Cover Story
Implementing ALEPH

Features
'Tis a New Millennium

The OLIS is Moving

Internet2 for SUNY

SUNYConnect Database Survey

May I Get a Virtual Coffee with That? SUNY and netLibrary

From the Press

Distinguished Librarian

How to Contact Us

Linkable Links

Link to the SUNYConnect Committees List

Internet2 (I2) is a consortium being led by over 180 universities working in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 is recreating the partnership among academia, industry and government that fostered today's Internet in its infancy. The primary goals of Internet2 are to:

• Create a leading edge network capability for the national research community
• Enable revolutionary Internet applications
• Ensure the rapid transfer of new network services and applications to the broader Internet community
  http://www.internet2.edu/html/about.html

Who belongs to I2?
A complete list of I2 members can be found at http://www.internet2.edu/html/members.html. SUNY membership includes; the University Centers at Albany, Buffalo, Binghamton and Stony Brook, and SUNY System Administration (ALIS).

Why do we need I2?
Since the commercialization of the Internet, researchers have been unable to do the resource sharing and intense computations that they were able to do when the Internet was in its infancy. Such research requires higher bandwidth, newer sophisticated hardware and software that cannot be found or used over today's Internet. The University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) was formed in 1997 as a parent corporation for I2. UCAID has developed an I2network backbone called Abilene.

Gig-a-what? I2 in NYS
Who created Internet2 in New York? The same organization that created the original Internet in New York State, NYSERNet (New York State Education and Research Network). In 1997 NYSERNet recruited networking professionals from within higher education in New York State and formed the Engineering Work Group (EWG). The EWG created, and in conjunction with NYSERNet, operates a high-speed backbone to a New York City gigaPoP that is a network
peer with both Abilene and the very-high performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS). NYSERNet also "peers" with Abilene in Buffalo.

A gig-a-what? A gigaPoP is a regional network aggregation point formed by I2 universities to connect to a variety of high performance networks (such a point is where large networks exchange traffic). Consequently, the University Centers at Buffalo, Binghamton, Stony Brook (and soon Albany) are connected to NYSERNet, Abilene and the vBNS.

Internet2, until August of 2000, was open only to the largest research institutions. At that time UCAID changed the conditions of use to include any research and educational entity, opening up Internet2 to K-20. We at ALIS, think that this has enormous potential for SUNY. ALIS would like to see that every SUNY campus has access to this vast resource.

Okay, so what does all this have to do with SUNYConnect anyway? Well I2 for SUNY certainly opens up great potential for sharing of library resources, both in their current and future form. The use of streaming technologies for downloading databases, tele-immersion,  digital libraries, distributed learning, the Web100 Project and others take the bandwidth limitation of today's networks out of the picture. If all of SUNY had this potential it could, no, it would, accelerate the use of those technologies and make the digital library a reality.

SUNY System Administration is a charter affiliate member of UCAID and Internet2. SUNY's was among a handful of university system offices that realized the potential of the initiative four years ago. Adopting a strategy that moves SUNY into the forefront of high performance networking capabilities will bring to SUNY, among other things; high quality researchers, more research investments, more students, and increase the viability of making SUNY a leader among university systems. As a direct result, the need for additional high technology library resources will follow. Therefore the visions of SUNYConnect and I2 for SUNY go hand in hand.