Dear Colleagues, I am pleased to present NYSERNet’s 2010 annual report. To articulate for a broad audience the work of the NYSERNet Board, staff and community, and the possibilities that advanced networks and network applications enable, in 2010, our twenty-fifth anniversary year, we produced our first annual report ever — a mixture of history and accomplishments in 2009 — and revamped our web site. This second report continues that discussion with the same overarching goal, but with an additional caveat. Global problems like energy, climate change, and health care are larger than any one institution, discipline, or sector. Solutions require the cooperation of governments, industry, and academe, and rely on ever more advanced technologies and networks. The contribution that NYSERNet and our member institutions can make in addressing these broad challenges certainly underlies much of the guidance that the NYSERNet Board offers us. Some of this report concerns itself with core competencies like advanced networks, optical infrastructure in New York City and statewide, our global peering and colocation facility in Manhattan, and technical training. But we also discuss work in a wider community, where NYSERNet is just one of many participants.The High Performance Computing Consortium, for example, is an effort by academic institutions, industry, and New York State to make advanced computing resources more widely available. Another is our efforts with New York’s K12 schools, Regional Information Centers and BOCES to incorporate live international interactions between classrooms here and abroad into the curriculum. Perhaps the best effect a report like this can have is to catalyze a suggestion in someone’s mind of some new task that we (NYSERNet or the broader community) should take on. As G.K. Chesterton noted,“We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.” Regards, Timothy L. Lance, President and Chair, NYSERNet, Inc. 2010 Board of Directors Jeanne Casares Francis C. Lees Chief Information Officer Chief Information Officer Rochester Institute of Technology American Museum of Natural History Brian Cohen David E. Lewis Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO Vice Provost and CIO City University of New York University of Rochester Elias Eldayrie Marilyn McMillan Associate Vice President and CIO Vice President for IT and Chief IT Officer for NYU NY Campus University at Buffalo New York University Candace Fleming Mark Reed Vice President and CIO Associate Vice President for IT Columbia University Binghamton University Thomas Furlani Richard Reeder Interim Associate Vice President for IT Director of IT and CIO University at Buffalo Stony Brook University Armand Gazes Gary O. Roberts Director, IT Operations and Network Security Director, IT The Rockefeller University Alfred University Christine Haile Christopher M. Sedore Chief Information Officer Vice President for IT/CIO University at Albany Syracuse University Voldemar Innus David Sturm Vice President and CIO Vice President and CIO Buffalo State College The New York Public Library Robert W. Juckiewicz William Thirsk Vice President for IT Vice President for IT and CIO Hofstra University Marist College John E. Kolb R. David Vernon Vice President for IT and CIO Director of Network and Communication Services Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Cornell University Vace Kundakci Robert Wood Assistant Vice President for IT and CIO Director of Government Relations City College of New York Clarkson University Timothy L. Lance President NYSERNet 3 NYSERNet continually seeks new ways to add meaning and value to membership. 2010 Members & Project Participants ARTstor Northeastern Regional Information Center Bard College Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Baruch College Rochester Institute of Technology Binghamton University SINET Buffalo State College Skidmore College CANARIE Stony Brook University Canisius College Syracuse University City University of New York TWAREN Clarkson University The American Museum of Natural History Colgate University The Central New York Regional Information Center Columbia University The Frick Collection Cornell University MAGPI Daemen College The New School DANTE The New York Public Library Eastern Suffolk BOCES The Rockefeller University Erie #1 BOCES The State University of New York at Geneseo Erie Community College The State University of New York at Potsdam Fordham University University at Albany Hofstra University University at Buffalo IBM Watson Research Center University of Rochester Internet2 Upstate Medical University Ithaca College USLHCNet/CERN Le Moyne College Weill Medical College of Cornell University Marist College Weill Medical College of Cornell University in Qatar Massachusetts Institute of Technology Yeshiva University Mohawk Regional Information Center Monroe #1 BOCES Mount Sinai School of Medicine National LambdaRail New York-Presbyterian Hospital New York University Niagara University NORDUnet 4 e routinely engage our members to identify experienced data center manager – to bolster a core problems of mutual concern, a process guided, competency we began developing with the launch of the enhanced, and reinforced by our Board. We Colo@32 in 2004. The result is a highly flexible, highly Wcollaborate with members to develop solutions satisfying their connected facility – operated by a trusted, knowledgeable unique requirements. Member feedback guides and informs our staff that enables DR/BC applications beyond anything our Board decisions to create new services, to evolve existing ones, even to conceived at the project’s launch. drop services and service features no longer relevant. Tactically and philosophically, we gravitate toward solutions that amplify the The same principles that guided development of these services value of our core competencies and existing infrastructure, that influence current efforts. In 2010, in collaboration with Marist leverage the aggregate purchasing power of our membership, or College and the American Museum of Natural History, for which trust is an essential component. Any new offering must NYSERNet launched a project to assess the feasibility of offering also fill a gap left effectively unaddressed by the commercial mar- members a remote data backup service. The pilot seeks to ket.To illustrate, here are examples from our current service suite: determine if a VTL (Virtual Tape Library) can serve as an effective target for secondary and tertiary backups, obviating the need for NYSERNet’s Network Management Continuity Service (NMCS) offsite storage of physical tape and enabling faster restoration. leverages the knowledge and experience of NYSERNet’s network team, their familiarity with members’ network infra- In 2010, NYSERNet formed a working group expressly to structure, and the long-standing trust between NYSERNet and its identify opportunities for new NYSERNet services. The group members to offer participating members surrogate network met to review NYSERNet’s current offerings and to consider management capabilities. NMCS uniquely addresses the need findings from a survey NYSERNet conducted of our peer region- to have experienced, trusted personnel ready to undertake al networks. The group identified three areas for exploration key technical responsibilities at a moment’s notice should existing (aggregate software licensing, an equipment buying staff become incapacitated, a key component of a complete club, and security assessment) and one meriting immediate business continuity plan. implementation: an IPv6 Working Group. NYSERNet CIS offers members substantial discounts on com- Finally, in 2010, NYSERNet made a sweeping change in our mem- mercial Internet services based on the aggregate purchasing bership program, creating a tiered subscription structure that power of NYSERNet’s members. CIS leverages NYSERNet’s bundles complementary NYSERNet services based on the band- years of experience designing, implementing, and supporting CIS width of the member’s R&E network connection. In December, to ensure that members receive trusted, sound, unbiased NYSERNet’s Board authorized a Tier I subscription bundle, which advice as well as exceptional technical support. Members may includes 1 Gbps of R&E service with participation in NMCS and use Ethernet circuits provisioned on NYSERNet’s optical network one BCC cabinet.The fee authorized for the Tier I subscription is to reach low-cost providers in distant locations, gaining the same NYSERNet previously charged for a 250 Mb R&E added benefit from our investment in the network. connection alone.The Board’s goal for the new Tier is to encour- age participation in the BCC by reducing the cost of participation NYSERNet’s Business Continuity Center is, perhaps, the purest and by providing sufficient bandwidth to enable data mirroring. example of our approach to service development. NYSERNet’s NMCS participation, while appealing to many members, repre- Board of Directors conceived the BCC as a means of enhancing sented a significant new cost to the IT department. The Board members’ disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities. determined NMCS is too valuable not to be broadly employed. The BCC fills a void in the market: a colocation facility sufficiently remote from campus to serve as a backup, plus the network In 2011, we will continue the exploration that commenced capabilities necessary to deploy highly reliable, highly available with creation of our services working group, working with our business continuity solutions. A working