NYSERNet constituted a new working group in 2012 called the

CTO Advisory Council. The group’s charter is to help NYSERNet’s

management set service development priorities and to provide

guidance on the design and development of new services. Com-

posed of senior IT leaders from NYSERNet’s member campuses,

one of the group’s first accomplishments was the development of

a process through which NYSERNet can rapidly determine whether

or not to pursue development of a particular service. The process

includes a set of principles and gating questions (see box) against

which NYSERNet and Council members can rapidly assess new ser-

vice concepts. The group also established our initial development

priorities, which include: enhancements to NYSERNet’s VMware

ELA, identification of additional opportunities to leverage the

aggregate demand of NYSERNet’s membership, exploration of

community cloud services, identification of a redundant network

path between NYSERNet’s Syracuse data center and our NYC

telecommunications colocation facility, and development of tiered

options for connecting to the NYSERNet network at 10 GigE.

VMware ELA

Participation in NYSERNet’s VMware Enterprise License Agreement

(ELA) expanded in 2012. Thanks to the deep discounts on software

and support provided under the terms of the ELA, the program

enjoys the broadest participation of any of NYSERNet’s programs,

with more than forty New York State colleges and universities tak-

ing part. In 2013, NYSERNet and VMware are launching a program

of free monthly webinars for members on the applications of

VMware’s technology. The first, scheduled for February 2013,

will feature Josh Simons, HPC Architect at VMware, presenting

“Centralizing HPC Compute Resources using Private Cloud.”

Topics to be covered in subsequent webinars include virtualization

security and compliance, disaster recovery, and cloud manage-

ment. NYSERNet and VMware are also exploring modifications to

the ELA, including an “unlimited” deployment model, which will

make it even more cost effective for NYSERNet’s members to adopt

VMware’s virtualization technology.

Commercial Internet Services

In 2012, NYSERNet staff participated as reviewers in the Quilt’s

biennial Commercial Internet Services (CIS) RFP, the fifth in a series

of CIS RFP’s the Quilt has run since 2004. The Quilt RFP aggregates

the technical requirements and purchasing demands of thirty-one

regional network operators (RONs), like NYSERNet, that constitute

the Quilt’s membership, ultimately securing for the RONs and their

member institutions a broad suite of CIS options at prices well

below market. NYSERNet members value the discounts and pricing

intelligence offered by the Quilt, and the confidence that vendors

selected to be Quilt Authorized Providers have been thoroughly

vetted by a team of expert reviewers. In 2012, the number of Quilt

CIS connections purchased by NYSERNet members grew from

twenty-nine to thirty-five, with total committed bandwidth of 36

Gb. Thanks to the Quilt, NYSERNet member institutions are able to

acquire ample CIS bandwidth from multiple providers, satisfying

demand from administrators, faculty and students for performance

and high availability.

R&E Network

Participation in the NYSERNet Research and Education Network

plateaued in 2012 after several years of decline precipitated by the

Financial Crisis of 2007-08 and the subsequent recession. Challeng-

ing financial times resulted in difficult choices for many institutions

with the result that the number of connectors contracted from a

peak of forty in 2010 to thirty-three in 2012. NYSERNet has held

the price of connecting stable since the 2005 launch of the network

while routinely increasing the amount of bandwidth provisioned for

each level of connector, enhancing affordability, and enabling new

Mem

ber S

ervi

ces

types of bandwidth intensive applications. As a result, though the

total number of connectors has recently decreased, committed

bandwidth has quadrupled, with a correspondingly dramatic increase

in bandwidth consumption. In December 2012, NYSERNet’s Board of

Directors approved newly revised connector pricing, doubling the size of

a basic R&E connection from 25 Mb to 50 Mb (while retaining the cost at

the 25 Mb level) and adding a new 2-10 Gb tier. With these changes and

the pending addition of several new connectors, we anticipate significant

increases in participation and utilization in 2013.

Data Center

NYSERNet’s data center entered its sixth year of service in 2012 with

three additional institutions committing to establishing presences in the

center in 2013, increasing the number of participants to eleven. Discus-

sions underway with other potential and existing participants suggest

that 2013 may witness the most significant growth in participation since

the program’s launch. While the center is equipped to handle this antici-

pated growth, if all of the projected demand materializes the facility may

be effectively full. In anticipation of this eventuality, the NYSERNet Board

asked staff to undertake an effort to identify alternatives for expansion,

with a report due June 2013.

The nature of the applications members anticipate deploying in the

data center indicates a need for greater availability of the data center

network environment. Availability of the network within the data center

is assured thanks to redundancy within the network hardware, full UPS

and generator backup, and physically diverse network paths from the

data center to the networks’ point of entry into the building. NYSERNet

will add an additional Gb of commercial Internet service to the center in

2013, further increasing availability. Plans are also underway to provide a

new, diverse network path from the data center to our colocation facility

in New York City, complementing our existing network backbone.

Metro Dark Fiber

NYSERNet finalized a project that commenced in 2011 to renew

the leases of all of the Metro Dark Fiber program’s early adopters

through 2017. Immediate savings promised under the terms of the

renewals served as significant incentive to the institutions. Participation

in the program continued to expand in 2012. The ten participants added

a total of five sites to their existing fiber rings, bringing the total number

of connected sites to more than forty. In 2012, participants also invested

heavily in the networks for which the fiber forms the base, with several

upgrading their backbones from 1 Gb to 10 Gb. We anticipate connect-

ing five additional sites in the first quarter of 2013, which will put us on

the path toward the greatest single-year increase in participation since

the program’s 2003 launch.

Service Developm

ent Principles

5

Principles

• Seek new and innovative ways to add value to membership

• Solve problems of mutual concern to members

• Be guided by member needs through a member-driven process

• Leverage existing infrastructure investments

• Leverage members’ aggregate demand

• Avoid commoditized offerings

• Compete on trust, transparency, sustainability, and performance

Gating Criteria/Questions

• Is the service aligned with NYSERNet’s mission?

• Is NYSERNet in the position to add some unique value to the service?

• Does the service leverage a core competency or promote development of a new and strategic competency?

• Does the service have the potential to leverage or enhance existing NYSERNet services or infra-structure to provide greater value to members?

• Are there commercial alternatives to the service or is the service likely to become commoditized?

• Does the service have the potential to offer economies of scale through demand aggregation?

• What set of members will benefit from the service?

• Does the service have the potential to draw new members to NYSERNet?

• Does NYSERNet have the resources necessary to develop, provision, and support the service or can the additional resources be acquired?

After battering the east coast for days, hurl-ing wind and rain hundreds of miles inland, snow beyond that, Hurricane Sandy finally

slammed into shore just south of Atlantic City around 8:00 PM Monday, October 29, 2012. Its crushing surge hit north and east of Atlantic City, flooding New York City subways and automotive tunnels, swamping lower Manhattan. Upstate NY experienced rain, wind, and storm surge along the Hudson as far inland as Albany, but no damage resembling New York’s and New Jersey’s coastal areas, with this potent late season storm hitting more like a tsunami.

Member connectivity was NYSERNet’s first concern. Our global exchange point at 32 Avenue of the Americas stayed up, enabling a CERN-Brookhaven data transfer during the storm’s height. Our coloca-tion suites at 32 AoA and 111 8th Avenue went on generator power at 8:00 PM and stayed that way until the following Saturday. We monitored con-nectivity to our research network and member commodity connections, provided campuses and others with whom we worked with regular status re-ports, and monitored status of our NYC fiber plant. Although our statewide network, NYC fiber, and all our PoPs performed flawlessly, some member out-ages did occur. Its connecting lines to NYSERNet and commercial providers washed away, Stony Brook University quickly brought up emergency campus communications out of our Syracuse data center; other campuses similarly activated contingency plans, although most were not needed. NYU’s main data center went without power for about two days, coming up on generator power on Tuesday.

Flooding and loss of power profoundly impacted the City University of New York, CUNY and NYU. The explosion of a 14th Street power station plunged much of Manhattan below 40th Street into dark-ness. For NYU’s Langone Medical Center the failure of both backup generators compounded this problem, forcing emergency evacuation of more than 200 patients, including babies in the neonatal ICU, to nearby Mount Sinai Hospital, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, St. Luke’s Hospital, New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Long Island Jewish Hospital. Accomplishing this at the storm’s height without harm to any patient was a miracle.

Hurricane Sandy

Because NYU’s many buildings in the blackout zone lacked generators, attention there focused on finding alternate living space, food, heat, and power.

Sprawling across all five boroughs including devastated Staten Island, concerned for student safety, power and buildings, the City University of New York had ten campuses citywide designated as shelters. CUNY provided temporary homes to 2,700 residents, 1,000 from hospitals and nursing homes, the last of that housing lasting until Thanksgiving. Two campuses (Kingsborough Community College and the Borough of Manhattan Community College) were flooded, requiring academic programs to move. Every institution that faced Sandy’s wrath has its own story of emergency planning, improvisation, and rapid recovery.

The story of the response to Sandy continues today, with the current chapter perhaps as remarkable as any. Finding alternative space for instruction and living while damaged facilities are repaired is difficult, the impact on those affected enormous. The process of replacing broken research and medical facilities is far slower, with almost a year elapsing before the last of the Langone buildings will reopen–enough time for valuable research to stall or be lost. The community has addressed this problem with the same concern it displayed during the perilous hours at the storm’s height. Institutions less affected by Sandy opened their doors to researchers whose labs were not habitable, their sensitive equipment destroyed. Laboratory animals also died from power outages and flooding, some of them special strains designed to study particular diseases. Soon after the magni-tude of Sandy’s devastation became apparent, researchers who over decades developed those strains and shared them with colleagues received offers to return some of the offspring, which facilitated the rapid rebuilding of colonies.

We have learned many valuable lessons. Our technology-dependent enterprise’s components are tightly coupled, and failure of one can affect the whole. Redundancy planning a decade ago for power and fiber helped keep NYSERNet’s global exchange point running despite the storm. Collaboration among researchers and their institutions helped open doors during the crisis. A lot of emergency planning proved its worth, and all involved are revisiting their plans to understand and correct any weaknesses.

Perhaps those who bore the brunt of Sandy provide the most encouraging news. Five years ago Dr. John E. Kelly III of IBM Research, Dr. Timothy Lance of NYSERNet, and Mr. Ed Reinfurt of the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology, and Innovation wrote “Intellectual Fusion”*, exploring the challenge of collaboration on problems that cross institutions, disciplines, and sectors. Their focus was on the Large Hadron Collider as a sociological experiment as much as a multinational research enterprise. In the response to Hurricane Sandy we witnessed precisely that kind of cooperation, under duress, for the common good.

* A copy of this report is available at http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/intellectual-fusion

7

NYS

ERN

et B

oard

of D

irect

ors Aurelia Boyer

Senior Vice President & CIONew York Presbyterian Hospital

Jeanne CasaresChief Information OfficerRochester Institute of Technology

Brian CohenAssociate Vice Chancellor & CIOCity University of New York

Candace FlemingVice President for information Technology & CIOColumbia University

Thomas FurlaniInterim Chief Information OfficerDirector, Center for Computational ResearchUniversity at Buffalo

Armand GazesDirector of Information TechnologyThe Rockefeller University

Christine HaileChief Information OfficerUniversity at Albany

Voldemar InnusVice President for Finance and ManagementBuffalo State College

Robert W. JuckiewiczVice President for Information TechnologyHofstra University

Lynn Kasner-Morgan Emeritus

Christopher KieltChief Information OfficerStony Brook University

John E. KolbVice President for Information Services and Technology & CIORensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Vace KundakciEmeritus

Timothy L. LancePresident NYSERNet, Inc.

Francis C. LeesChief Information OfficerAmerican Museum of Natural History

David E. LewisVice Provost & CIOUniversity of Rochester

Marilyn McMillanVice President for Information Technology & Chief IT Officer for NYU NY CampusNew York University

Marc E. MilsteinVice President & CIOYeshiva University

Mark ReedAssociate Vice President for Information TechnologyBinghamton University

Gary O. RobertsDirector, Information Technology ServicesAlfred University

Christopher M. SedoreAssociate Vice Chancellor for Academic OperationsVice President for Information Technology & CIO Syracuse University

Justin SipherVice President of Libraries & Information TechnologySt. Lawrence University

William ThirskVice President for Information Technology & CIOMarist College

R. David VernonAssociate CIOCornell University

9

Board Mem

ber Interview

William ThirskVice President and Chief Information OfficerMarist College

How many years have you been in your current role at Marist College?

I was appointed Vice President of Information Technol-ogy and Chief Information O�cer in June of 2007.

How many people serve in your IT organization?

�e IT department at Marist consists of 75 sta� members.

When did you join the NYSERNet Board?

I joined the board in 2007, but Marist has been a member of NYSERNet since its inception. Our partnership with NYSERNet provides us with cutting-edge resources that would otherwise be unavailable to an institution of our size. Examples of these resources include network redundancy, peer institutional net-working, improved research capabilities, and collaboration in work directed at utilizing technology and networks to improve our understanding of science through computation.

What do you consider your most significant career accomplishment?

In February I was named to Computerworld’s list of 2013 Premier 100 IT Leaders. �e Premier 100 program was created by Computerworld to spotlight IT leaders who have had a positive impact on their organizations through technology. While I am appreciative of this recognition, credit for this achieve-ment really goes to my entire sta� and the many others at Marist College who contributed to the initiatives meriting this honor. �e numerous awards Marist has earned for innovation and leadership over the last few years demonstrate the College’s dedication to excellence in technology.

Marist has instituted a program to explore Software Defined Networking. How has Marist used its SDN program to build its student research program?

In conjunction with NYSERNet, the IBM Joint Study partnership, and the IBM STG University Alliance, Marist established a new network interoperability lab and multivendor project centered on So�ware De�ned Networking (SDN) technology. OpenFlow is an open source network so�ware project that has become the frontrunner in the development of SDN technology. �e Marist student/faculty/sta� team works through test cases, programming modules, and contributes their �ndings to the open source community, side by side with larger commercial network companies. �is partnership provides the student team with a unique opportunity to participate in and impact the develop-ment of SDN standards while concurrently working with industry experts to gain experience before begin-ning their job searches in earnest.

Marist is a regular participant and active contributor to NYSERNet’s educational service offerings. Why is it important to Marist that NYSERNet continues to offer and grow these programs?

Marist participates in NYSERNet’s educational service o�erings for a simple, but very powerful, reason. Connections and information are two of the greatest drivers of research, whether this research is centered on community needs or �ber and hardware based demands. Marist technologists gain a great deal in attending workshops, technical sessions, webinars, and collaboration sessions with NYSERNet experts and other industry professionals from multiple member institutions. It is this exchange of information that al-lows for an innovative market of ideas, a test bed to see if the ideas will work, and a high quality environment into which we may implement them when the technol-ogy appropriately matures. Good, high performance technical training at the expert and practitioner level is very valuable and very rare. NYSERNet programming provides both the opportunity and the instruments.

Boar

d M

embe

r Int

ervi

ew

John KolbVice President for Information Services and Technology and CIO

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

How many years have you been in your current role at RPI?

I have been the CIO since 2000, hence 13 years.

How many people serve in your IT organization?

�ere are 137 including academic and administrative computing, the libraries, media services, plus middleware and infrastructure technologies.

When did you join the NYSERNet Board?

I joined in 1996.

What do you consider your most significant career accomplishment?

I have been able to implement technologies that further innovation and improve e�ectiveness for our community of scholars and learners. �e Mobile Computing Program, which required a laptop for all entering students, had that e�ect when we implemented it in 1999. �e supercomputing center (Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations – CCNI), which provid-ed access to world-class computational tools, had that e�ect in 2007. We are now in the midst of introducing the IBM Watson technology for use by the Rensselaer community and it will also have that e�ect. Having creative faculty, a great team of information professionals at Rensselaer, and great partnerships, particularly with IBM and NYSERNet, has been crucial to the success of all three of these projects.

In what ways has the availability of very high perfor-mance computing changed and enhanced both the research activities of RPI faculty and their numerous collaborations with corporate research partners?

We can tackle problems that many other research-ers do not have the ability to address. While there are signi�cant high performance computing (HPC) resources available across the nation, it is important to have signi�cant local capabilities to allow faculty and other researchers to not only perform “hero runs,” but also the ability to experiment and understand how massively parallel programming environments are much di�erent than what many researchers have been exposed to in the past. Rensselaer has a long history of solving pressing scienti�c and engineering problems. �e current HPC resources, coupled with our intellectual capital, enable us to collaboratively develop new modeling and simulations solutions and techniques for some of the most di�cult problems facing our industrial partners.

RPI has been a connector to the NYSERNet R&E Network and Internet2 since 1999. Why is the R&E network important to RPI?

In this world of highly integrated and collaborative research, it is essential to have high speed access and connectivity to our partners. We are in a period where the amount of data is exploding. It is impera-tive for our researchers to be able to both access and move large amounts of data to and from Rensselaer as well as around to other locations. We are seeing the realization of the “laws” that were proposed by Jim Gray, namely that scienti�c computing is becoming more data intensive and that the data is growing so large that we need to bring computation to the data rather than the other way around.

Board Mem

ber Interview

11

Board Mem

ber Interview

Francis LeesChief Information OfficerAmerican Museum of Natural History

How many years have you been in your current role at American Museum of Natural History?

I have been CIO for 13.5 years.

How many people serve in your IT organization?

�irty in the IT organization. �ere are a number of others dedicated to special functions in other departments.

When did you join the NYSERNet Board?

I was invited in the spring of 1985, but can’t recall if we convened as a board that year or convened �rst in 1986.

What do you consider your most significant career accomplishment?

I formed the Museum’s IT organization as its �rst CIO, and with the support of our leadership launched us on a modernization trajectory.

Even a�er 9/11, we were able to increase internet bandwidth by orders of magnitude, connect to NYSERNet’s NYC optical network (and be the �rst to light our �ber), modernize or acquire enterprise business systems, build two data centers on-site and one DR/BC instance in NYSERNet’s Syracuse data center (and be the �rst to go live there), build institution-wide wireless, a navigational app, and assume support for the computational infrastructure of the sciences. My accomplishment was to assemble an expert sta�, nurture and lead them while de�ly staying out of their way, then turn to our management to explain complexity in terms understandable by everyone.

AMNH’s Explorer App offers visitors a unique way to experience the Museum’s many exhibits. How has the successful introduction of this tool changed the Museum’s perspective on IT?

�e app was developed in conjunction with several Museum departments and some outside partners, but the design, implementation of the wireless infrastructure and tuning of the access points and the location engine (e�ectively the wireless triangulation equivalent of satellite-based GPS) was largely ours to do.

AMNH was the first NYSERNet member institution to acquire and light NYSERNet dark fiber. Why is the dark fiber network important to AMNH?

Our bold steps were taken with what seemed, at the time, like surreal agility, driven by serendipity (an understanding and IT-friendly management) and opportunity. �e opportunity was quickly perceived to be one that would provide the Museum with ample bandwidth long into the future, provide a return on investment about halfway through the term of the initial IRU, and permit the Museum to escape the physical constraints (lack of redundancy) and pricing models of telephone company-provided local loops. In short order we were able to reach 32 Avenue of the Americas and 111 Eighth Avenue at �ber speeds, using diverse routes, something previously unattainable. We subsequently carried our backup and data replication streams over the NYC �ber using CWDM to 32 Avenue of the Americas, and then, using NYSERNet’s statewide �ber network, to Syracuse. Following super storm Sandy we escaped the last of the old telephone transport technology and moved to SIP, making it possible to carry voice tra�c to and from our carriers without passing through a telephone company Central O�ce, or through a telephone company-operated �ber ring in southern Manhattan whose electronics are in a �ood zone.

Educ

ation

Ser

vice

s m

ade

sign

ifica

nt s

trid

esEducation Services made significant strides in 2012 with our efforts to increase the breadth of our educational

offerings and to add greater value to our curriculum. Member participation in our two annual conferences, NYSCIO and Tech Summit, continued to grow, with each setting attendance records. Participation at NYSERNet

workshops increased even more dramatically. In 2012 NYSERNet delivered twenty-three workshops and lectures, which were attended by 498 individuals, an increase of 82% over 2011. Workshop participants hailed from ninety-two R&E institutions.

Our developing partnerships with our peer organizations, especially Merit Network, resulted in a substantial increase in the variety of workshop topics we can offer members. In 2012 NYSERNet members participated in Merit work-shops like Fundamentals of Linux Security, Hands on Network Security, IT Project Management, Cloud Computing Essentials, and Data Center Infrastructure and Management. In November representatives of Indiana University presented MPLS using VRF/VPNs. NYSERNet reciprocated by delivering IPv6 and BGP & Routing to Merit’s members both in-person and on-line. A nationally recognized leader in IPv6 instruction, NYSERNet also delivered IPv6 work-shops at Internet2’s Joint Techs Conference in July, at NERCOMP’s IPv6 SIG meeting at Wesleyan University, and for members of the Lonestar Education And Research Network (LEARN) in Texas.

In 2012 NYSERNet began offering some of its most popular workshops on-line using web conferencing software. Freed of geographic anchors, these courses are popular among students with limited travel budgets. Blended learning techniques employed by NYSERNet’s faculty ensure that our distance-learning students receive the individual coaching necessary for success with the workshops’ hands-on activities.

While on-line delivery has become a common and popular method for training, many institutions still prefer the personal touch available only with instruction delivered in-person, on campus. In 2012 NYSERNet employed its mobile labs to provide IPv6 instruction on the campuses of the University at Buffalo, Stony Brook University, and the City University of New York.

NYSERNet’s second annual Tech Summit took place May 23 in New York City. Seventy-four representatives of thirty-nine member institutions gathered at the American Museum of Natural History to hear presentations by experts on a variety of network security and engineering topics, including Advanced Network Performance Optimization and Fully Automated DCMA Processing. Michael Benedetto, AMNH Deputy CIO, demonstrated the Museum’s new mobile app, Explorer – The New Way to Find Your Way. After lunch, conference participants used Explorer to navigate the Museum and its many exhibits. Tech Summit 2013 takes place May 16, 2013 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

NYSCIO 2012, Disruptive Technologies: Innovation and the New Reality, was held July 18-20 at the Rochester Institute of Technology. David Koretz, Vice President of Mykonos Software, launched the program with his presentation, Hacking Higher Education, in which he identified emerging technologies with the potential to disrupt higher education. Mark Greenfield, Director of Web Services for University at Buffalo, followed with his presentation, Social Media & Student Success. Chris Sedore, Syracuse University VP & CIO, spoke about the role of analytics in helping institutions evaluate and improve services and performance. Bryan Alexander, Senior Fellow at NITLE, offered two sessions; the Thursday evening keynote, The New Technology Landslide: The New Landscape of Higher Education, and concluded NYSCIO with an environmental scanning and scenario-building exercise, Thinking Through What Comes Next. Eighty-two IT leaders representing forty-seven academic institutions attended NYSCIO. Next year’s conference takes place July 10-12 at the Lodge at Welch Allyn in Skaneateles, New York.

In 2013, NYSERNet is launching several new workshops, developed in-house to meet the expressed needs of our members. Development of Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP Turn Up, Test, Provisioning, & Operations is nearing completion. The course will be available Q3 of 2013. Also upcoming are Network Troubleshooting & Performance Testing, an IPv6 train-the-trainer course, and a DNSSEC workshop. Three modules from our IPv6 course will be available free and on-demand via the NYSERNet website by Q3 of 2013. Additionally we will continue to develop our relationships with our regional peer groups, commercial training organizations, and our members’ technical training organizations in our ongoing effort to provide our members with high-quality training opportunities that are cost-effective and convenient.

Sharon Akkoul • Manager, Membership Development; Director, NYC Metro Fiber Services Program

Robert Bloom • Manager, Data Center

Larry Gallery • Manager, Membership Development; K20 Program Manager

Jeffrey Harrington • Senior Network Engineer

Mary C. Hyla • Chief Financial Officer

Robin L. Jones • HR Administrator; Contracts Coordinator

Stephen R. Kankus • Chief Operating Officer

Stephan M. Knapp • Director, Network Operations & Education Services

Timothy L. Lance • President

Katrina Lawrence • Accounting Specialist; Contracts Support

Steven E. Matkoski • Supervisor, Internal Systems and Infrastructure; Network Engineer

William C. Owens • Chief Technology Officer

James A. Shaffer • Colocation Supervisor; Network Engineer

Elaine M. Verrastro • Office Services and Board Assistant

Adam Wojtalewski • Systems Administrator

NYSERNet Staff

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NYSERNet is a private not-for-profit corporation created to foster science and education in New York State. Its mission is to advance network technology and related applications to satisfy needs common to the institutions comprising New York State’s research and education community, providing a forum for exploration of the opportunities and challenges these innovations present.