The University of Maryland has always been at the forefront of advanced networking and computing and, in fact, played a pioneering and leadership role in creating today’s Internet. We have made significant contributions in the areas of image processing, routing protocols, and the domain name service (DNS). In fact, one of the thirteen DNS root name servers still resides at the University. In keeping with this tradition, OIT is actively working to provide the support necessary for the University to continue its leading role in advanced research on the uses of computing technology.

Our participation in Internet2, a consortium of over 180 universities working in partnership with government and industry, will further this effort. The Internet2 consortium strives to design a more advanced and cutting-edge, yet stable, computer network infrastructure that will promote the development and support of sophisticated and revolutionary applications, services, and technology.

Members of Internet2, such as the University of Maryland, connect to a very high-speed, low-delay network backbone, named Abilene. The connections are made through a number of regional network aggregation points, known as GigaPOPs, which serve members in a geographic area. Since the GigaPOPs are themselves regional networks, the Internet2 is much like the original Internet in that it is not one network, but a collection of networks.

Sheer speed is one of the more visible characteristics that differentiates this network from the slow, congested, and over-loaded traditional Internet. Launched in 1996, the Abilene fiber-optic backbone operates at blazing OC-48 speeds (2.4 gigabits per second) and provides the advanced networking capabilities needed by the Internet2 research community. GigaPOPs connect to the Abilene backbone at minimum OC-12 speeds (622 megabits per second).

The Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) is the Washington Metropolitan area GigaPOP serving the mid-Atlantic region. A multi-state consortium of four regional universities—Georgetown University, George Washington University, the University of Maryland, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University—runs MAX. MAX has one of the highest speed connections into Abilene. It is as fast as the backbone itself, connecting at the speed of OC-48. The first router that connected the MAX to Abilene was located at the University of Maryland, and we continue in a key role by administering and hosting this aggregation point.

In a big and complex world, where communications and partnerships are global, and where technology-dependence continues to grow, the need for innovative and revolutionary applications is more than obvious. The ingenious minds of researchers devise new ways to exploit the high speed of massive information transfer enabled by the Internet2 network, to create applications that revolutionize human processes and interaction.

For example, Fujitsu Labs of America at College Park (FLA-CP) hosts the School of the Internet (SOI) whose mission is to support advanced videoconferencing between universities. On November 9, FLA-CP broadcast its first live remote lecture from its studio to a classroom at Keio University in Japan. The lecture traveled via FLA-CP’s MAX connection over Internet2’s high-speed network and demonstrated the abilities of leading edge network properties, like the transmission of high-quality multimedia streams of the next generation Internet protocol known as IPv6 (IP version 6).

This next generation protocol is designed to enable the steady and stable growth of the Internet in terms of the numbers of connected hosts. With the explosive growth of "networkable and nomadic" devices, IPv6’s increased address space of 128 bits from 32 bits allows support of more levels of addressing hierarchy and a much larger number of addressable nodes. Additionally, IPv6 inherently supports quality of service (QoS) parameters for real-time audio and video that allow senders to tag packets for special handling. The Internet2 network acts as a test bed for features like IPv6, thereby supporting Internet2’s guiding engineering principle of developing new network services and capabilities while designing tomorrow’s sophisticated network.

The advance of Internet2’s capabilities has the potential to affect human culture in a number of exciting and unexpected ways. A good example is an initiative known as the Internet2 Distributed Musical, which could radically change the nature of musical performances. The I2-DM enables the delivery of full-bandwidth, high-quality video and audio to allow the sharing and synchronization of music, video, and interactivity between two locations. In February 2001, Internet2 enabled the production of "The Technophobe and the Madman," staged by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). The actual performance occurred in two (and potentially more) locations 162 miles apart. One part of the performance, "The Madman," was performed in New York City, while the other part, "Confessions of a Technophobe," took place at RPI, with the two being united electronically in near real-time through Internet2’s networking technology.

Internet2 also potentially revolutionizes the field of medicine. In the future, getting a second opinion could be an instantaneous event. Internet2’s videoconferencing and high bandwidth capabilities make the live broadcast of a doctor-patient consultation session to another remote specialist possible, thereby enabling multiple medical opinions and dialogues for a medical case in real-time.

And yet another application, as broadband connections become more commonplace and affordable, remote monitoring of patients may become the order of the day in telemedicine. Furthermore, special and rare medical procedures could potentially be broadcast in real-time to students in the medical profession, thereby making their education richer and paving the way for "virtually experienced" young medical professionals. Virtual surgery is another medical application also under test on Internet2.

Tightly coupled with advanced research in networks and applications is cutting-edge research and development in middleware, the layer between the network and applications which provides identification, authentication, authorization, and security. In today’s technology, such services are provided by and built into applications, leading to numerous incompatible systems and methodologies. Internet2 middleware research is looking at providing an interoperable middleware infrastructure that will fluidly accommodate the needs of complex policies and practices. In developing middleware as its own independent "layer," the "burden" of middleware responsibility is taken off the shoulders of networks and applications. It is the hope that this separate and critical layer will address the crying needs of interoperability, allow for the elimination of duplicated core data sets and services, and promote the centralized provisioning of middleware services.

You do not need to work in computer science or perform research in advanced applications to benefit from Internet2. In fact if you connect to a computer at another Internet2 member institution or site, you are already using Internet2. The University has been connected to Internet2 since 1998, and all Internet traffic to Internet2 members is routed via MAX over the Internet2 backbone to the member institution. Such traffic is taking advantage of the University’s high-speed Internet2 connection, transparent to the end-user. This high-speed connectivity does not have any special requirements for end-users at the University, is invisible to them, and expands the capabilities of Maryland research. The increased network capacity has greatly benefited research in high-end computing and in applications that have intense communications and massive dataset needs.

The Office of Information Technology is working to spur the growth and prominence of the University in Internet2 activity. Two OIT staff members, Tripti Sinha and Dr. Mark Matties, are active participants in Internet2 initiatives and are available to the University research community as a resource. If you need technical assistance or have any questions regarding Internet2, please contact them at Internet2@nts.umd.edu.

Open a New Window to Rate This Article