Sponsored Educational Group Participation in Abilene

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Sponsored Educational Group Participation in
Abilene

• Laurie Burns
• Director, Member Activities, Internet2

EDUCAUSE Gathering of State Networks Denver,
Colorado April 30, 2001
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Agenda

• Background
• Abilene Expanded Access
• Sponsored Participation in Abilene
• Sponsored Individual Institutions
• Sponsored Educational Groups
• QA

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Background

• Internet2 is a membership organization
• Internet2 members have access to multiple
  national backbones (Abilene, vBNS, federal NGI
  networks)
• Internet2 membership is separate from Abilene
  participation

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Background

• Internet2
• Began in 1996
• Activities in advanced applications development,
  middleware, advanced network services, end-to-end
  performance
• 304 members (186 University members, 8 state or
  regional networking organizations)

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Abilene April, 2001

• Current state
• Announced in April, 1998, launched in February,
  1999
• 50 current and pending connections in 49 states
• 185 participants in 47 states and D.C.
• OC-48c (2.5 Gbps) IP-over-SONET backbone
• Ongoing strong partnership
• Cisco, Nortel, Qwest, Indiana University, ITECs
  (N. Carolina and Ohio)
• Increasing backbone utilization
• Characteristic exponential growth
• O(OC-12c) peak utilization on some links
• Traffic doubling time 7 months

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Abilene Participation

• Arises from contributions to network development
  (stakeholder rather than customer model)
• Is characterized by collaborative use of
  advanced research, instructional, clinical and
  content applications

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Sponsored Participation

• Mechanism to allow non-members to participate in
  Abilene
• Considered first and foremost a member benefit
• Created in response to expressed member needs
• Corresponds to Internet2s tech transfer goal
  and Expanded Access initiative
• Supplements Internet2s core focus on higher
  educations advanced networking agenda

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Abilene Participation

• Primary Participation
• University Members
• Affiliate and Corporate Members with
  Collaboration Site Status
• Collaboration Site Status allows Affiliate and
  Corporate Members to designate a physical
  location, such as a research lab, to connect to
  Abilene

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Abilene Participation

• Sponsored
• Sponsored Individual Institutions
• Individual educational or research-oriented
  institutions, museums, art galleries, libraries,
  hospitals, etc. who are sponsored by a Regular
  University member
• Sponsored Educational Groups
• State networks of predominantly educational
  organizations, such as state K-12 networks who
  are sponsored by a Regular University member in
  the same state

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Abilene Participation Fees

• Primary Participants
• 20,000/year
• Sponsored Individual Institution Participants
• no fees to Internet2
• Sponsored Educational Group Participants
• 30,000/year, plus 2,000/congressional
  representative, paid by the connector to Internet2

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SEGP Fee

• Proportional to state population
• 30,000 2,000 x (Size of states U.S. House
  delegation)
• Delegation size provides a readily auditable
  population metric
• Charged annually on a per-connecting
  organization, per-state basis
• Paid directly by the Abilene Connector on behalf
  of the Sponsored Participant
• Is not eligible for any discounting under the
  K-12 Schools and Libraries program of the
  Universal Service Fund (also known as E-rate)
• Amount and scaling of this fee will be
  reassessed on an annual basis

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Sponsored Participation (individual institutions)

• Introduced in November, 1999
• Over 20 sponsored participants and over 15
  sponsors
• Focused on collaborations between an educational
  or research organization and Internet2 member(s),
  or with other sponsored participants

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Sponsored Education Group Participation

• Introduced in October, 2000
• Designed primarily to accommodate existing and
  emerging state-based education networks
• Supplements, does not replace, sponsored
  individual institution participation
• Intended to support regional aggregation
• Focused on supporting advanced application uses
  by networked aggregates of educational
  institutions

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Current SEPG Status

• Approved
• California
• Michigan
• Missouri
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• Virginia
• Washington

• Applied
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Pennsylvania

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Sponsorship

• Only University members can be sponsors for
  individual sponsored participants or SEGPs
• One or more member universities may sponsor a
  networked aggregate of educational organizations
  in the same state
• In states with multiple state education
  networks, one or more sponsors can work with the
  same Abilene Connector to aggregate these
  networks traffic

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Role of the Sponsor

• At the outset, the sponsor(s) works to
• identify an Abilene connector
• document the proposed networks commitment to
  deploying advanced networking
• describe at least one advanced application
• identify any Carnegie Doctoral/Research-Extensive
  (D/R-E) institutions within the sponsored network
  
• upon approval of the SEGP, the sponsor retains
  overall responsibility for ensuring that the use
  of the connection is appropriate and supported
  appropriately, and submits annual updates to
  Internet2

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Role of the Abilene Connector

• A Connector supporting the SEGP(s) must
• maintain a 7x24 Network Operations Center (NOC)
  that is accessible to the Abilene NOC
• register its routing information and that of the
  Participant(s) in the Internet2 Routing Registry
  (I2db) or equivalent
• mediate the Participants access to Abilene via
  at least one router
• contd

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Role of the Abilene Connector

• A Connector supporting the SEGP(s) must
• provide Internet2 with a quarterly report on the
  relative utilization of the Abilene connection by
  the SEGP(s)
• assure compliance with the Abilene CoU by the
  SEGP(s)
• inform the Participant(s) that Abilene does not
  provide transit to the commodity Internet
• Upon approval, the Connector assumes fiscal and
  operational responsibility for the SEGP

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Requirements for the SEGP

• A Sponsored Education Group must
• use a distinct origin Autonomous System Number
  (ASN) so that the requirement for
  characterization of relative utilization can be
  met
• not use Abilene to transit any intra-state
  traffic within its own network, in the event that
  the SEGP is multiply homed to Abilene
• obtain access through a connection also serving
  at least one Abilene participant that is a
  University Member of Internet2

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Establishing Connectivity

• The sponsor completes the SEGP application,
  including a description of at least one advanced
  application project
• Internet2 review the application for
  completeness and accept or continue work on it
• The Connector completes the Connection Agreement
• The routes are approved by Internet2 and
  forwarded to the NOC
• Traffic flows!

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Questions?Thank you!

• http//www.internet2.edu/abilene
• http//www.vbns.net
• abilene_at_internet2.edu
• lburns_at_internet2.edu