In this video CERN technologists discuss the network’s requirements which supplies the TeraScale switches that connect 6,000 processors and 2,000 storage devices. TeraScale supports 672 line-rate Gigabit and 56 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports per system, allowing CERN to deploy fewer systems and simplify the architecture of its network.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tags: Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Network, Research, Internet2, BoreasNet, WiscNet, reading

BTW: The cover is not an actual photo rather a Photoshop’d image. However the image clearly represents his message.  The book is about Generativity impacting the internet.  Ultimately his argument is to place generativity at the core of all open technologies that tap into the internet.

Zittrain begins Part I in the book with a bit of historical reflection: The Battle of the Boxes, Battle of the Networks and CyberSecurity.  He followed on the impact of legal lessons learned from Wikipedia.  There are plenty of examples how open, generativity systems make the internet better.  Here are a couple of examples Zittrain addressed that do not:

Law enforcement agencies have used network devices to manually turn on OnStar (the in-vehicle security, communications, and diagnostics system from GM) to record and monitor conversations of unknowing passengers.  OnStar is installed in over 50 models of GM cars alone.

The FBI requested from a judge the ability to turn on the microphone of a unsuspecting cell phone owner allowing law enforcement to tap, track and record conversations.

Think about that for a moment. Ever take a picture with your digital camera or cell phone?  Millions of people do this everyday and upload content to photo-sharing websites like Flickr.  Can you imagine taking a series of photographs — only to later realize the camera (via remote commands) copied all your photos without your knowledge.  Zittrain addresses how your personal content can be affected by a judge in Texas while you live … say in Ohio.  Don’t believe it? Read Chapter 5: Tethered Appliances, Software as Service and Perfect Enforcement” to see how a judge in Marshall Texas did just that — regarding a copyright case involving TiVo.

Zittrain accurately addresses how generativity (on the internet) will impact how we engage data — regardless if the task is email, video streaming, blogging or accessing robots over a wireless network via smartphone.   He uses the example of two products from Apple that were developed in opposite directions exactly 30 years apart:  The Apple II and the iPhone but missed out on Amazon’s Kindle.  The Apple II fit the idea of generativity perfectly.  It was an “open” desktop computer and the world began to tinker, develop, push and ultimately secure the product’s success.

Zittrain compares this approach to the 1st generation iPhone.  Zittrain recently blogged about a bizarre copyright conflict between an iPhone application that clearly reinforces his position: Apple has the ability to control application distribution.  This means you can purchase an application at Apple’s iTunes store, download it and use it on your iPhone but Apple can remotely kill that program at any given point in the future.

To be fair: At the time of his writing the 1st generation iPhone was selling for $500.  Today we have the iPhone 3GS, OS 3.0, The App Store and Apple’s road-map for iPhone developers. The most change has been the highly successful App Store on iTunes with over a billion apps downloaded.
Yes – BILLION.  Profit gets in the way too.

To see another example of Zittrain’s idea substitute TiVo or Amazon’s Kindle and you’ll get his message. Remember TiVo tipped its hand revealing it tracks what users watch? That came as a bit of a surprise to many  unaware their viewing habits were tracked.

Even though Amazon recently updated their Kindle ebook reader to support users adding PDF files, the Kindle’s generativity score (this might be a new blog all by itself) would be very low due to its lack of open standards.  Amazon has run into issues due to remotely crippling installed ebooks due to copyright and DRM.

There is also a copyright issue with the new Kindles.  The new model has the ability to read ebooks aloud.  Publishing companies began suing Amazon over this “feature” on the bigger Kindles.  Publishers want to sell you an Audiobook version of the eBook loaded on your Kindle.  So in the end you pay twice for the same digital product!  Publishers argue eBooks legally cannot be read out loud.  Amazing.  For all the technology advances, profit still drives old school publishing companies to sue Amazon.

I found his conclusion powerful.  He shares the impact of Generativity on the OLPC project.  I am a fan of the One Laptop Per Child project.  As he suggests Generativity is really at the core of this product.  It has changed the world and can be viewed (in a limited way) as a path for future internet generativity.

Tags: Jonathan Zittrain, Future of the Internet, Generativity, copyright, internet, Network, Apple II, iphone, TiVo, onstar, amazon, OLPC, reading, trends

Today begins Internet2’s Spring Member meeting.  The hot topic of conversation? Broadband stimulus funding.

This Regional Optical Network (RON) will be advancing the research opportunities in the upper midwest by enhancing the established optical network with new links installed by member institutions and the WiscNet NOC.

Tags: ANML, optical network, Midwest, Boreas, globalization, network, Milwaukee, economic development, trends

My understanding of India’s impact on the global market continues to grow after reading Planet India: How the Fastest Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World.  Mira Kamdar’s has hilighted both positive and negative (poverty, piracy and global warming) developments in India.

I’m very impressed by India’s innovation in creating the world’s next motion picture industry.  Bollywood will not compete with Hollywood in America, it will simply run it over as India’s youth overtakes America.  Remember their population is growing and has acquired new-found wealth as a result of globalization.  It is a safe bet their children will be interested in watching movies like American teenagers.

Remember that American movie studios lose over $6 billion annually to piracy and DVD sales.  A lot of animation movie houses have offshored production from America to India.  So if you want to pursue a career in creating major motion picture animations you better understand it could involve relocating to India.  I was also impressed with Kamdar’s interview with an IT consultant from Wisconsin who moved to India to keep a job in the IT industry…something that is really out of the ordinary … for now.

Major American technology companies have made significant investments in India including IBM’s $6 Billion investment in research while hiring over 43,000 employees in Bangalore. Intel has invested over $1 Billion, and both Cisco and Microsoft have invested over $4 Billion combined.  A quite crisis in America is the growing loss of white collar jobs.  Hint: They have moved to India.

A combined 10 $Billion investment in the high tech city of Bangalore has left a number of American cities and citizens in the dust.  Those companies (and many more) will continue offshoring jobs currently in America to India.

Just as the Chinese have secured America’s blue collar manufacturing jobs, India’s well educated population has secured a growing number of white collar jobs from American companies as salary, health care and production costs have risen out of control.  Remember when New York City was the toy capital of the world and manufacturers held their reseller events at New York’s Jacob Javits Center?  Well those companies have moved to China where today over 3,000 toy companies thrive.  The same lesson is hitting America again.

There is much to learn about the impact of India and Kamdar has done a wonderful job in addressing this for America.  How will American business, education and government leaders respond?

Tags: India, Planet India, globalization, Mira Kamdar, Infosys, education, Wipro, offshoring, white collar, outsourcing, environment, technology, China, reading, trends

Session Overview:
October 15, 2008, 8:45 AM – 10:00 AM | UTC/GMT -5 hours (CDT)
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) represents a major milestone along the path towards a new understanding of the fundamental nature of the physical universe. This is a major milestone for physics, and also an important milestone for the Internet2 advanced networking community in supporting research in the U.S.

The LHC will generate many petabytes during each year of operation, and will accumulate an exabyte of real and simulated data within the first decade of its estimated 20 years of operation. Internet2 and its regional partner networks, ESnet and USLHCNet will provide the critical national and transatlantic infrastructure linking U.S. LHC scientists to the data, and to their partners in Europe and Asia.

To celebrate and highlight our community’s work, Internet2 will present a live peek behind the scenes at the LHC using advanced iHDTV technology developed by the ResearchChannel and University of Washington to provide our community a first hand view of the biggest science device on the planet and discuss the importance the community’s investment in cyberinfrastructure to this work and in future research and discovery.

This session The Importance of Cyberinfrastructure for Higher Education was truly a peek at new demands for massive data transfers over the internet.  LHC project research will be expected to generate over 5 petabytes of data.  Over today’s advanced 100Gbit networks this data will take one week to transfer from LHC to the large science research centers in America.

One week over the most advanced networks available today?  Time for an upgrade.

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, fiber, globalization, petabyte, large hadron collider, LHC, CERN, gigabit, trends

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, fiber, globalization, trends

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, fiber, globalization, trends

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, fiber, globalization, trends

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, fiber, globalization, trends

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, astronomy, China, trends

This will be an important issue for R&E Networks while consumers are fighting for bandwidth usage taxes. Internet2 seems to be moving forward without reservation to new advanced network backbones linking ESnet and I2’s services to really enhance bandwidth to Internet2 members via Level 3 with plenty of headroom to grow even further:

Internet2’s backbone can easily scale to 400Gigabits/second
–Randy Brogle, Level 3

Why is consumer bandwidth handled differently? Telcos do not have the resources to make fast bandwidth available to all consumers, they are pinching torrent sites and would love to do the same for Skype users. At some point I’m wondering if its a new revenue model.  Comcast has already stating bandwidth tax will go national by end of 2008. I take a full breath of air while sitting and breath differently running, but air is available to me nevertheless.

Bandwidth is the same to me: I need it to breath without restriction.

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, community, globalization, trends

There are timely lessons in this book from the $100 laptop and more importantly the exodus of top American talent. No surprise that top talent from India is returning home after attending college in America as globalization brings new opportunities to India.

You may be surprised to learn how Kao documents the loss of top Americans heading overseas. That’s native-born Americans leaving our best institutions (and their home country) to work in new innovation centers with more creative, less political conditions.

The list includes Paul Saffo from Stanford, John Seely Brown from Xerox PARC, Peter Schwartz from Global Business Network and Rita Colwell, former head of the National Science Foundation and current professor of biological sciences at the University of Maryland.

This American brain drain of our TOP talent is a sign that we’ll be losing more in the near term future. Politics aside the loss of talent to companies and institutions overseas (where restrictions on science are non existent) will only damage American technology leadership in the coming years.

As Kao points out the number of talented students being denied entry to the US based upon the new war on terrorism is not going to benefit America either. Kao is not addressing anyone with terrorist links, just those already accepted to our best schools being denied passports and travel based upon tighter security. We need that talent in our country to keep our innovation deveopment moving forward with the best talent … not backward in a time of war.

Globalization is directly impacting the quick growth of Singapore as a new hub for Innovation. By pulling some of the best talent from America, Singapore has quickly established a leading role in the development of future technologies — across the board. And they are not not stopping the invitations to bring the best knowledge to their country. Singapore’s Economic Development Board has secured the following institutions to open local, global schoolhouses:

University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Duke School of Medicine
Culinary Institute of America
Tisch School of the Arts

We have become too familiar with the much publicized success of India and China. Friedman has pointed us to Uruguay while Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Taiwan have also established innovation centers. Kao’s chapter, The New Geography of Innovation reinforces four key principals that used to be exclusive to America that are now everywhere:

1. Silicon Valley is now everywhere
2. Talent is now everywhere
3. Capital is now everywhere
4. Gov’t investment in military/aerospace is now everywhere

Kao’s message is clear: Innovate or Die. China is going in-house and saving billions to establish its own fleet of commercial jetliners rather than contract Boeing or Airbus.

The book is now added to my must read list for students and faculty in both K12 & Higher Education. Kao has a great book website. Take a look, download his free chapter and order the Book!

Tags: Innovation Nation, Kao, Globalization, technology, leadership, trends

Playing catch-up
Today we find a majority of schools around the country in the educational slow lane. For some reason it does not matter if the school is remote or urban, many are connecting at just 5 Megabits/second. Its like teaching history with books that still recognize Russia as the old Soviet Union….oh how I miss Gorgachev.
Any college connecting at less than 10MB — shows a lack of understanding and vision for their students who enter higher education seeking not just a degree but an advantage to enter the global marketplace.

How can any teacher provide engaging content to today’s rich media students with the school’s 5Mb/s connection? My home cable modem runs at 6Mb/s while other providers around the country are pushing 8Mb/s for a service that is sparingly used after work.

My home computer sits idle during the school day. I’d support any solution to transfer my 6Mb/s to my local school during the day. Okay, I know this probably will not work. But do you see my desire?

Lets go a step further
With emerging (and engaging) content coming from Internet2 any school (K12 or HigherEd) needs 10Mb/s minimum…to be honest it should probably be 25Mb/s minimum because 10 will be flooded immediately by students accessing rich media content.

HD video on the internet needs 8Mb/s alone, so 10Mb/s will not permit email, web and VoIP to function on the academic side while the administrative access to ERP software like Oracle and MS Dynamics cannot be off-line during a HD video broadcast.

9/11 video history
How successful could a teacher convey history lessons with access to video footage surrounding 9/11? For my generation: think of the value a history lesson from the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor. The resource Archive.org has raw video from ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS, and even the BBC from 9/11 available for free. Take a look for yourself here.

Why is this important? Because ultimately any historian whats to convey a real sense of the times. And what a resource this can be.

I would be interested to see the same access to raw video of Katrina. History teaches us compelling and emotional lessons but the impact on today’s students will only be powerful if you don’t have to deal with the “stop/start/stop/start” video jerkiness due to slow bandwidth.

Competition
Countries including Canada, South Korea and Japan deliver over 1GB/s to their schools and libraries empowering their students and citizens. Yes thats 1 Gigabit per second! Our students (I.E. our future) are learning in the slow lane. Lets use an automotive theme:

Bandwidth to the Home
Japan: 1 Gigabit/second or 1,000 miles per hour
USA : 5-8 Megabits/second or 5-8 miles per hour

Do you see the crisis looming?
Its only going to get worse. Is Bandwidth on the radar for our upcoming Presidential election — Maybe to no surprise? Just as those countries are supplying bandwidth to schools, we are losing our research edge as more and more talented Americans leave for greener pastures overseas. Please understand today’s fight for talent is not east coast vs. west coast…..its now global.

Its now East Asia vs. Western Europe with American somewhere in between and beginning to show its aging infrastructure. If you were unaware of this talent migration, may I suggest Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back I’m just half way through and have been further enlightened to the dangerous slide occurring in America.

Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, school, community, globalization, trends

Starlight is really one of the true keys of internet research and development. At the high end he presented the incredible work utilizing bandwidth coming out of Chicago and how Starlight has repositioned the globe regarding fiber points spanning the globe.

Tags: Internet2, WiscNet, Joel Mambretti, Starlight, globalization, network, trends

Could you have predicted a 100GB backbone just 10 years ago crossing the US?

At the same time Internet2 has opened a plan to redesign Internet2. This project should result in a stronger organization with continued leadership in advanced networking for research and education.

Tags: Internet2, WiscNet, Doug Van Houweling, community, globalization, trends

I’ve been watching my usage. In two months I’ve only used Outlook out of the entire Office Suite. Everything else? Moved onto online services.”
- 09:06 AM April 30, 2008 from web

Reflecting upon my own use of applications online from various vendors including my beta testing of SlideRocket, I would have to agree that the time to move from Microsoft’s Office suite to Google Apps and SlideRocket appear to make more sense than ever before as I also type this on my laptop, suggestion I’m set for wireless access to data at the office, at home and on the road.

Scoble may be predicting cloud computing solutions has really arrived because the applications available today are more than powerful enough for a majority of citizens. For those who see their roles within organizations as advanced users of MS Word and Excel, then Microsoft’s Office suite is still a perfect fit for this small user base.

Tags: Cloud Computing, Robert Scoble, Naked Conversations, community, Google Apps, Microsoft Office, globalization, trends

Tags: Internet2, laptop, orchestra, community, globalization, trends

Would you like to fully understand the impact of this policy? May I suggest starting with Tom Friedman’s bestseller The World Is Flat 3.0?

Make sure you read Version 3.0 — Friedman’s update measures how quickly the world has adopted Globalization with networking technologies woven into the fabric of global business, government and education sprinkled around some of the most far reaching locations worldwide.

Friedman shared in version 1.0 fiber has made Milwaukee, Mumbai and Moscow next-door neighbors. With these new digital neighbors we are just milliseconds away from economic, educational and cultural collaboration and communication.

In version 3.0 he proves that someone with a powerful imagination can secure business in Milwaukee or Moscow like no other time on the world’s history. Communication and Collaboration have been moved to a new level and any talented individual with a consumer computer, skill and network access can not just thrive, but drive new business around the globe.

…And while your at it, plan to read his upcoming book Green is the new Red, White and Blue. Its Globalization + Environmental Revolution. As he noted in an address at Brown in a Revolution someone always gets hurt.
Schools and business are lining up to be hurt by a lack of high speed broadband.

A National Broadband Policy:
Windhausen (Principal of Telepoly) is suggesting the upgrade of fiber to match forecasted global broadband speeds at implementation. The biggest impacts highlighted by John include Optical Switching, Core Switching and Access Capacity — also known as The Last Mile.
This means a network connection coming from a switch directly connects your local school, library, performance center or hospital. Traditionally this is the area where the network slows down due to local limits.

Bandwidth: As vital is air
Windhausen acknowledged telecommunication companies are hiding their current bit shortages by blocking capacity to bandwidth hungry applications including BitTorrent. Its a roundabout way to delay or block traffic to conserve bandwidth. The trouble with this approach (IMHO) is that telcom companies are attempting to cap bandwidth. Its the same as trying to choke air from my lungs.

The congestion automobile drives faces in major metropolitan markets like Chicago are reflective of the construction themes necessary to outfit our country, business and most significantly our children to compete in tomorrow’s global economy. And by the looks of how other countries are adopting broadband we must empower our next generation with skills for a knowledge driven economy:

U.S. rank among 30 OECD Nations:
15th in broadband adoption
14th in average download speed
18th in broadband price per megabit

Today’s advanced networks including Internet2 are making significant steps in communication and collaboration regarding science, engineering and medicine. By empowering citizens with fast broadband the ripple effect will be wide: telework, telehealth and distance learning. This will potentially reset the most important foundation in our country, education. But Network and Technology teams cannot upgrade education without teachers, curriculum/content specialists and parents demanding change.

The use of advanced networks in schools around the country by 2012 will not only keep our children’s heads above water in the global economic world, it will provide a structure of application and access that will carry them into their professions and personal lives.

Tags: Internet2, Windhausen, National Broadband Policy, Globalization, Network, community, trends

But will this upgrade be the next great Y2K project? Probably. And consider all those IPv4 consumer gadgets that are connecting to the internet today… Yikes! But fear not: Many companies are already moving to IPv6 .Google is already set. And while Apple’s OS X Leopard is already IPv6 capable, oh how Windows XP is not….and I’m not upgrading to Vista based on IPv6 alone.

This session was moderated by Internet2 CEO Doug Van Houwling who is speaking in Madison at WiscNet’s Future Technologies Conference May 13th & 14 at Monona Terrace.

Another strong presentation was John Windhausen’s “National Broadband Policy” presentation. The goal: an 8 billion dollar investment to provide 100MB broadband service to every school, home and business by 2012.

Its a globalized world and we better keep ahead of the curve. But the wisdom of the crowd will have to drive our congress to make this happen. This type of thinking will not develop by itself by our elected officials.

Tags: Internet2, WiscNet, Doug Van Houweling, John Curran, ARIN, John Windhausen, national broadband policy, trends

In higher education the opportunity to collaborative remains a big challenge due to the fact that working collaboratively now extends across the globe. In the end the fast changing globalized world will benefit from educational institutions empowered by advanced networks. By the way … Internet2’s CEO Doug Van Houweling will be speaking in Madison at WiscNet’s Future Technologies Conference.

Tags: Internet2, WiscNet, Doug Van Houweling, community, globalization, trends

Tuesday May 13th Doug Van Houweling, President of Internet2 will keynote the first day of the conference. Joel Mambretti, Director of the International Center for Advanced Internet Research at Northwestern will be addressing the FTC on Wednesday.

You can register here for the 2 day conference in Madison.

Tags: Internet2, WiscNet, Doug Van Houweling, Joel Mambretti, Madison, global education, trends

Finally just in time for the Olympic games in China (149 days until the opening ceremonies) Verizon’s $500 million terabit cable to China should be fully operational.

Tags: Internet2, Verizon, optical network, olympics, globalization, network, China, trends

The goal is to empower IT administrators, faculty and other campus leaders with the ability to make group membership and resource privilege changes using one consolidated tool, rather than updating each individual application. This improves security and reduces the time needed to manage project groups, both on and off campus.

Collaborators want tools such as shared calendaring, videoconferencing, and wikis that integrate their teaching and research lives and their institutional and inter-institutional worlds
Ken Klingenstein,
Internet2 Sr. Director of Middleware and Security

The grant will enable further development and research on both identity and access management. Internet2 has been developing Shibboleth Single Sign-on. Shibboleth is standards-based, open source middleware software which provides Web Single SignOn across or within organizational boundaries. It allows sites to make informed authorization decisions for individual access of protected online resources in a privacy-preserving manner.

Tags: Internet2, Educause, National Science Foundation, Middleware, network, trends