Cover image and photo, page 8, courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech. Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to present the 2013 NYSERNet Annual Report, like its predecessor coming to you later than hoped. We delayed the 2012 report to provide a detailed accounting of the NYSERNet community’s enduring outreach to members impacted by Hurricane Sandy. This year has been about change that is in many ways a continuation and consequence of that Sandy narrative, with expansion of the Syracuse data center, upgrades in and extension of our global exchange point in City, increased capacity of the network, and ongoing effort to understand our Members’ rapidly evolving needs.

Growth in educational programs and outreach to the community to learn from them and keep them apprised of our own progress relate closely to these. Last year a new feature profiled a few of NYSERNet’s extraordinary Board Members, and this report describes three current Board Members and a fourth, now retired, who provided leadership and vision to the Board over many years. Throughout its history NYSERNet has benefited from the wisdom of the extraordinary people who comprise its Board, and subsequent annual reports will continue these conversations.

Most articles in this report address core competencies, hopefully articulating for a broad audience the work of the NYSERNet Board, staff, and community, and the possibilities enabled by advanced networks and network applications. The understanding that we must collectively engage on very hard problems in energy, climate, healthcare, finance, and the new technologies they require, motivate such efforts to reach out to our continuously expanding community. We are all in this together.

Regards,

Dr. Timothy Lance President, NYSERNet Inc. NYSERnet board of directors

Aurelia Boyer Robert W. Juckiewicz Marc E. Milstein Senior Vice President & CIO Vice President for Information Technology Vice President & CIO New York Presbyterian Hospital Hofstra University Yeshiva University

Jeanne Casares Lynn Kasner-Morgan Charles Powell Chief Information Officer Emeritus Interim Chief Information Officer Rochester Institute of Technology Stony Brook University John E. Kolb Brian Cohen Vice President for Information Services Mark Reed Associate Vice Chancellor & CIO and Technology & CIO Associate Vice President City University of New York Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for Information Technology Binghamton University Candace Fleming Vace Kundakci Vice President for Information Technology Emeritus Gary O. Roberts & CIO Director, Information Technology Services Columbia University Timothy L. Lance Alfred University President Thomas Furlani NYSERNet, Inc. Christopher M. Sedore Director, Center for Computational Research Associate Vice Chancellor University at Buffalo Francis C. Lees for Academic Operations Chief Information Officer Vice President for Information Technology Armand Gazes American Museum of Natural History & CIO Director of IT Operations & Network Security Syracuse University The Rockefeller University David E. Lewis Vice President & CIO Justin Sipher Christine Haile University of Rochester Vice President Chief Information Officer of Libraries & Information Technology St. Lawrence University University at Albany Marilyn McMillan Vice President, Information Technology & CITO William Thirsk New York University Vice President for Information Technology & CIO Marist College

R. David Vernon Associate CIO Cornell University Alfred University New York Genome Center The American Museum of Natural History New York Presbyterian Hospital ARTstor New York State Department Bank Street College of Education New York University Binghamton University NORDUnet Brooklyn Law School Nyack College Buffalo State College Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES/CNYRIC CANARIE Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Canisius College Rochester Institute of Technology Capital Region BOCES/NERIC The Rockefeller University City University of New York SINET Clarkson University Skidmore College Colgate University St. John’s University College of New Rochelle St. Joseph’s College Columbia University St. Lawrence University Cornell University State University of New York at Alfred Corning Community College State University of New York at Geneseo Daemen College State University of New York at Oneonta D’Youville College State University of New York at Oswego DANTE State University of New York at Potsdam Eastern Suffolk BOCES/ESRIC State University of New York Central Administration Erie #1 BOCES/WNYRIC State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Erie Community College State University of New York Empire State College Fordham University State University of New York Information Technology Exchange Center Genesee Community College State University of New York Upstate Medical University Hofstra University Stony Brook University IBM Watson Research Center Syracuse University Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Teachers College, Columbia University TWAREN Le Moyne College University at Albany Madison-Oneida BOCES/MORIC University at Buffalo MAGPI University of Rochester Marist College USLHCNet/CERN Massachusetts Institute of Technology Weill Cornell Medical College Monroe #1 BOCES/Monroe #1 RIC Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar National LambdaRail Yeshiva University Nazareth College The New School MemBer institutions

3 Board Member Interview Vace Kundakci Emeritus

Please tell us about your career in IT. What has your role, and that of IT been, at both Columbia and CUNY? I was CIO and Assistant VP for Information Technology at the City College of New York (CCNY), one of the senior I have covered some of the positions I held at both of these colleges in the City University of New York system, from institutions above. I would like to add that regardless of the 2007 to 2011. Before then I served in a variety of IT roles I have held, my primary interest has been technolo- positions at Columbia University from 1977 to 2007. gies of communication. Even during my undergraduate My roles at Columbia included Associate VP for and graduate studies at Columbia, when I was working as Technology Infrastructure, Deputy VP for Academic a part-time systems programmer, my work was related to Information Systems, and several other management communication systems, such as Wylbur, TSO, TCAM, etc. and technical roles. Later, introducing Ethernet, TCP/IP, e-mail, Web, Personal Computers (remember Kermit?), etc. to the academic com- How many people served in the IT organizations munity – when these technologies were in their infancy – you worked in? has given me a great rush throughout my career. Creation, constant improvement of, and upgrading campus-wide, At CCNY, my organization was composed of approximately multi-campus networks with connections to regional, 100 full- and part-time staff working in Academic and national, and international networks have been a central Administrative Computing, Computing Support, Systems theme in my career. and Networking, Telecommunications, Media and Class- room Technologies, Information Security, and IT Business You’ve had the special vantage point of watching two Services. At Columbia, in my last position as Associate VP major institutions be valuable contributing members for Technology Infrastructure, approximately 90 full-time to the NYSERNet community. Could you share your staff reported to me in groups supporting Systems, Net- perspective on the common values deriving from that works, Telecommunications, Data Center Operations, etc. participation?

When did you join the NYSERNet Board? I would like to think that both of the institutions with which I have been associated have contributed to as well I became a NYSERNet Board member in 1989. My first as benefited greatly from NYSERNet and the NYSERNet board meeting included a champagne toast for the launch community. For me, NYSERNet has been a facilitator for of PSI Networks. Of course, after that I expected a jolly cooperation. Indeed, I would like to expand this notion of good time at the board meetings. I have been blessed to cooperation further: I have represented my institutions serve on this board alongside the best IT leaders in Higher not only in NYSERNet circles but Internet2, Coalition for Education, with or without the champagne, working with Networked Information, Common Solution Group, Ivy+, them to steer NYSERNet through some rough waters. Bitnet, etc. All of these organizations held the principle that our institutions have similar problems that we can often address with common solutions, but seldom can we solve them alone. Specifically, NYSERNet has helped both of my institutions connect to state of the art networks in and New York State through which they could reach the rest of the country and the world for truly amazing discoveries, exchange of exhilarating teaching and learning content, and collaboration otherwise impossible without them. hen NYSERNet and its members began exploring the feasibility of building a dark fiber network and colocation facility in New York City in 2001, no one involved in the study could have envisioned the remarkable success and W longevity the program has since achieved. The technological heart of the program – NYSERNet’s Colo@32 – marked its tenth anniversary in 2013. Conceived as a meet point for NYSERNet members employing our dark fiber plant, the Colo@32 has evolved into one of the most important locations for R&E network peering in the world, with eight national and NYC international network providers and more than a dozen of our member institutions gathering there to exchange network traf- fic. In 2013, we welcomed the New York Genome Center (NYGC) OPtical as our newest participant. We are honored to play a small role in the efforts of the Center and its many collaborators to transform network genomic research into solutions for curing critical diseases. To accommodate this exceptional growth, the Colo@32 has undergone numerous expansions and upgrades since it opened in 2003. In 2013, we once more added to our physical footprint to accommodate additional equipment racks. We also upgraded our power plant to add capacity and redundancy, ensuring that the Colo@32 continues to meet participant demands for high-quality, high-availability power.

In 2013, NYSERNet’s long-time partner in the Colo@32, Rudin Colo Management, engaged Telx to assume management responsibili- ties for Rudin’s Hub at 32 Sixth, which is the home of NYSERNet’s colocation facility. We look forward to working with our new @32 partner, and we thank Rudin Management for its past (and future) support for New York’s research and education community.

Participation in NYSERNet’s New York City Optical Network continued apace the Colo@32. Several institutions added sites to their dark fiber infrastructure in 2013. The City University of New York (CUNY), New York Presbyterian Hospital, and The New School added a total of six locations throughout Manhattan. Cornell University and Syracuse University also expanded their New York City footprints with NYSERNet fiber. Syracuse brought its Fisher Center – a multipurpose classroom, event and office envi- ronment – online in time for the fall 2013 semester, while Cornell extended connectivity to its temporary home at 111 8th Avenue in preparation for the 2017 opening of its Roosevelt Island campus, Cornell Tech.

We have completed planning for the addition of sites by Weill Cornell Medical College and CUNY, which we anticipate connect- ing during the first quarter of 2014. We look forward to these and other additions, and we are particularly pleased that the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will be joining as a new connector in 2014, the tenth anniversary of the initial lighting of our plant by its first participant, the American Museum of Natural History.

5 nveterately, we measure ourselves by the extent to which we anticipate, respond to, and generate progress. Almost three decades ago NYSERNet, other soon-to-be-created regional net- Iworks, and a nascent NSFNET together ushered in seminal change. NYSERNet’s first spin off was the world’s first commercial ISP and the harbinger of a now vast industry unimagined five years earlier.

During its first dozen years of rapid growth and transformation NYSERNet was blessed with an essentially constant Board whose loyalty never wavered, but as the new millennium neared many alterations occurred. New leadership, almost complete turnover in Board Members through retirement, and a resolve to explore change control of the network down to the transport layer ushered in our optical decade. Taking many strategic risks, NYSERNet deployed fiber in a post 9/11 New York City, created a global exchange point for research and education in 32 Avenue of the Americas, built a statewide optical infrastructure, and constructed a busi- ness continuity center in Syracuse. We forged strong partnerships with Lexent, Lightower, Rudin Management, more recently Rudin’s partner Telx, and with carriers who provided local loops for institutions not located near NYSERNet assets.

In the midst of organizational and national economic reverses, and despite their uncertain financial impacts, NYSERNet’s Board repeat- edly displayed boldness in approving these initiatives, then the patience required for each in turn to mature. A decade earlier we had deliberately stepped away from experimental

We cannot dictate the pace of change creations gone commercial, to reaffirm our commit- be outstripping advances in technology, including ment to the needs of the research and education networking, computing, and storage. And we must community. Though today’s continuing expansion understand as a seamless tool the end to end of fiber access in New York City, space in 32 Avenue performance of all the technologies required to of the Americas and the Syracuse data center, and attack a problem. This critical task is challenging grasp of institutional needs and uses as network just for the network, and not understood above that. capacity dramatically increases do not comprise Incremental progress will surely occur, but we should strategic moves per se, they support the research heed the caution in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, and education community’s ever evolving needs. “Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result Conceptualizing hard problems anew and developing less fundamental and astounding.” technologies to support these fresh perspectives, then seeing that technology move from experimental NYSERNet is, fundamentally, a community of trust. to critical infrastructure, is a now-familiar progression. What we accomplish we do together, trusting and risking together. Very hard problems we can only do In 2013 we can assert that all of our previous together. This report is not about outcome, but pro- decade’s strategic investments are financially cess. For many issues in research and education that self-sustaining and have progressed from strategic our community must grapple with, even formulating experiment to core resource, a fact increasingly clear questions would constitute significant progress. evident over the last few years. Concomitantly, So our journey continues. the NYSERNet community has begun to focus on a new class of problems larger than any single institution, discipline, or sector, such as energy and environment, financial, government, healthcare, nano-materials and electronics. In January, 2008, distinguished researchers and technologists, academic administrators, representatives from government (Ed Reinfurt, Executive Director of NYSTAR, New York’s Division of Science, Technology, and Innovation and NYSERNet his senior staff) and industry (Dr. John E. Kelly III, is a private not-for-profit corporation Senior Vice President and Head of IBM Research and his senior staff) met at the New York Academy created to foster science and education in of Sciences (http://www.nysernet.org/pub/nyas) to grapple with how to cross boundaries, collaborate, New York State. Its mission is to advance and integrate the many technologies that fundamental hard problems require. network technology and related applications

The high performance computing consortium to satisfy needs common to the institutions (https://hpc2.org/) and a deeper, broader conversation on how to work together that continues comprising New York State’s research and to this day can both be traced directly to that meet- education community, providing a forum ing. The New York Academy devoted an entire issue of its magazine to an expanded focus on research in the for exploration of the opportunities and State. (http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Magazine/ NY2013.aspx). challenges these innovations present.

How do we respond going forward? We know that we cannot dictate the pace of change. Indeed, advances in genomics, data on carbon load, heat and carbon sequestration and a host of other elements suggest its acceleration. Moreover, growth in data seems to

7 n 2007, NYSERNet moved to new office space and opened an adjoining data center in the heart of downtown Syracuse, culminating more than two years of collaboration by representatives from a dozen member campuses to solve a Iproblem critical to all: how best to maintain their campuses’ critical information and communication systems in the event of disaster.

A working group commissioned by NYSERNet’s Board wrestled first with alternative solutions. Should campuses establish reciprocity relationships? Should they engage commercial data center providers? Should one campus data provide services to all the others? They quickly concluded that a shared facility, centrally located, independently center operated, highly connected to member campuses, offered the best combination of affordability, functionality, and flexibility. Those parameters settled, only location, expansion staffing, consistency with mission, and, especially, risk of financial exposure remained to be considered. With the group’s recommendations informing their discussion, NYSERNet’s Board decided that the data center’s antici- pated benefits outweighed its financial risk, and determined to proceed with construction.

The global financial downturn and corresponding impact on campuses slowed member adoption of the facility, but as it gradually filled and become financially self-sufficient, discussions began about possible expansion. During the six years after the center’s opening, the landscape changed in many ways. Hurricane Sandy reminded us that we are more vulnerable than ever to natural disaster. Cloud services became more widely available, enjoying mainstream adoption. The amount of data generated by scientific computing and network-connected instruments expanded exponentially. New requirements from the National Science Foundation and others regarding data management and accessibility left CIOs scrambling for solutions. After debating again whether this was a suitable investment for NYSERNet, its Board solidly endorsed the data center’s expansion, and work to essentially double its current capacity will commence in 2014.

Originally conceived as a business continuity center, a function it fulfilled superbly during Hurricane Sandy, the facility’s usefulness has evolved into other areas. With its original machine room now full, amid a rapid increase in possibilities for its use, the expanded facility will give members space that can continue to serve a business continuity function – many campuses now stress the need for high availability of IT resources – along with experimental space they can use to sort out data handling and determine which services are suitable for the cloud. Board Member Interview Jeanne Casares Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Rochester Institute of Technology

How many years have you been in your current role? While the delivery of enterprise systems is key to my team’s success, we recognize the value of the people who Six years. I started at RIT in September 2008. work here. We strive to make the ITS organization a great place to work, grow and succeed through training oppor- How many people serve in your IT organization? tunities, and leadership development. The development of 110 professional staff and 200+ students. technical leadership is a passion and important in today’s emerging world. When did you join the NYSERNet Board? RIT is a place where great things happen by smart and talented people. It is a wonderful place to work. I joined the NYSERNET Board in 2009 after meeting with Tim Lance who convinced me this would be a wonderful experience for me as the CIO of RIT. You bring to the Board all your experience from industry. How has that perspective from outside academe helped you reshape IT to support RIT’s What has your role and that of IT been at RIT, and mission? Are there lessons from the academic how is it part of the reshaping of RIT that has clearly setting that, were you back in a corporate taken place during your time there? environment, would apply there? My role at RIT has been to lead the strategy for how best The transition to Higher Education has been successful to manage and orchestrate the delivery of technology for me. I worked in Higher Education prior to spending services for students, faculty and staff. My team has a 20 years in private industry. Coming to RIT was a move strong commitment to operational excellence, innovative back to Higher Education! IT in academe isn’t too different approaches to problems, and partnering cross-functionally. than IT in industry. The approach to work is what differs. These interests have contributed to great synergies of IT at Industry often takes a more structured approach to iden- RIT. Last year we successfully implemented a new student tifying opportunities and executing to plan—with the key information system which permitted RIT to change from a driver being revenue. Academe takes more of a committee quarters to semester academic system. This large, complex approach to identifying opportunities with the key driver project had many moving parts and contributed to much being students and their success. Given the current climate process change and improvement across our university. We of change in Higher Education, my business skills and opened a new, green data center in Institute Hall providing industry experiences are serving me well. highly available services, taking availability and hardware consolidation to a new level for RIT. As an experiential university we look for ways to bring significant professional experiences to our student staffs, co-ops and interns. This past year we opened a Student IT Office (SITO) where full time student coops work on significant enterprise interfaces and services. Last year they delivered …. We continue to innovate around new and emerging technologies with our students. Smart home/living tech- nologies and services are part of our experimentation and readiness for the of Things. Together with students, professional staff and key vendor partners we are innovating future living scenarios for RIT.

9 2009 reorganization of NYSERNet’s Education Services program brought together into one formal program area our two annual conferences – NYSCIO and Tech Summit – and our expandingA portfolio of technical training workshops. Our goals for the reorganization were to increase member participation in our conferences, expand the number and variety of workshops we offer members, and to broaden our training delivery capabilities and methodologies. This includes adding online instructor-led training and training on-demand to our existing on-site instructor-led offerings. In 2013, we made substantial progress towards these goals.

NYSERNet delivered thirty-three workshops and lectures in 2013, an increase of 70% over 2012. Twenty-one of our workshops were offered on- line. We also employed our mobile labs to provide instruction on the campuses of New York University, Education the American Museum of Natural History, OCM BOCES, and the University of , the latter Services as part of our curriculum exchange program with . NYSERNet members participated in Merit workshops like Hands-on SELinux, Network Security Fundamentals, IT Project Management, Certified Engineer, and Security Auditing Your Website. NYSERNet reciprocated by delivering IPv6 and BGP & Routing to Merit’s members in-person and on-line. In August, Alan Clegg, an internationally recognized expert in the implementation of DNSSEC, presented a workshop on the topic for NYSERNet members gathered at New York University. Based on feedback from the event, NYSERNet is expanding its efforts to identify experts from our community and beyond who can speak to issues of urgency to our members. A nationally recognized leader in IPv6 instruction, Breaking with tradition, NYSERNet’s annual NYSERNet delivered a lecture on IPv6 Host Addressing NYSCIO conference was not held on a member at the North American IPv6 Summit in April, as campus in 2013. Instead, NYSCIO 2013, Leadership well as at Tech Summit. Ongoing demand for IPv6 and Developing the Next Generation of CIOs, took training provided the impetus for development of place at the Lodge at Welch Allyn and on the grounds our very own IPv6 Train-the-Trainer program. In of Anyela’s Vineyard near Skaneateles, New York. June, in Syracuse, NYSERNet delivered the class to A record number of attendees representing New York nascent IPv6 subject matter experts from across the State’s higher education IT community gathered , instructing them in the art of deliver- to hear presentations by James Hilton, University ing NYSERNet-branded IPv6 instruction. Members of Librarian for the , Timothy this first graduating class are employing NYSERNet’s Killeen, President of the SUNY Research Foundation, materials to teach others, and each is committed to Jeanne Casares (CIO) and Greg Reitz (Associate CIO) contributing to the ongoing development of the from the Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY program as IPv6 topics continue to emerge. Provost David Lavallee, Hao Wang, SUNY CIO, and Bryan Alexander, Senior Fellow at NITLE. Two panels, In 2013, for the first time, NYSERNet began offering Building and Sustaining a Shared High Performance components of some of our most popular workshops Computing Resources for New York and New York on-demand on the NYSERNet website. Three seg- Six: Confessions of a Consortium, rounded out the ments from our two-day IPv6 instructor-led workshop program. Eighty-eight IT leaders (an NYSCIO record) – IPv6 Address Deployment, IPv6 Campus Deploy- representing fifty-nine academic institutions (also a ment, and IPv6 Subnetting – are available there record) attended NYSCIO 2013. We are pleased that now, free of charge, as hour long videos. Also fourteen of those attending volunteered to serve on available on our website are videos of presentations the NYSCIO 2014 Program Committee. NYSCIO 2014, from our monthly User Forum and from Tech Summit The Evolving Role of the CIO, takes place July 9-11 at 2013, including Columbia University’s Joel Rosenblatt’s the Lodge at Welch Allyn. presentation on Data Leak Prevention, a presentation by Beth Young (REN-ISAC) on the Collective In 2014, NYSERNet is launching a new workshop, Net- Intelligence Framework, and a User Forum presenta- work Troubleshooting & Performance Testing, which tion by Steve Chen on Cornell University’s implemen- we are developing in-house as a complement to our tation of Eduroam. We intend to continue to expand Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP Turn Up and Testing workshop our portfolio of on-demand training, integrating that we announced in 2013 and delivered twice on the interactive exercises with the video content. campus of New York University. Additionally in 2014, we will continue to develop our training-related rela- NYSERNet’s third annual Tech Summit took place tionships with our regional peer networks, commercial May 16, 2013 in Troy. Sixty-five representatives training organizations, and our members’ technical of thirty-three member institutions gathered at training organizations in our ongoing effort to provide Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to hear presenta- our members with high-quality training opportunities tions by experts on a variety of network security and that are cost-effective, convenient and relevant. engineering topics, including Single and Multi Switch Designs with FCOE, Edge Security - Pushing Policy to the Edge, and a panel discussion on disaster recovery/ In 2013 business continuity that focused on lessons learned from Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, incorporating NYSERNet delivered compelling stories of network survival and member collaboration. Tech Summit 2014 takes place June 12 33 workshops and lectures at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. an increase of 70% over 2012.

11 n 2013 the NYSERNet network reached a new threshold of speed with the installation of the first 100 Gigabit per second path across the backbone. When the fiber path from New York City to Buffalo was first lit in early 2005, it was Icapable of thirty-two 10 Gigabit Ethernet paths. Since then our members’ needs have grown considerably and although the network has plenty of capacity, it was time to look for a more cost-effective and efficient way to use it. Last summer we used the latest generation of optical equipment from Ekinops to light one of the thirty-two DWDM lambdas at 100 Gigabits, carrying ten separate 10 Gigabit Ethernet circuits in the space network that used to have just one. As our members were upgrading from 1 to 2 or 10 Gigabits, the backbone was moving from 10 to 100. A key feature of the Ekinops services equipment is the ability to activate new 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections on demand, without needing to specify, purchase and install new parts. And within a month of the first path being lit, a second was installed; more will come during 2014 to allow the entire network to support 10 Gigabit connections whenever and wherever they’re required.

We’ve seen two drivers for additional network demand: increased use of the NYSERNet Syracuse Data Center and the growth of genomics data. While the new 10 Gigabit circuit service provided by the Ekinops boxes will allow us to keep up with Data Center demand, moving genomics data is a job for the R&E network. With thirteen NYSERNet members at 1 or 2 Gbps and plans to go to 10, we anticipate the demand on the backbone will require us to look at 100 Gigabit connections to Internet2 and the rest of the world, like- ly by mid-2014. In early 2015 the Large Hadron Collider will restart, adding more demand, and we’re watching other big data projects in an attempt to anticipate their requirements as well.​

Working with the NSF-sponsored GENI project in a way that harkens back to the early days of the network, we installed an experimental rack in the NYSERNet data center, to work in concert with racks at New York University and Cornell University. Each contains a mix of computing and network resources, available to any researcher and able to support distributed com- puting, simulation, network prototyping and related experiments. They’re linked by a newly built NYSERNet experimental software-defined network that spans from Syracuse to New York City, dedicated to the GENI project and programmable using the same interfaces as the racks. Those resources are now available to researchers in New York and across the world, and are used every day for new experiments.​ Board Member Interview Candace C. Fleming Chief Information Officer & Vice President, Information Technology, Columbia University

How many years have you been in your current role? Medical Center campus. The 17-acre Manhattanville campus will develop into a modern, mixed-use academic I have been the CIO at Columbia University for nine years. center committed to fostering multidisciplinary research in How many people serve in your IT organization? addition to expanded educational, cultural, health care and civic programs involving the University and the local NYC The central IT organization for Columbia, known as community. The Manhattanville campus will bring together Columbia University IT or CUIT, has approximately scientists from our Medical Center, Engineering School, 300 people who address enterprise application develop- Business School, School of the Arts, and other disciplines to ment and support; teaching and learning applications and research solutions for the challenges of today’s world. CUIT technologies; research computing services; network, is implementing the networks and overseeing the comput- server and storage engineering and operations; and ing technology and client services required in the labs client support services. and throughout the buildings to assure an interconnected Columbia culture well positioned to tackle these challenges. When did you join the NYSERNet Board? Columbia was one of the early users of NYSERNet’s I joined the NYSERNet Board in 2008. New York City fiber plant, distributed computing resources in New York State, and NYSERNet’s global What has your role and that of IT been at Columbia, peering point. How have these efforts supported and how is it part of linking, both technically and Columbia’s research and education mission? interpersonally, the Manhattanville campus with the Columbia has long been a sponsor, partner, and user of main campus? the New York City and New York State networking I was the first CIO appointed by Columbia University infrastructure developed and made available by with the goal of better integrating the services and NYSERNet. Our researchers and educators have organizations that support the educational, research and leveraged this high speed network to access resources, administrative needs of the campus. I created one central collaborate with partners, and exchange the growing IT organization leveraging common technologies, best volumes of data integral to today’s research and education- practices and integrated services to enable the expanding al opportunities. For example, Columbia researchers use reliance of our faculty, staff and students on technology for NYSERNet to access leading national centers of research all facets of University life. Equally important, I partnered cyberinfrastructure including the Pittsburgh with the leaders of our decentralized school and depart- Supercomputing Center, the Texas Advanced Computing mental IT organizations to learn from one another’s Center, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. experiences and craft strategies aimed at supporting Columbia as a whole. Recent accomplishments include the launch of our Shared High-Performance Research Computing Facility, used by cross-disciplinary scientists campus-wide; piloting of approaches to secure access to and management of research data; and expansion of our learning management platform to support a growing range of teaching approaches. Manhattanville is a new campus that Columbia is developing in the old Manhattanville manufacturing zone of West Harlem, just north of Columbia’s main Morningside Heights campus and south of Columbia’s

13 YSERNet member institutions are part of a community built on trust, committed to shar- ing knowledge, and focused on identifying and solving Nchallenges of common concern, ranging from BGP implementation to IPv6 configuration to network design. The NYSERNet community is a worthy illustration of the expression “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” and together NYSERNet and our member institutions collectively contribute time, expertise, and judgment to making NYSERNet membership valuable and rewarding.

In 2013, we continued our efforts to broaden and diversify NYSERNet’s membership base. membership In the summer and fall we visited dozens of schools to discuss their technical opera- update tions and challenges, and relevant NYSERNet services. By the end of the year membership grew with the addition of six new dues- paying members: New York Genome Center, State University of New York at Oneonta, Manhattan College, Wadsworth Center, New York College of Podiatric Medicine, and the Northeastern Regional Information Center, which serves K-12 schools in the Capital Region and north to the Canadian border. D’Youville College, Nazareth College, New York State Education Department, Stony Brook Medicine, SUNY Central, St. Joseph’s College, Bank Street College, Brooklyn Law School, St. Lawrence University, SUNY Alfred, Genesee Community College, and Nyack College opted for basic membership by participating in our Education Services and/or VMware programs. By the end of 2013, seventy-one institutions were actively participating in at least one of NYSERNet’s eight programs.

By the end of 2013 membership grew with the addition of six new members Institutions located in geographically remote areas of the state are finding they now have additional options for connecting to the NYSERNet R&E Network. Over the last year, NYSERNet developed or expanded strategic partnerships with ION (which recently finished its NYS build-out and now serves the Adirondacks, the Southern Tier, Western New York, the Leatherstocking Country, and the Hudson Valley Region), Lightower (which in addition to providing NYSERNet’s New York City Metro Dark Fiber Network, now has fiber routes throughout Long Island and along both sides of the Hudson Valley Region) and FirstLight, formerly Tech Valley Communications, Institutions located which can connect schools throughout the Capital Region, the Schoharie Valley, the Adirondacks and the Upper Hudson in geographically remote Valley Region. NYSERNet continues to work with Time Warner Cable (now with a areas of the state presence in our Syracuse data center), the Development Authority of the North Country (DANC), Fibertech, Level(3), TW Telecom and are finding they CenturyLink. Thanks to these partners and their developing infrastructure, geography and expense are no longer the obstacles to now have additional connecting that they once were. options for connecting In 2014, we intend to expand our efforts to increase participation in NYSERNet by focus- ing on promoting broader participation by to the NYSERNet current members, while also continuing our outreach to non-members. Likewise, we will & be developing and implementing a member R E Network. retention plan focused primarily on retain- ing participants in our R&E network offering. Members of NYSERNet’s staff are always available to talk about any of our services with any not-for-profit institution that has a research, education, healthcare or cultural mission. We will also meet with faculty and staff to help them realize the potential of NYSERNet services through presentations that include live demonstrations of network- enabled resources and tools that support basic and applied research and enhance teaching and learning.

15 Board Member Interview Marilyn McMillan Vice President, Information Technology & Chief Technology Officer, New York University

How many years have you been in your current role? support of NYU’s innovations with instructional technologies in globally integrated curricula. Tom is also I’ve been at NYU fifteen and a half years, with the acronym playing a key leadership role in encouraging Internet2 and CITO (Chief Information Technology Officer) in my title from other national research and education networks (NRENs) to the very beginning. Ever since, my role has been evolving in a establish colocation facilities that are modeled after NYSERNet’s number of dimensions. Today it’s much more strategic, with successful facility in Manhattan, initially in Singapore and in more attention on IT in decision-support, academics and the United Arab Emirates. research, on data stewardship and information security, and on facilitating the mobility of NYU’s students, faculty and staff Tom and I are especially grateful that NYU’s senior leadership throughout NYU’s global system of three degree-granting and a broad community of other stakeholders engage deeply in campuses and eleven academic centers. NYU’s IT governance process, developing and guiding IT strat- egy across all the related domains and keeping IT aligned with

evolving University goals and aspirations. As you might imag- How many people serve in your IT organization? ine, the interdependencies among our numerous IT initiatives There are some 400 staff in the university’s IT organization. are often mindboggling! One source of our success in executing We also employ over 120 students on a part-time basis. It’s such a complex IT strategy of many moving parts is the atten- important to put our IT organization size in context: NYU en- tion all of us in IT at NYU give to maturing our processes and rolls 51,000 students - of which 19,000 are undergrads, 19,000 practices for IT project and service management. are graduate students and 13,000 are in noncredit programs. Most of all, NYU’s IT success is attributable to the people. So many members of NYU’s IT staff repeatedly work way beyond When did you join the NYSERNet Board? highest expectations to deliver and serve. One example among innumerable others is our colleague, Doug Carlson, NYU’s I joined the NYSERNet Board in 1999. I feel very privileged Associate Vice President for Communications and Computing to work with these multi-talented, highly collaborative and Services. Doug is a long-time active participant in NYSERNet, committed directors and staff! NYSERNet has created terrific Internet2 and Educause networking initiatives. Last fall, Doug value for our participating institutions by delivering - over and his wife Kathi moved to Abu Dhabi, where he is serving as decades of rapid change - cost-effective and technologically NYU AD’s Interim Chief Information Officer. We - especially innovative networking and related services that would those of us covering for Doug in Manhattan - look forward to otherwise be unaffordable and unachievable. welcoming them back to the U.S. after the new campus is in full IT operation. What has your role been, and that of IT, in NYU’s broad international programs? NYU was an early adopter of NYSERNet’s data center. Back in 2008, with guidance from a University-wide task What does the shared facility mean to NYU? force to review IT, we began planning the IT efforts that would NYSERNet’s data center in Syracuse has become an integral be required to support NYU’s vision to become a global network part of NYU’s overall business continuity and disaster recovery university. I made my first visit to Abu Dhabi. This spring 2014, strategy. Before it opened, NYU had the capacity to bring many, as hoped back then, NYU Abu Dhabi’s first undergraduate class but not all, of our systems back up within 48 hours after an will graduate from a newly opening campus on Saadiyat Island. outage in New York. Back in those days, the time delay was In the meantime, all of us in IT have worked in the glare of the acceptable. Now it’s not. NYU faculty, students and staff all institution’s strategic spotlight to provide an increasingly feature- over the world rely on NYU’s NYC-based enterprise-wide rich suite of robust IT services throughout the university’s global systems not only for administration, but for many other func- presence and across all its areas of endeavor: teaching and tions, including learning management. NYSERNet’s data center learning, research, community life, administration and in Syracuse provides NYU with a cost-effective, well-supported IT infrastructure. facility in which we are running higher availability and failover I am so fortunate to have had since 2010 a terrific partner in solutions for more and more systems, so they continue to operate this adventure: Tom Delaney, NYU’s VP for Global Technology for the rest of NYU around the world in the event our New York and CGTO (Chief Global Technology Officer). Tom leads our City systems shut down, in part or entirely. IT engagements with NYU’s international partners and our IT NYSERNet Staff Sharon Akkoul Timothy Lance Director, NYC Metro Fiber Services Program President

Robert Bloom Katrina Lawrence Director, Data Center Services Accounting Specialist/Contracts Support

Lawrence Gallery Steven Matkoski Manager, Membership Development Manager, Internal Systems & Infrastructure

Jeffrey Harrington William Owens Supervisor, Network Operations Center Chief Technology Officer

Mary Hyla Christy Rohmer Chief Financial Officer Manager, Education Services

Robin Jones James Shaffer HR Administrator/Contracts Coordinator Manager, Colocation Operations

Stephen Kankus John Tonello Chief Operating Officer Director, Information Technology

Stephan Knapp Elaine Verrastro Director, Network Operations Office Services & Board Assistant & Education Services Adam Wojtalewski Systems Administrator

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