Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

NetPotential 2011 Conference Notes

These are my notes from the NetPotential 2011 conference in Oklahoma City on October 21, 2011, sponsored by OneNet. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS.

Glen Johnson opening the NetPotential 2011 Conference at OneNet

Opening comments from Glen Johnson, Chancellor of Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education:

Initial funding for OneNet came from legislation in Oklahoma in 1992

5th significant increase in enrollment in Oklahoma higher education system
– tells us if people are going to be successful in today’s knowledge economy they need a college degree
– in last decade we
– Gov Fallin has embraced our program, “Complete College America”
– 29 states are participating, our state (Oklahoma) has been designated by “Complete College America” as THE model for others
– individuals with a college degree earns $28K per year more on average than non-college grads, over $1.1 million more over a lifetime

Governor’s IT Savings initiative: OneNet brought $40 million to the table

Five Things about OneNet by Andy Behrens, coordinator of Customer Service & Outreach for OneNet
– as we know not all traffic is the same, some serves a higher purpose
– is it possible to designate special traffic lanes? Analogy to HOV lanes
– OneNet is like a separate and unique expressway: Oklahoma’s backbone network for education, state government
– for standardized testing: risks on OneNET network for data loss during standardized testing is less than commercial alternatives
National Lambda Rail and Internet2: OneNet is the only portal to these networks in Oklahoma (these are worldwide networks)

Our existence results in millions of dollars saved each year: smart stewardship of public dollars
– highest possible
– are user supported through subscription fees
– OneNet does not receive any state appropriations
– we pass savings on to savers

We are the only ISP with statewide reach, made possible by public/private partnership
– lease conduit for ‘the last mile’ from local telcos

Origins of OneNET back to 1971 when Oklahoma Regents established television instruction system, “talk back television”
– tower-based broadcast system

Now hearing from Von Royal, Interim Executive Director of OneNet, “Be a Router Whisperer: Mobilizing the Network toward Your Organization’s Goals”
– originally OneNet provided connectivity to higher ed institutions with DS3s, connected schools and libraries via T-1 lines
– demands on the network continued to increase, we built layer upon layer… and this produced a lot of network complexity

We were not pleased with all the levels of service we were providing, so we undertook a major upgrade
multicasting, IPv6, QoS, VPLS
– scaling network for 40G and 100G connectivity
– reached out to Juniper Networks, Cisco, and Alcatel-Lucent
– we did in-depth research and proof-of-concept

Juniper was the vendor that stood out for us: we basically replaced our entire network, cores at all sites, routers
– allowed us to move past limited bandwidth of 3 GB, let us build a 10 GB ring around the state

Past: Complex Network Connectivity

Simplified and Stabilized Network

We have 8 MX960s at core locations around our network
– these do multiple 10 GB connections internal to that node and across to other nodes in the network

MX480 is similar but smaller, we have 12 of these across the network

M120 boxes is positioned throughout the state, this replaced the hardware we had at each “hub site” (like at each higher education site)
– this is like the utility box
– does serial connections (T-1s, DS3s, etc)
– provides high level of service with the QoS, VPLS, etc services

We have 10GB of connectivity for Quest for commercial connectivity
– also connectivity to NLR and I2

Our network is now much more stable and coherent

Some of our customers here today have 100 MB connections, OSU and OU have 10 GB connectivity because of research and other demands

Perspective: a T-1 is a trickle compared to the capability we can do on our core today
– now we have redundancy between our nodes: redundant links and redundant routers

Layer2 VPN connectivity lets remote nodes on the network connect (switching)
– connect nodes without having to do routing
– since it’s a VPN we can do this in a private tunnel

Layer3 VPN is the private tunneling you are more familiar with

VPLS is an enhancement on Layer2 VPN, includes multiple points on the network

Comparing the past number of maximum IP addresses with IPv4 (32 bit) to IPv6 (128 bit)
– now everyone in this room can have a million addresses assigned to just YOU alone
– huge expandability and capability
– ability to scale beyond past limits

Big question mark: When is IP4V going away?
– everyone in this room should be starting to consider IPv6
– make sure your new purchases for your network can support IPv6

Where can QoS impact your service?
– data preferential treatment (video traffic vs P2P traffic)
– Circuit oversubscription (customers who need more circuits
– Rogue traffic (in many cases this bad traffic is eating up a lot of your bandwidth)
— we can put mechanisms in place to damper that traffic
— we are not in the business of policing the network, but with QoS we can implement some solutions to save you some headaches

Future of OneNet
– our network upgrade we just completed was HUGE: touched every node on our network
– we’re not standing still now, however
Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP)
Oklahoma Community Anchor Network (OCAN)
Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)

Proposed expansion for Oklahoma Fiber Backbone (James Deaton will talk more about this)

MY QUESTION TO VON: WHAT IS ONENET DOING FOR K12 SCHOOLS FOR CONTENT FILTERING, AND HAS THE NEW NETWORK UPDGRADE OPENED UP ANY NEW SERVICES OR POSSIBILITIES FOR SCHOOLS WITH RESPECT TO CONTENT FILTERING
– Von’s answer: That is an area [content filtering] which we are not where we want to be… give me your info and I’ll engage you to discuss those issues

MY COMMENT: ALL THESE UPGRADES TO THE ONENET NETWORK SOUND GOOD AND LOOK FLASHY, BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IN SCHOOLS IS HOW FAST AS WELL AS USABLE THE INTERNET CONNECTION IS… AND RIDICULOUSLY DRACONIAN, POOR, AND INFLEXIBLE CONTENT FILTERING SOLUTIONS ARE ONE OF THE BIGGEST BOTTLENECKS WHICH NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSD. FOR K12 SCHOOL FOLKS IN THE AUDIENCE, FAILING TO ADDRESS CONTENT FILTERING ISSUES IS A MAJOR MISSING PIECE IN TODAY’S PRESENTATIONS TODAY. HOPEFULLY WE’LL SEE ONENET STEP UP AND HELP MAKE THE CONTENT FILTERING MORASS IN OUR SCHOOLS BETTER, AT LEAST BY HELPING PROVIDE A BETTER ROADMAP FOR CONTENT FILERING OPTIONS AND BENEFITS/DRAWBACKS IN THE STATE. THIS IS A HUGE NEED AND I’D LIKE TO SEE BETTER ONLINE RESOURCES / COMMUNITIES TO ADDRESS THIS.

Now hearing from Brian Burkhart: Native Intelligence – Reliable Solutions In-Network for Your Essential DAta
– about 60% of web hosting companies today are using CPANEL, this is what we use and offer at no cost to our customers for web hosting

MY COMMENT: I LOVE CPANEL AND IT’S VITAL THAT ANYONE INVOLVED IN IT, OR INTERESTED IN
Fantastico has been replaced by Installatron

OneNet hosts over 300 domains now in the state

Maia Mailguard is open source spam filter OneNet uses for customers using email hosting services

With a Layer2 VPN we can drop a virtual server on your network to use / utilize
– also possibilities for consortiums to use a shared content filtering solution

MY COMMENT: BIGGEST EYE CATCHING PRICE IS FOR COMMERCIAL LMS
– HOSTING RATES DON’T INCLUDE SOFTWARE LICENSING FEES
– BLACKBOARD $8,412 PER YEAR
– DESIRE2LEARN $16,145 PER YEAR

OneNet moved setup for database / LMS solutions like Moodle to a fiber connected server and is getting much better performance
– people who were early on the shared hosting service need to know this

MY COMMENT: THIS IS HUGE AND SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE GOOD TO AMPLIFY / SHARE. I KNOW SOME OKLAHOMA DISTRICT FOLKS IN THAT BOAT WHO ADOPTED MOODLE ON ONENET’S SHARED HOSTING SERVICE AND DIDN’T GET PERFORMANCE THEY NEEDED, SINCE THEY MIGRATED TO COMMERCIAL MOODLE SERVICES. IT WOULD BE GOOD TO DO A PODCAT INTERVIEW / POST ABOUT THIS, INCLUDING PEOPLE WHO ARE CUSTOMERS AND CNA SPEAK TO ACTUAL PERFORMANCE IN-DISTRICT. THIS IS A HUGE NEED AND ISSUE FOR K12 SCHOOLS, NOT JUST 1:1 CAMPUSES. EVERY SCHOOL NEEDS A LMS, I WONDER HOW MANY OKLAHOMA DISTRICTS ARE USING ONE NOW?

Email compliance archiving for OneNet customers provided by Datacove

Now hearing rom Roger Holder, video support technician at OneNet: “Live On-Screen: Pushing the Frontier of Video Connectivity”
– we have 2 primary conference types
– Adhoc Conferences: anytime, always ready
– Scheduled conferences: classes, scheduled & recurring, pre-defined participants, automatic connection

Adhoc conferences can always be connected as long as ports for video traffic are available on the MCU
– set dialing format will never change
– demo of Codian dialing
– anyone can dial into the conference
– no time limits
Cons of AdHoc conferences
– end users need to have more in-depth knowledge of operating video systems
– participants not automatically connected or disconnected
– availability depends on current use

demo using PC client of Movi
– We chose Tandberg Movi for mobile videoconferencing
– it’s a high def system, you can install on a PC or Mac and take it anywhere
– can stream a live conference from our MCUs at OneNet
– are working on a video on demand / YouTube system what we can setup for anyone

MOVI is SIP based, it’s not H.323 but it does have lots of available options similar to H.323
– can share a desktop app
– VCS (video communication server) is required to make a MOVI call
– Oklahoma Higher Education grants and collaboratives have provided 100 MOVI licenses, so 100 people can use it at a given time now

Any OneNet customers can use our OneNet MOVI licenses, but remember conferences

firewire cameras are not supported by MOVI, must be USB camera
– multi-core computers work best with MOVI, although official min specs are far less

bandwidth restrictions and required network hops for a MOVI conference
– SIP generally doesn’t need firewall traversal technologies, but if a network admin specifically blocks those ports it can shut down SIP

OneNet has 15 licenses for IPVCRs to record conferences
– that’s for a total of 15 simultaneous conferences being recorded
– all sessions are recorded to the network, lots of storage available

Exported recordings are in MPEG1 format and can be converted / posted as desired
– internal recording is in Codian proprietary

Future plans is video on demand: playing in a YouTube-like interface
– live and playback streaming

Max on EagleCam was 400 simultaneous viewers

Now hearing from James Deaton and his presentation: “More Bandwidth! Part One: The Fever”

Have a fever for more bandwidth?
– discover resources to figure out bandwidth issues
– leaner about mechanisms to resolve current bandwidth issues
– talk about activities locally and nationally bringing more bandwidth to all of Oklahoma (via stimulus dollars and other sources)

As part of NLR and I2, we’ve put lots of resources into GlobalNOC run out of Indiana University
Alertmon provides updates about network status / utilization
– this is based on Nagios (we also use this internally at OneNet, is open source and VMs you can install)

2 good tools to check for website availability:
http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
http://www.isup.me/

SNMP Network Analysis and Presentation
– metrics about the network are collected from most devices every 10 seconds

James Deaton demonstrating SNAPP Traffic Graphs

SNAPP provides nice stacked graphs showing bandwidth utilization over different times

full NOC set: http://globalnoc.iu.edu/grnoc-tool-set.html

SmokePing is a good software tool to check for bandwidth latency

Whoever you use for your DNS affects your content delivery networks
OpenDNS and Google Public DNS are good examples
– using those DNS services can be less effective than using DNS services within your own network provider

This is the data spike on the OneNet Akamai servers for the for iOS 5 update downloads last week

data spike on the OneNet Akimai servers for the for iOS 5 update downloads last week

James is now discussing use of Netflow software for traffic monitoring

http://npad.onenet.net/ gives all kind of information about network performance

OCAN‘s purpose
– build 1005 miles of fiber infrastructure for middle-mile services through a service area touching 35 counties
– Connect 32 community Anchors…

PCCs = public computing centers, is a parternship with state libraries for shared initiatives related to bandwidth

Now hearing from Ami Layman: More Bandwidth Part 2

OneNet can get quotes from all available Internet vendors in your area and get the best pricing

Many areas of our state still don’t have fiber
Pricing isnt on our website for bonded T1s, Ds3s, etc
– we have to do a rate analysis for each customer

OneNet billing starts as soon as service is operational, so you need to make sure all required equipment is in place at your site

Typical install for T1 lines are 30 to 60 days
– higher bandwidth orders can take 60 days to 6 months
– OneNet is dependent on local partners to install last mile connectivity

Email archiving costs are not erateable but you can contract with OneNet for this

OneNet does not charge for videoconferencing

Some schools order service upgrades before all Erate funding is finalized (486 received)

Internet access and telemedicine is eligible for OUSf funding
– OUSf created in 1997

Each classroom receiving OneNet Internet receive $497
– OUSF pays for Internet needs not funded by Erate

Some legislative changes are likely coming on OUSF Telemedicine offerings

MY COMMENT: GOOD CONFERENCE FROM ONENET! BUMMER ERATE LEGAL RESTRICTIONS PREVENTED A VENDOR-SPONSORED LUNCH. 🙁

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