Learning Technology Development Council (LTDC)

ITMC/EMTC/LTDC/Server Support Joint Conference, Wisconsin Dells, May 3-4, 2001

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ITMC - Information Technology Management Council
EMTC - Educational Media Technology Council
LTDC - Learning Technology Development Centers

 
May 3, 2001
May 4, 2001

Internet 2 and Beyond

Classroom Technology Update

UW System IT Planning

Campus Presentations

UW System Administration Project Updates

Purchasing Update Internet Bandwidth Limitation Techniques and Policy Implications Roundtable Discussion of Issues 		WiscNet Update Campus Presentations (continued) Network/Internet Use Data Privacy/Security Panel Report from Server Support Group ITMC Business Meeting

Internet 2 and Beyond (Douglas Van Houweling, CEO of UCAID)

The focus in higher education networking is swinging to new classes of high performance applications, e.g.,:
  • rich media on demand
  • collaboration
  • remote access to research facilities
  • very large scale systems
The challenge is to scale and propagate the demonstration projects:
  • The Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century has been put together by Northwestern University. It is available on both Internet 1 and Internet 2 (which is a lot faster).
  • Research TV at the University of Washington is accumulating an archive of video programs about scientific research in the United States. The programs can also be watched live on Internet 2 at 6 Mbps with a picture that is better than standard television.
  • The University of Oklahoma is doing work in regional weather prediction of severe storms. Computing models are accurate to within a mile or two, unfortunately they only work half as fast as the real weather. The goal is to feed live NEXRAD weather data into a distributed terra-scale computing facility linked by 40 Gbps of networking to run the model faster than the weather evolves.
  • The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has a distributed nanoManipulator. The researcher wears stereo glasses and manipulates a probe that is linked to a remote electron microscope.
  • The University of Hawaii has an observatory on the top of Mauna Kea, which is the best place in the world for telescopes. It is at an altitude of 14,000 feet where it is difficult to think if you are not acclimated. The actual astronomy is done 30 miles away via networking in a control station at sea level.  A duplicate control station is being built at UC-Santa Cruz that can also run the observatory so that researchers don't have to travel all the way to Hawaii only to encounter weather that obscures their observations.
  • The University of Michigan is doing work on space physics (SPRAC) at the uppermost levels of the atmosphere where the sun's interactivity is highest. A worldwide network linking radio telescopes at remote locations makes it possible to use more than one instrument simultaneously in real time instead of traveling to the radio telescopes sequentially. The network also opens up the telescopes to graduate students, who have never been allowed to travel to the actual telescopes.
  • The Ohio State University is exploring collaboration on surgical procedures whereby a remote expert assists the practicing surgeon. With laproscopic procedures, it's all done via monitors anyway.
  • CAVEs are environments where each surface of the room is a rear projection screen. The occupant wears 3-D glasses and exists in a synthetic environment, such as stepping inside molecules or sitting inside car designs that have never been built. Tele-cubicle experiments are using similar technology to make people in remote locations feel as if they are sitting around the same conference table. Other synthetic environments can be superimposed, e.g., a large model of the brain or a molecule. Hence it promises to be better than sitting around a real conference table.
Internet 2 is a project that allows higher education to explore projects like the above. Around 1995, the Internet was largely distributed around the United States and centered on higher education before it was transferred to the commercial providers. A year later higher education realized it made a mistake because the growth took off in the commercial areas and the network could not grow fast enough to keep up with the demand. This resulted in the "world wide wait". As the Internet became inadequate for mission critical applications the commercial interests began creating private intranets and extranets that were surrounded by firewalls, which was not a option for the open environment of higher education.

Higher education needed a network that would support human interaction and distributed large scale computing, but the commercial interests couldn't provide it or even invest time in the necessary R&D to create it. In 1996, a group of 34 universities got together to create the Internet 2 high performance networking project. They pledged money and upgrades to their campus networks to ensure end to end performance. By September 1997, the not for profit corporation UCAID was created to facilitate the efforts.

Today's Internet has millions of users doing web, email and low quality audio and video via technologies that are designed to perform in unreliable, limited bandwidth environments. Soon the Internet will have billions of users and devices (such as automobiles). It will carry telephony, high definition TV, etc. However the current Internet is not designed to handle these applications, hence the need for Internet 2 to accelerate the creation of tomorrow's Internet.

The goals of Internet 2 are to:

  • enable a new generation of applications
  • recreate leading edge research and educational networking capabilities
  • ensure the rapid transfer of new networking services and applications to the global Internet
Internet 2 currently has:
  • 185 U.S. universities
  • 70+ for profit entities
  • 30+ non-profit entities
  • international partners
Internet 2 is focussing on the development of middleware, which connects the hardware to the applications that are running on the network. It provides services such authorization, identification, security, etc.  In fall 2001, there will be the ability to do multi-institution authentication, i.e., to have one ID and password that works across multiple universities to mitigate the balkanization within higher education.

Engineering efforts are proceeding on:

  • quality of service, you can't do Internet assisted surgery (or teaching) if the network is unreliable
  • scalable IP multicast
  • IPv6
  • network security
  • network management
  • network measurement
The Internet 2 backbone operates at 2.4 Gbps with regional gigapops, such as the one in Chicago, which is used by the University of Wisconsin System. Internet 2 is not connected to Internet 1, so institutions need two connections.

Some of the lessons learned from Internet 2 include:

  • the difficulty of delivering performance on an end-to-end basis (the devil is in the details, you can't just plug fast components together)
  • the need to broaden the reach of Abiline to the participants' collaborators, such as state networks, museums, K12 schools, etc.
  • things you never thought would happen, will, e.g., the world wide web and peer-to-peer computing (which was spawned from Internet 2)
  • the ability of any user to become an innovator

Resources

http://www.internet2.edu
http://www.internet2.edu/html/lists.html
info@internet2.edu

Questions and Answers

What will be the impact of HR-1542 to deregulate the Bell industry, which may impede such applications as IP telephony? You can hold back innovations in particular places for a period of time, but since the Internet is global you only hurt yourself. It is unlikely that the U.S. will step away from the advantage it has in the Internet.

When will Internet 2 features be introduced in the commercial Internet? Large corporations can already buy these capabilities for private networks, but they won't come to homes and businesses until the cable industry catches on. Widespread deployment of more than 10 Mbps access will probably take 4-5 years. The Netherlands and areas of Canada are ahead of us. Other places are behind, or have different emphases, e.g., Japan is focussed on high bandwidth wireless connectivity.

How difficult will it be to bring in IPv6 or take advantage of unused portions of the existing IP protocol? The larger address space of IPv6 is necessary, but equipment isn't available to translate the addresses in real time. Worldwide rollout of IPv6 will be easier than in the United States which has 90% of the IP addresses in the world.

What will happen as Internet 2 is expanded to the K12s? It is too early to tell because Internet 2 only gives access to other Internet 2 institutions. So the question is, how important is it for K-12 institutions to network with universities and K-12 institutions in other states?

Classroom Technology Update (Charles Cottle and Jim Jorstad)

Jim Jorstad led the conference participants in the Oath of Technology:
 
"I, __________, promise to do my best and to do my duty for the effective and efficient use of technology. I will keep the network operational. I will help and assist faculty with eagerness. I will keep all multi-media equipment functional. And I will strive to keep my administration happy. Long live the light of technology as it burns brightly!"

We are experiencing classroom budget creep. There used to be only science laboratories, then there were computer science laboratories, then computing laboratories in the physical sciences, then computing laboratories in the humanities and the arts. In the last few years classrooms have changed to the point that it takes $20-30K to create a UW System level 3 classroom. Ongoing cost and maintenance is on the order of $2,500 per classroom per year at today's prices. These are astounding numbers given the paucity of current classroom modernization budgets.

A systemwide survey of Educational Media Technology Council (EMTC) representatives shows there is a wide variety of technology classrooms throughout the UW System:

  • the UW System institutions have, on average, 45 technology classrooms apiece
  • most UW System campuses, 79%,  do not have adequate classroom support staffing
  • most UW System campuses, 64%, do not have a replacement schedule for classroom equipment
  • most UW System campuses have resorted to creative funding to build and maintain classrooms
  • approximately $100,000 is needed on average per institution for annual classroom equipment replacement
Over the past three years the UW System institutions have invested almost $18M in classroom technology as tallied by the EMTC. Undoubtedly additional investments have been made by departments, schools and colleges. Systemwide, the EMTC estimates that it will take $2 M annually to support classroom technology.

Classroom technology trends:

  • there is a philosophical difference between building equipment into classrooms versus making it portable
  • there is a merging of the ITMC and EMTC responsibilities
  • there is a blending of EMTC and LTDC projects
  • there is a blurring of lines between computing and media
  • key personnel are sharing and collaborating

UW System IT Planning (Ed Meachen)

The UW System produces a new IT Strategic Plan in every odd numbered year and an update in the intervening years. Debbie Durcan and Ed Meachen will present an outline of the IT Strategic Plan to the Board of Regents in June. At the October meeting of the Board of Regents the finished plan for 2001-2003 will be presented.

The UW System CIOs used to create the IT plan and have it validated by the CBOs and vice chancellors. This year there are many more players involved. In fall 2000, there was a summit of CIOs, CBOs and vice chancellors that set overall direction for the plan. Individual campus IT plans also provide input into the UW System plan via an iterative process. A smaller planning group of CIOs met last month. An Executive Group for Online Learning (EGOL), which includes 9 chancellors and 2 Regents, was set up by President Lyall to also provide input. A Common Systems Funding Group, made up of CBOs and a couple CIOs and vice chancellors is identifying funding for the plan. The Board of Regents has also tasked the Schools of Education to join in the IT planning process.

The EGOL group is meeting monthly and creating a vision of combining curricula from multiple institutions in an online environment, i.e., degree programs that combine courses from various departments and universities across the UW System. This will raise broad policy issues, although funding will probably be available.

The Common Systems Funding Group has developed a strategy to underwrite common systems, including shared administrative and academic systems. There is approximately $7 M in solid funding in the Common Systems budget, but there are $14 M of projects. Therefore:

  1. some of the projects may be reduced to make them less expensive
  2. the initial development of the large ERP systems may be funded through internal borrowing
  3. funding for technology projects will be solicited in the 2003-05 biennial budget with support from the Regents
  4. exit strategies will be managed for pieces of the Common System efforts, e.g., generating revenue from partners or moving production systems back to the campuses.
The UW System IT plan will focus on two principle areas:
  1. network infrastructure
  • controlling growth
  • funding the inevitable increases
  • ensuring quality of service
  • end-to-end management without small, independent LANs
  • the core mission of education, especially online learning:
    • the WWBLS utilities
    • network management
    • design of online curricula
    • research and development in online learning
    • management of digital assets, both media and data
    • a common approach to portals and administrative systems
    Information technology (IT) is so integrated into the university that this effort forms a strategic plan for the UW System, not just for IT.

    Questions and Answers

    What about classrooms, which is where most learning still takes place? The good news is that:
    1. there are a capital funds for classroom renovation in the governor's budget
    2. there are existing classroom and laboratory modernization programs
    The bad news is that although it appears that there are two sources of funding, they are not adequate and the funding doesn't always get to the entities responsible for supporting the classrooms.

    How does the legislature view the e-government initiative? The joint finance committee is meeting tomorrow and the UW System Administration has been meeting with individual legislators. The roles of purchasing and other functions may be clarified as individual issues.

    Are there any provisions for increasing staff? The state government has put limits on the amount of staff in the University of Wisconsin System. The total staff count cannot be increased without also paying for the fringe benefits of the additional staff. Some positions may be freed up by changing the mechanisms for counting certain types of positions, such as adjunct faculty members.

    What is happening with TEACH and emerging technologies? The UW System Administration Office for Learning and Information Technology (OLIT) put together a plan for researching new technologies to support TEACH's primary focus on the K12s. It hasn't been implemented, perhaps because of the changes in the administration.

    Campus Presentations

    Technology Strategic Planning (Kathy Pletcher)

    A few years ago, the UW-Green Bay campus adopted a comprehensive technology plan which states that the ambition of IT is to:
    • enhance student learning
    • enable the transmission of knowledge
    • support campus management functions
    An action plan was developed that focussed on:
    • infrastructural upgrades (beginning in 1998), including:
      • a new campus backbone with switched technology
      • 1,200 new NT and Macintosh workstations
      • Outlook Exchange for email
      • new residential hall networking
      • a new user support center
    • the Voyager library system
    • the PeopleSoft Student Information System
    • the Shared Financial System
    • courseware
    A new action plan for 2005 was recently created that:
    • supports ongoing use of technology in teaching initiatives, including the LTC, the Library and media services
    • maintains the currency of desktop applications
      •  Office 2000 - summer 2000
      •  Windows 2000 - summer 2001
      •  ongoing support for Macintosh
    • implements new applications
      • Shared Financial System -  2000
      • Student Payroll System - 2000
      • Voyager universal borrowing system - 2001
      • PeopleSoft student information system - 2001-02
        • admissions and recruitment - September 2001
        • financial aid - January 2002
        • student records - February 2002
        • academic advising - April 2002
        • student financials - summer 02
        • human resources - 2002-03
    The various systems were paid for by different combinations of campus and UW System funding. A fundamental premise of the plan is that technology is planned, bought and supported centrally to eliminate the discrepancies between the "haves" and "have nots". The focus is on the functions that need to be performed, not the technology itself.

    Campus Network Management (Dan Dargel)

    The UW-Platteville network was recently upgraded from a flat to a routed environment. Traffic shaping, rate limiting, traffic measurement and user education are being investigated in an effort to keep network traffic affordable.

    UW-Platteville is planning to upgrade its aging residence hall network via a lease of switched 10/100 technology. A caching engine will probably be implemented in the fall semester. Novell and LDAP are being leveraged to provide the authentication scheme. Zen is used to provide hands-off software installations on client workstations. In mid May the campus ID system will be upgraded to Envision, which uses Oracle. Last year seven high tech classrooms were created, and four more are planned for the coming summer. A wireless pilot project with access points in the library is underway. It will expand to encompass dining facilities, the new student center, conference spaces and some classrooms and labs. VPN tunnels may be used to authenticate people to the wireless network.

    The campus is currently building a new student center that has a large technology area. It will open by December 2001. All of the General Computer Access (GCA) labs will be clustered in the center for economies of scale for support. The LTC and Help Desk will also be moved to the center.

    A web-based email system based on Novell's Internet Messaging System was launched this month. It also has POP and IMAP servers. Degree auditing and advising have been implemented in PeopleSoft.

    An agricultural stewardship farm will do total systems research on the food chain and its associated environmental impacts. An educational technology center with a distance education room will be part of the infrastructure. A high capacity network link will be created between the farm and the campus and wireless capabilities will be used both indoors and outdoors.

    Campus Networking (Robert Lee)

    At UW-Madison, DoIT has recently combined their network operations and network engineering departments. The campus network backbone runs at 622 Mbps.  Departments can connect individual workstations to the network, or entire departments and buildings can connect using 10 - 1000 Ethernet, or ATM OC3. There are similar connectivity options for servers. DoIT also provides facilities management and system administration for the clients that want it.

    The UW-Madison modem pool has 2,500+ modems (480 are analog). All have a 4 hour time limits. Forty-eight modems are in a 10 minute express pool. There haven't been busy signal problems for 2 years. The modem to user ratio is level so there are no plans to expand the modem pool. The modem pool telephone lines are free due to reciprocal compensation with TDS, which will likely continue through FY 2003.

    Wireless point to point networks are used to connect the campus network to buildings that are not on the physical campus. A wireless version of WiscWorld has been installed so that anyone on campus can reach it by walking less than five minutes. It is currently available in two Unions, the Memorial Library, Grainger Hall and Bascom Hall. Solid bandwidth is available for about 100 feet outside of the buildings. Wireless users are authenticated for four hour timeslots through the WiscWorld modem pool database. Usage is slowly increasing as more people become aware of it.

    Bidding is underway for a consultant to help with strategic planning for the network. Likely technology developments include:

    • implementing a multi-gigabit backbone
    • increasing Internet bandwidth and/or shaping the traffic, especially in the residence halls
    • optimizing content delivery through peering and caching
    • expanding the wireless network
    • considering the consolidation of data, video and voice onto one network with adequate quality of service

    UW System Administration Project Updates

    IAA Project (Bob Jokisch)

    Six months ago, the funding was approved for a systemwide directory services repository and a whitepages pilot project. DoIT, the project contractor, will host the IAA registry, the LDAP directory and the whitepages server.  UW-Stout, UW-Eau Claire, UW Colleges and UW-Madison will be involved in building the initial directory services infrastructure by November of 2001. Meanwhile, the systemwide IAA technical and policy committees will review the progress and watch technology developments. By December 2002, hopefully all of the UW system institutions will be live. The infrastructure will then be applied to other applications, such as the Lawson APBS system.

    Library Activities (Lori Docken)

    Universal Borrowing.

    Three UW System institutions have been beta testing a universal borrowing module that will enable people to check out materials from any UW System library. Queries will be broadcast to the selected libraries, which may have performance ramifications for Voyager. The beta testing is slated to finish in May, and Voyager will release the product in June. Complete systemwide implementation is planned by the end of 2001. The library automation managers are looking at the issues associated with different institutions having their own local patron files, which may or may not have all of the necessary data elements.

    Strategic Planning

    Senior Vice President Beaver appointed a task force of nine library directors to identify strategic directions for the next biennium. The changing nature of the learning environment will be considered, and the library plan will be included in the overall IT Strategic Plan. Funding is available to support some new initiatives.

    Digital Library Initiative

    The library directors have been discussing approaches to digitizing library content, such as print archives, audio and video. A systemwide approach is being discussed that will collaborate with the digitization center at the UW-Madison library.

    PeopleSoft/Collaterals/MILER/APBS/SFS (David Hart)

    The Shared Financials System is moving forward according to plan. Upgrades from PeopleSoft version 7.2 to 7.5 are progressing. The APBS Core Team has come together, and hardware for initial testing has been acquired. The contract negotiations with Lawson are in process.

    Nine institutions are in the midst of implementing the PeopleSoft Student Information System, seven are working with version 7.6 and two are planning for 8. Version 7.6 is now a stable product. Student financials and student billing are still problematic. Version 8 is looking good, and is targeted for October 2001. Campuses that wish to upgrade from 7.6 will need to wait until January to acquire the code.

    The systemwide collaboration has been wonderful, and FASTAR is very strong at delivering patches and fixes for the campuses involved in implementation. A few UW System FTEs are now involved in the MILER core team to assist with new implementations. A best practices database is being leveraged at the new installations. The investment in Informatica is paying off well. First Logic, the vendor, is building the resolution of duplicate IDs into Informatica.

    ADL Academic Co-Lab (Ed Meachen)

    The ADL Academic Co-Lab is a partnership between the UW System, the Wisconsin Technical College System and the Department of Defense to test and roll out standards for web based learning tools and management systems. Currently, standards are rare in online learning and the Department of Defense is endeavoring to leverage its $15 billion training budget by being able to move learning objects between various learning management systems and course management systems.

    There are projects underway to create small learning objects, as opposed to entire courses that are difficult to update, and repositories to store them. Several funding sources have been identified, including $1 M in the governor's budget. A project manager for the Co-Lab, its first FTE, will be hired shortly. A learning objects repository will soon be located in the Pyle Center as a partnership between the Department of Defense and major publishers. Grants are being pursued to create learning objects in partnership with the California Community Colleges and the Alliance of research I universities.

    A formal commission has been created, with five members each from the UW System and WTCS, to set policy and budget priorities for the Co-Lab.

    Purchasing Update (Ruth Anderson)

    Contract highlights:
    • Negotiations with Lawson for the APBS system are ongoing. Several difficult issues have been resolved and a contract will likely be negotiated in a few weeks
    • An unlimited systemwide site license for the Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks products for faculty and staff is being pursued. Students would still have to pay a fee. Costs have not yet been determined.
    • An open ended volume license for Adobe products is being pursued.
    • An Autodesk contract has been negotiated and pricing is being determined
    • Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) discounts for PCs are being implemented. Compaq is already available. Dell will be available soon. Gateway and IBM will follow.
    • Investigation of an antivirus software contract will follow the above efforts.
    UW-Milwaukee is purchasing concurrent licenses of Adobe and Macromedia products, and controlling usage with KeyServer technology. They are experiencing a 12:1 ratio of users to software.

    Internet Bandwidth Limitation Techniques and Policy Implications

    Web Caching (David Kieper)

    UW-Green Bay is using a Cacheflow product to reduce bandwidth. Local caching improves the perceived performance of the network. Even if a page isn't cached locally, the cache engine pulls its objects across the Internet in more parallel streams than a browser alone.

    The disadvantages of caching include:

    • the cost of the caching unit
    • increased network complexity
    • the caching of dynamic pages, such as e-Bay, requires their manual reloading
    Cache engines can be set up like proxy servers, or set up as layer four transparent redirectors for http traffic, which requires no effort by the enduser.

    Statistics from UW-Green Bay:

    • 42% of pages are served from the local cache
    • 27% of pages are loaded from their sources
    • 31% of pages are non-cacheable

    Firewalls (David Kieper)

    UW-Green Bay has just begun using Floodgate products from Checkpoint for firewall purposes and to control the bandwidth of different traffic flows and VPNs. They are finding 30 to 50 serious port scan attacks on their network per day. UW-Madison is looking to offer a service to departments to firewall individual connections. UW-Superior has a fixed firewall for the administrative servers to enable web registration from off campus. Core administrative clients will be connected behind the firewall where they won't have to compete with other forms of traffic, such as Napster. UW-Oshkosh has a fixed firewall in front of PeopleSoft. UW-River Falls is doing protocol filtering on edge routers.

    Packet Shaping with Packeteer (Bob Barley)

    UW-Whitewater has recently installed Packeteer to compensate for increased Napster traffic after their WiscNet connection was upgraded. Approval to install Packeteer between the border router and the campus network core was sought from the University Technology Committee. Six MP3 applications were throttled for a one month test. Bandwidth decreased from 35 to 25 Mbps. The data were provided to the UTC and the funding implications of WiscNet bandwidth were explained. As a result, a UTC subcommittee is developing a Packeteer implementation policy. In the interim, the computer center has the autonomy to throttle applications as they see fit. UW-Oshkosh is also using Packeteer to control outbound peer-to-peer traffic.

    Packet Shaping with Net Enforcer (Doug Wahl)

    UW-Stout purchased Net Enforcer because it has the ability to timestamp and schedule different policies at different times of day. To date they haven't explored those capabilities. They are using it to limit Napster-type traffic instead. Discussions with students in the residence halls were instrumental in lowering the traffic during the day. The residence life administration is willing to pay for 8 Mbps of traffic and the campus is willing to pay for 10 Mbps. Therefore, rate limiting is being used to keep traffic at 18 Mbps in both directions. UW-River Falls is taking a similar approach.

    Router QoS Policies (Robert Lee)

    UW-Madison is also extensively doing web caching with Cacheflow devices. They have experienced a 300% improvement on delivery of cached sites. The perceived bandwidth increased from 3 - 8 Mbps.

    There are three basic types of rate limiting methods:

    • aggregate based - limiting total bandwidth at a specific connection, e.g., the residence hall network
    • flow based - limiting individual flows (source/destination combinations) within a network
    • TCP based - limiting various service types, similar to Packeteer
    Alternatives to rate limiting are:
    • quotas - hard limits
    • adaptive techniques - performance gets worse as limits are approached
    Higher educational institutions are becoming providers rather than consumers of Internet bandwidth. A rate limiting experiment restricted the outbound residential network traffic to Abiline and WiscNet to 10 Mbps each as opposed to the norm of approximately 30 Mbps. It took two weeks for the experiment to be noticed. Flow based rate limits were also tried. Aggregate outbound flow from the residential network was limited to 33.6 Mbps, which generated complaints. Other algorithms proved more tolerable.

    Bandwidth Quotas (Jim Lowe)

    UW-Eau Claire is looking at possibly implementing quotas. They have 1,000 off campus cable modem users, 3,000 residence hall users, 3,000 faculty, staff and lab users plus 160 modems and wireless access points. They have found that 74% of their outbound traffic and 40% of their inbound traffic is each generated by less than 1% of their community. Each person on the network consumes about 10 Kbps. If people burst too high, the goal will be to bring their usage back in line rather than attempting to manage content or applications.

    This type of limiting can be done by creating lists that degrade access for those who send more than a given number of bytes over a period of time. A one gigabit per day quota on everyone would lower the campus network output to 59% of its current volume. Similarly, a one-half gigabit per day quote would drop output to 46%.

    Potential issues with bandwidth quotas include:

    • Flow data is more easily gathered by IP number than by individual, which means students could jump to different IP numbers when they reached their quota. Therefore, IP numbers would need to be mapped to people.
    • Some applications may become untenable, e.g., large video conferences over IP.
    • Procedures would have to be set up for handling exceptions to the quotas
    Their implementation timeline is as follows:
    • May - analyze current data
    • June/July - investigate rate limits, adaptive technologies, reasonable quotas, etc.
    • August - integrate usage and access lists
    • September - discuss quotas with campus stakeholders
    • October - go live before WiscNet measures traffic to calculate future bills

    Roundtable Discussion of Issues

    Voice Over IP

    UW-River Falls has acquired Cisco VoIP equipment and met with Burbee Information Systems. UW-Madison is experimenting with VoIP in a few offices. VoIP is an interesting technology familiarization project, but there are issues with trying to scale it radically. DOA wants to know up front what is happening with VoIP experiments. Other regional networks feel that VoIP is not competitive given falling rates for standard voice service. VoIP may take off first in residential service.

    WiscNet Update (David Lois)

    WiscNet gets Internet access from three different sources:
    1. purchased bandwidth - the most expensive
    2. peering relationships with other networks - much cheaper with better performance
    3. Akamai content servers in Wisconsin
    In May 2002, WiscNet's Internet traffic is projected to be over 1 Gigabit per second. WiscNet's goals are to increase options, increase access and reduce costs by:
    • increasing backbone capacity
    • increasing peering relationships
    • connecting to additional Internet 1 providers at more access points
    • connecting to Internet 2
    This will be accomplished by:
    • A new OC-3 between UW-Eau Claire and UW-Madison which will increase backbone capacity within the state and provide additional Internet access via Qwest.
    • Last week's connection of a new OC-12 circuit between UW-Madison and the co-location spot in Chicago.
    • The connection of an OC-12 circuit between UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee to increase backbone capacity and access to both Internet 1 and Internet 2 via Qwest.
    • A new OC-12 between the Chicago co-location point and Ameritech's AADS location.
    • New peering circuits connected to the Merit network in Michigan.
    The technical challenges that the WiscNet Board and WiscNet members face include:
    • Internet 2 - Two WiscNet members are already Internet 2 members, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison, with the Medical College of Wisconsin coming soon. Internet 2 services will likely become mission critical to all WiscNet members in the near future.
    • Peer-to-peer networking - The issue is not Napster itself, but how peer-to-peer networking will cause changes in the network infrastructure.
    • Getting More, and Getting it Faster - Services and circuits have to be predicted well in advance because it takes a long time to provision them and get them in place (see table below).
    • Dark fiber - Often touted as a panacea, but has last mile issues and isn't supported in the same fashion as leased circuits.
    • Last Mile $ - The costs of OC-12 and OC-48 circuits for extending the network the last mile from a WiscNet hub to a member, or within the Chicago local loop, are increasing and becoming as significant as long distance circuit costs.
    Timeline for Provisioning New Circuits
    Identifying the Need ?
    Identifying a Funding Source ?
    Purchasing the circuit 2 months
    Getting the circuit online 6 - 8 months

    The questions is often asked whether WiscNet traffic is doubling annually as claimed. Yes, Internet access is already up 130% from last year. The October 2000 bandwidth projections that created the last round of bills are within 5% of the actual April 2001 traffic readings. The filtering requests from 170 K12 school districts grew from 4.3 Mbits in March 2000 to 8.3 Mbits in March 2001. The traffic across WiscNet's peering connections has increased three-fold in the last year.

    Internet 2 is important this year because:

    • Regional networks like WiscNet can now connect to Internet 2 directly instead of going through an Internet 2 member institution.
    • Internet 2 will provide new applications bundled with teacher training, e.g., virtual tours, tele-emersion, shared virtual reality, advanced video, 3-D animations, etc.
    • Peering with Internet 2 will improve the Internet 1 bandwidth to the other institutions that are also on Internet 2
    • UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, and the Medical College of Wisconsin are already involved in Internet 2 and paying their associated costs. The UW System institutions represent potential Internet 2 partners who may be able to get startup funding via budget initiatives that will be paid back later.
    WiscNet is getting involved in a Net2Net Partnership with the Merit network in Michigan (see http://www.wiscnet.net/net2net). The partnership will provide:
    • cost savings in Chicago due to bulk purchasing
    • shorter timelines on circuit installations
    • reduced risks on circuit installations
    • sharing opportunities for Internet transit service providers
    • additional opportunities for peering with large networks
    • reduction of overhead for engineering, purchasing, etc.
    In the future the partnership may help attract content delivery networks (CDNs) to bring additional content into Wisconsin and to attract the participation of other regional networks.

    MyWiscNet (see http://mywiscnet.wiscnet.net) is a prototype for a new set of services that are private to WiscNet members. There are currently four services:

    • network traffic site graphs, with the ability to add whatever graphs that are desired, e.g., graphs of downstream segments for different time periods
    • a set of utilities, such as ping and traceroutes
    • SANS security resources to help system administrators secure their servers from hacking
    • WiscNet member information and contacts
    Future services may include billing projections and control of web filtering.

    What is the role of DOA in circuit acquisitions? There have been a couple difficult acquisitions, but DOA has been very responsive with recent circuit procurements.

    What will it take to get the other UW campuses on Internet 2?

    1. WiscNet has to interface directly to Internet 2 without sending traffic through the campus network of one of the primary Internet 2 members. This will require a change of the rules governing Internet 2.
    2. A separate, high performance, virtual network will have to be created on top of WiscNet.

    Campus Presentations (continued)

    Networking Issues, Blackboard and PeopleSoft (Steve Gustafson, Kayl Sunwood, Mark Anderson)

    The rationale for the UW-Superior campus network upgrade included:
    • increased PeopleSoft LAN traffic
    • slower Internet access
    Phase one of the upgrade included the installation of a Cabletron core switched router, and a firewall to protect the administrative network and increase its performance. There is now 100 Mbps switched traffic to all of the buildings except the heating plant and the welcome center.  Phase two aims to replace the campus backbone with gigabit Ethernet, 100 Mbps switched service to every desktop and a DS-3 circuit to WiscNet. The dorms will be on a separate VLAN.

    Implementing PeopleSoft has been a lot of work, but there have also been benefits. It is providing integrated administrative data instead of each functional area running its own standalone package. It has improved accessibility by providing a "one stop shop" web presence for students. Advisors now use a web interface instead of telnet. The sharing with the collaterals group, MILER and FASTAR have been valuable.

    UW-Superior and the WWBLS utility dot.edu have provided PeopleSoft and Blackboard a place to test the integration of their products. The project will offer a combination of web-based administrative services, web-based learning systems and campus web sites via a user customizable view. There has been close coordination between all of the parties, including a conference call at least every other week between the vendors and the campus. The project is still in the testing phase and is projected to go live with Blackboard version 5.5 at the end of May. It will offer course listings and catalogs, provide for community discussions, and offer access to institutional services. People who are not happy with the campus web page will be able to customize their personal interface to get exactly what they want and need.

    Since the UW-Superior campus is the only place in the world that the so called Blackboard/PeopleSoft integration process is actually running, they are getting a lot of press as an innovative institution.

    UW-Stout Update (Doug Wahl)

    The UW-Stout residence life network has been upgraded to 10/100 Mbps service. The campus backbone network is running at OC-48 and connections to the buildings will be brought up to OC-12 service. This summer, UW-Stout will build a wireless service that covers the entire campus, both outside and inside, on a floor by floor basis instead of classroom by classroom. They are using NetEnforcer to rate limit their WiscNet bandwidth. They are also planning to implement caching and to monitor their network using Flowscan.

    Currently everyone on campus has to register the MAC address of their computer to access DHCP services. The freeware product NetReg will be implemented to automate this process (see http://www.southwestern.edu/ITS/netreg/). They are also looking to put network and power connections to each seat in one or two classrooms per building. They plan to use VPNs for cable modem and ADSL service. They hope to implement a single logon ID for all services except ERP systems.

    A laptop program will be implemented in fall 2002 for about 2,000 - 2,500  freshmen, incoming students and volunteer participants. The manager is Vic Mincoff, mincoffv@uwstout.edu. Information is also available online (see http://www.uwstout.edu/laptop).  The laptops will be leased and distributed to the students for a two year period as a component of their tuition. An RFP is on the street and any institution in the UW System will be able to piggyback with whatever vendor they select. A dedicated training group has been formed. Challenges include:

    • opening a solution center for walk-in service
    • opening a distribution center for getting the laptops in the hands of students
    • partnering with the selected vendor
    • installing Microsoft and other software licenses
    Their ERP systems uses Datatel technology. Sixty-five percent of the students have registered through the web. A data warehousing project is using Informatica and expanding quickly.

    The UW-Stout Student Technology Assistance and Resources program (STAR), which is modeled after UW-Milwaukee's student organization, was originated in June 2000. A core set of courses have been taken by 200 student IT employees. After students go through the training, the IT shop pays half of their wages as they work in other departments.

    Computer Lab Planning (John Berens)

    UW-Oshkosh has seven GCA labs. Four are always open and three are used for teaching, but function as open labs when they are available. The labs are on a four year replacement cycle, and supported by a combination of GCA and student tech fee moneys. Discipline specific labs in three professional colleges and Letters & Science were funded via lab modernization funds, gifts, and departmental and college operating budgets. There has been no consistent funding for upgrades and some of the equipment is recycled from the GCA labs. There is also inconsistent staffing in the form of faculty, academic staff, classified staff, LTEs and students. They have limited hours and availability compared to the GCA labs.

    In fall 1999, due to software creep the GCA labs were running over 160 software packages, including non-supported software, such as old versions of DOS and WordPerfect. The IT shop got stakeholder backing to remove 80 non-supported packages. In spring 2000, a survey was done to identify the "essential" software for the GCA lab. It yielded 100 titles, some of which were already in the labs. Using pre-defined review criteria, the software requests were divided into three categories:

    • old and new software that was appropriate for the GCA labs
    • old software that was not appropriate for the GCA labs
    • new software that was not appropriate for the GCA labs
    There were 28 appeals of the rankings, 20 of which were accepted and alternatives were suggested for eight. In fall 2000, the final software array was somewhat reluctantly accepted by the deans council. The labs have since been easier to maintain and support, however there have been bad feelings on the part of some departments and faculty members. Some of the software that comes with textbooks isn't supported in the GCA labs so a limited number of workstations were set up in the 24 hour lab that will run anything that students bring in. Throughout the process the deans felt that they were on the defensive.

    Meanwhile, the anticipated space for two discipline specific labs evaporated and the provost put together a working group to address all of the issues. The space issues were resolved and the group decided to retain a consultant to assist with planning for labs. The group brought in Joe Douglas, CIO of UW-Milwaukee, and two of his staff, Brett Besag and Paul Gunderson, to look at the high level issues regarding the relationships between the GCA and discipline-specific labs and software choices. Their report is available at http://www.acs.uwosh.edu/acug/oshkosh_report.shtml. As a result, another GCA software review will be done in spring 2001 based upon the current suite. The deans and IT will work together to review the software proposals. The deans will define criteria for discipline specific labs and the campus will look at the other recommendations from the consultants.

    General Computer Access Lab Management (David Faulkner)

    A systemwide survey of GCA labs was conducted in the fall to get at issues that are not covered by the annual systemwide student IT survey. UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee were excluded from the survey because of their size. The other campuses reported having between 2 and 13 GCA labs running between 139 and 623 total computers.  Most institutions only have one or two staff to maintain all of their GCA lab computers.  The campuses also report ratios of between 19 and 38 students per computer.

    UW-La Crosse is bracing for large increases in the number of the labs and computers with no additional staff, however they do have six highly skilled student assistants and 80 front line student consultants. They expect to be at a student computer ratio of 15:1. Even though 53% of UW-La Crosse students bring their own computers, the demand for campus computers and services continues to increase.

    Critical success factors for GCA labs include:

    • non-institutional decor
    • carpeting
    • pedestal chairs
    • desks with wire management
    • group stations
    • ADA compliance
    • good lighting
    • high speed printers
    • fast Ethernet switches
    • segmented building networks
    • up-to-date cabling
    • data projectors
    • swipe card readers on doors
    • scanners
    • CD-RW drives
    • Zip drives
    • adequate training for staff
    • aggressive cleaning programs
    UW-La Crosse's action plan items have included:
    • a GCA lab assistants program
    • senior lab managers
    • automated processes, such as:
      • lab expert
      • KeyServer
    • intranet web pages (see http://gca.uwlax.edu) for:
      • reporting service outages
      • facility counts
      • web cams to monitor facilities
      • posting of FAQs
      • payroll reporting
      • supply requests
      • staff scheduling
      • messaging
    The funding sources for the GCA labs include:
    • the student technology fee
    • student IT training DIN
    • classroom modernization funds
    • lab modernization funds
    • building renovation funds
    • the Wing building project
    • general program revenue
    • general campus networking funds
    • end of year budget savings

    Network/Internet Use Data Privacy/Security Panel (Rick Richmond, Chris Ashley, Kim Kilford and Gary Smith)

    A great deal of information is collected for the purposes of ensuring network security, planning for growth and running backups. Often there are not clear policies about what kinds of information are collected and how it is disclosed. Although it is not required legally, institutions should have privacy policies for their services as a good business practice (see http://techstore.doit.wisc.edu/privacypolicy.asp?LoginType=Personal). However, it is easy to get into trouble if you don't follow your own policy, e.g., selling personal information in violation of your own privacy policy or combining personal data with information from other sources. Some kinds of tracking are illegal in different states, e.g., "web bugs" in Michigan.

    There is little usage data that an institution has to track by law. Campuses may want to ensure that they don't retain detail level data longer than is necessary for system management. Data is usually not collected in a single system but, with effort, different sources could be brought together to create a detailed picture. Most investigations aren't able to make use of circumstantial computer data after two weeks to two months because by then it is cold. Collection of personal data may be unintentional with the installation of new pieces of management software designed to monitor usage and traffic. The data logging needs of UW System are completely different from the administrative needs of state government. Kim Kilford is willing to lead an effort to look at these needs with support from the other campuses.  There are lessons that the IT community can learn from librarians who have been in the business of protecting the privacy of patrons for a long time.

    Institutions are probably not violating users' privacy by compiling data on network use. The UW System Cyberspace Policy (see http://www.uwm.edu/policy/cyberspace.html), and individual campus policies, allow for monitoring as a function of maintaining computer resources. Electronic records are subject to the open records law in a fashion similar to paper records, and the same exemptions to disclosure apply. Furthermore, open records requests have to be specific about topic and timeframe. Similarly for FERPA.

    Other relevant legislation includes:

    • COPPA for data collected from children under 13
    • the European Union Privacy Director for consumer privacy
    • potential future legislation from the governor's privacy initiative
    UW-Madison has a faculty and staff policy governing access to electronic files on the Incident Response Team website (see http://www.wisc.edu/badgirt/policies). On the same site there is also a UW-Madison computer logging statement that purposely doesn't commit to specific retention times.

    The default rule is that law enforcement agencies need a warrant or court order to get access to records. It may be illegal under federal law to intercept email messages in real time. However, it may be possible to access stored email messages with a court order or search warrant.

    It is important to exercise due care with respect to privacy, such as using SSL for transmissions over the Internet, securing servers (see the SANS documentation on the MyWiscNet website, http://mywiscnet.wiscnet.net), detecting intruders, and formalizing incident response policies (contact BadgIRT for assistance). There will be a computer security day at the Pyle Center on the UW-Madison campus, Lockdown '01, on May 18th (see http://www.doit.wisc.edu/lockdown).

    Report from Server Support Group (Dennis Babish)

    There were 30 attendees from 10 different campuses at the conference Server Support breakout session. Someone gave a presentation on each topic, followed by open discussion. the topics were:
    • antivirus software
    • Active Directory and Windows 2000
    • Exchange 2000
    There were good discussions on these issues and other general topics. Participants are planning to share documents with each other after the conference. The group proposes that the ITMC sponsor this same breakout a second time.

    ITMC Business Meeting

    UCITA (Kathy Pletcher)

    The CUWL group recently passed a resolution against UCITA legislation which is being introduced on a state by state basis. UCITA is being touted as necessary for ecommerce, but it is bad public policy for higher education and libraries as well as many commercial interests. It has been discussed in the Republican Caucus and the Information Technology Policy Council. At this point it is not clear if any person or group is actively promoting it in Wisconsin.

    The ITMC wishes to go on record in unanimous opposition to UCITA legislation.

    Elections (Ron Kraemer)

    A slate of ITMC Executive Committee candidates that was prepared by Ron Kraemer and David Stack was distributed. There were not any nominations from the floor. The ballot was unanimous.
     
    • Chair Elect - Ron Kraemer
    • At-Large Members - Judy Caruso, Steve Gustafson and Janice Ward
    • Secretary - David Stack


    John Berens led the membership in thanking David Kieper for his work as Chair this past year. He will become Past Chair and John Berens will be the Chair until the next election in the spring of 2002.

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