KU to host national meeting on Internet2 Aug. 3-7 at Kansas Union

LAWRENCE -- The University of Kansas will be host to the ESCC/Internet2 Joint Techs Workshop Aug. 3 through 7 in the Kansas Union. The meeting is co-sponsored by the Energy Sciences Network Coordinating Committee (ESCC) and Internet2.

"KU's selection as the site of this meeting shows the respect that the meeting sponsors and our national peers have for KU's role as a founding member and current participant in the development of Internet2 as a resource for research," said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor David E. Shulenburger, who will welcome the participants to KU on Monday morning. "This is the most important meeting for research networking from an information technology research perspective."

Internet1 is what most people use when they access the Internet; it now is a public network largely dedicated to general commercial use. It originally was developed as a private network for the national defense effort, and in the 1970s, network engineers began transforming it into an information superhighway to support both university scholarly research and national defense information.

As the Internet grew in popularity, academic researchers found it decreasingly useful in transferring information. Research uses of the network require substantial bandwidth, and there is a need for the bandwidth to be available at particular times. These needs prompted the National Science Foundation to promote the building of a new Internet, called Internet2. This network's purpose was to create a network exclusively for higher education that would provide a more stable capacity and could be used for education and research purposes. Internet2 supports research applications that use enormous amounts of bandwidth and no longer will work over an Internet1 connection.

KU was one of the original leaders in the development of the Internet2 network. The university received several NSF grants to support the multi-state Great Plains Network, which provides Internet2 services to Midwest institutions. Jerry Niebaum, assistant vice provost for KU information services, was instrumental in the building of Internet2 and serves as executive director of the Great Plains Network Consortium, KU's regional representative and access point to Internet2. Along with other partners, KU continues the development of the Internet2 network both on and off campus.

The general public will benefit from the existence of Internet2 because it is vital for spurring innovation. Technology companies such as CISCO Systems, Microsoft and IBM all use the resources available on Internet2 to test new technologies. Researchers are using Internet2 to test videoconferencing applications that eventually will be as easy to operate as e-mail.

"These are the cr�me de la cr�me of the professionals in networking," said John Louis, director of KU networking and telecommunications. "This conference only happens twice a year. For KU to be selected as the host for this one is important because it says that the networking community sees KU as an important contributor to the Internet2 initiative."

The meeting agenda will focus on a combination of advanced technology, infrastructure updates and case study sessions. The special focus areas will be: optical networking, security issues, and network tuning and performance monitoring.

The meeting will start at 1 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 3, and will conclude at noon Thursday, Aug. 7. Approximately 175 networking professionals from universities across the country, technology corporations and government technology offices will participate in this working meeting.

Reporters who are interested in covering the meeting may find the session "Desktop Television: Entertainment Video Over the Campus Data Network" to be interesting and less technical than some of the other presentations; this talk will be at 11:40 a.m. Monday, Aug. 4, in the Kansas Union ballroom. Reporters are asked to check in at the KU welcome table, which will be in the International Room in the union. Bill Klein, assistant director of KU networking and telecommunications services, coordinated the conference on behalf of KU.