Networks at IU Annual Report 2017

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Whether there’s a college football game happening four states away, students studying from an electronic textbook (eText), or faculty sharing scientific data with a research partner on the other side of the globe, there’s a good chance Indiana University (IU) networking professionals are helping to make it possible. The networks team at IU operates research and education (R&E) networks that are essential infrastructure for universities and government agencies worldwide.

In 1998, IU set a strategic goal to become a leader in the field of R&E networking. Today, IU’s campus network connects more than 150,000 students, faculty, and staff. The I-Light network links every college and university in Indiana.

The Global Research Network Operations Center (GlobalNOC) oversees the traffic and security of more than 20 local, national, and global networks. The International Networks at IU (IN@IU) team works to bring high-quality network connections and training to all corners of the world. And the newly formed Omni Security Operations Center (OmniSOC) is poised to help universities across the United States keep their data and networks secure from malicious intruders.

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As technology continues to advance and cyber-criminals become more sophisticated, R&E networks must become ever larger, faster, and more secure. In 2017, IU continued to push the boundaries of networking, not only by operating some of the best R&E networks in the world, but also researching and creating new tools, systems, and security methods that will forge the networks of tomorrow.

Students, researchers, and faculty are among those who benefit from this intricate web of digital roads, spanning across all 50 US states and reaching 163 countries.

Connecting Indiana University: Campus Networks The Campus Networks team installs and maintains network connectivity for all of Indiana University’s faculty, staff, and students, supporting over 150,000 individual users. The network supports more than 200,000 network outlets and 9,200 wireless access points in nearly 400 buildings on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses. Campus Networks also manages a core routing environment that sees increases of more than 30% in bandwidth each year. While the team works to ensure easy access and exceptional network reliability, they secure the network by providing dependable firewalls and the IU Secure wireless network.

CONTINUED WORK ON NETWORK MASTER PLAN In 2017, the Campus Networks team completed budgeting for the Network Master Plan. The team conducted in-depth analysis of IU’s current and projected future networking needs, identified critical networking technology, estimated costs, and obtained funding approval to support the next 10 years of network growth and operations at IU. The plan includes important upgrades to both wired and wireless networks across campuses in order to maintain IU’s fast, reliable, and secure university-wide network.

UPGRADED HARDWARE IN IU DATA CENTERS Campus Networks completed a project to refresh top-of-rack switches networking hardware that aggregates connections to the multiple servers stacked in each rack of the IU Data Centers.

This upgrade will help to ensure network performance and reliability on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses.

CONSULTED ON THE NEW IU HEALTH BLOOMINGTON HOSPITAL Campus Networks began work with IU Health to design and implement a comprehensive network plan for their new research hospital complex to be built on the IU Bloomington campus.

Set to open in 2020, the new state-of-the-art facility will need extensive, reliable, and highly secure networking capabilities to support the patient care, class instruction, and medical research that will be conducted at the facility.

Campus Networks established 10Gbs network connections with Comcast on the IU Bloomington and IUPUI campuses to support XFINITY TV service over IP. This change will ensure continued reliable connections for all of Comcast’s XFINITY users on the two campuses.

COMPLETED UPGRADES IN EXISTING BUILDINGS Maintaining fast, reliable connections in all of our campus buildings remains an ongoing priority. In 2017, the team completed network upgrades in Goodbody Hall, Memorial Hall, and the Kelley School of Business Career Center in Bloomington. At IUPUI, the team completed upgrades on the Education and Social Work building, as well as parts of the Fessler building, Kelley School of Business building, Van Nuys Medical Science building, and the Health Sciences building.

Mark Spencer (above), manager of Campus Network Engineering, and his team of network engineers support more than 150,000 users, maintain 400 networked buildings and 9,200 wireless access points across IU. In 2017, Campus Networks brought high-speed networks to Luddy Hall (above), IU Bloomington’s new home for the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering (SICE). The team also installed networks in IU Bloomington’s new Ray E. Cramer Marching Hundred Hall (left), and the Campus Facilities Services Building at IUPUI.

Connecting the state: I-Light and the Indiana GigaPOP Since 2001, the I-Light network has provided reliable, high-speed network connectivity to nearly every college and university in the state of Indiana.

With operations managed at IU, I-Light provides member institutions with high-quality video connections, access to supercomputers and scientific data storage, along with responsive expert support. From Indiana’s smallest colleges to its largest research universities, the I-Light network connects members seamlessly to each other, as well as to the Indiana GigaPOP, which gives them access to national and international R&E networks and enables collaborative research with partners across the country and around the world.

COMPLETED SUCCESSFUL 100G NETWORK UPGRADE The I-Light team at IU completed a 100G network upgrade in 2017, deploying new Ciena equipment to Gary, Lafayette, Muncie, Columbus, New Albany, and Indianapolis. The upgrade replaced multiple 10G circuits with 100G circuits to provide greater redundancy, resiliency, and performance to I-Light members. The increased network capacity allows for greater research collaborations among partner universities, improving their ability to attract federal research grants. Nearly 90 I-Light members were moved to the new network in 2017, with remaining members scheduled to be connected in 2018.

COMPLETED 100G UPGRADE TO INDIANA GIGAPOP I-Light completed a 100G upgrade to the Indiana GigaPOP and increased its commodity Internet providers to three: Hurricane Electric, Telia, and Cogent. Connecting to multiple commodity Internet providers provides greater resiliency and improved performance for I-Light members.

I-Light is a unique collaboration among Indiana colleges and universities, state government, and private sector broadband providers. The high-speed fiber optic R&E network connects higher ed in the Hoosier state, improving the way we live and work in Indiana.

ESTABLISHED REDUNDANT LINK BETWEEN DEPAUW AND WABASH COLLEGE I-Light leveraged fiber procured as part of the NSF’s Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) grants to provide greater capacity and redundancy between DePauw University in Greencastle and Wabash College in Crawfordsville.

CC* grants are intended to improve campus networks, with specific focus on better enabling science applications and distributed research.

IMPROVED SECURITY WITH INTERNET2 ZENEDGE DDOS MITIGATION Indiana GigaPOP turned up the Internet2 Zenedge DDoS mitigation service for its members in 2017. This service allows Indiana GigaPOP to route members’ data through a specialized system that will scrub Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) traffic from the stream, while still allowing legitimate traffic to pass through.

ACQUIRED LAST-MILE CONNECTIVITY FOR MEMBERS I-Light partnered with AT&T to consolidate network connectivity for member institutions that required last-mile connectivity from other service providers. This consolidation improved design and efficiency of the I-Light network and provided significant cost savings for member institutions.

As director of I-Light, Marianne Chitwood (above) and her staff ensure member institutions can conduct high-profile research collaborations through powerful connections across the state, and world.

With the assistance from I-Light, DePauw University (left) wrote a proposal that was awarded funding by the NSF’s CC* directorate. DePauw’s award will allow them to increase their I-Light network connection from 1GB to 10GB, obtain a second fiber link to the I-Light backbone, and prioritize data flows with high-performance transfers.

Connecting the nation: GlobalNOC The Global Research Network Operations Center (GlobalNOC) at Indiana University designs, operates, and monitors powerful high-speed networks that link thousands of research partners and educators across the United States and around the globe. Serving clients from Internet2 to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and several state networks, GlobalNOC empowers large-scale research projects to advance scientific discoveries at great speeds. The two operations centers, located in Bloomington and Indianapolis, employ 120 worldclass networking professionals and provide 24x7x365 monitoring and support for some of the most advanced R&E networks in the world.

OPERATING N-WAVE GROWTH IN SUPPORT OF NOAA GlobalNOC works with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to design and operate its nationwide N-Wave network. N-Wave has grown to become the secure backbone for all NOAA offices, allowing them to access and share large volumes of climate, weather, and other research data generated by supercomputers and devices across the nation. In 2017, GlobalNOC engineers helped N-Wave launch coordinated network operations for NOAA campuses and line offices, giving scientists and users at these sites improved reliability and performance. By coordinating all network operations, GlobalNOC was able to provide NOAA’s leadership with a clear end-to-end view of their network status and traffic.

COMPLETED NEW SECURITY FACILITY FOR N-WAVE In summer 2017, GlobalNOC completed the installation of a new Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) facility in Washington D.C., the fourth facility of its kind for NOAA. This facility increases security of all traffic from NOAA users to the Internet by consolidating network traffic into fewer, more highly protected routes.

IMPLEMENTED REDUNDANT NOAA NETWORK TO ENSURE RELIABILITY GlobalNOC engineers completed implementation of a specialized redundant network called X-Wave to interconnect NOAA’s TIC sites and allow for Internet traffic to failover in the event of an outage in one of the TIC facilities.

GlobalNOC operates NOAA’s N-Wave network, connecting their offices and research centers across the US.

COMPLETED 100G CONNECTION FOR PENNSYLVANIA REGIONAL NETWORK GlobalNOC has provided network engineering and service desk support to the Pennsylvania Research and Education Network (PennREN) from its inception in 2013. Since then, PennREN has grown by more than 50% and continues to expand its service portfolio with GlobalNOC. In 2017, GlobalNOC engineers assisted PennREN in turning up its first 100G connection for Pennsylvania State University (PSU).

PSU’s Cyber-Laboratory for Astronomy, Materials, and Physics (CyberLAMP) will make use of the new connection to acquire a high-performance computer cluster that will facilitate interdisciplinary research and training in cyberscience.

As director of Software and Systems, Luke Fowler (above) works to develop new technologies that make networks faster, more reliable, and easier to manage for our GlobalNOC partner networks.

GlobalNOC provides ongoing tier 2 engineering and service desk support for the Southern Crossroads (SoX) network in the southeast US, which delivers network services to R&E entities across six states.

Throughout 2017, GlobalNOC staff facilitated the upgrade of routers and network equipment for SoX members in order to improve network performance and reliability.

The Ocean State Higher Education Economic Development and Administrative Network (OSHEAN) in Rhode Island is the regional network for the northeastern part of the US. In 2017, GlobalNOC provided OSHEAN’s members with transport fiber, commodity Internet, and expanded firewall and other services, along with providing 24x7x365 desk support. In 2017, the GlobalNOC staff facilitated the implementation of OSHEAN’s Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) monitoring and scrubbing service for their members.

IMPLEMENTED NEW TROUBLE TICKETING SYSTEM In 2017, GlobalNOC implemented the new ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) system, replacing one that had been in place since 2000. The system provides a modern service management platform to track all incidents, changes, problems, and requests related to GlobalNOC-supported networks. It will also allow GlobalNOC to offer new services in the future, including self-service interfaces, more targeted outage or maintenance notifications, and a rich set of service metrics to drive continuous improvement.

Protecting our campuses: OmniSOC Launched in 2017, OmniSOC is a collaborative security operations center (SOC) formed by members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance with software development and help desk support provided by GlobalNOC. OmniSOC is a pioneering initiative to minimize the time from first awareness of a threat anywhere to mitigation everywhere for its members. Members include IU, Northwestern University, Purdue University, Rutgers University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

OmniSOC will also make use of threat intelligence insights from the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), also located at IU.

Tom Davis (above), founding executive director and CISO of OmniSOC, works alongside an experienced staff of security and networking professionals who are gathering information from members about what services are needed plus those already offered. Services already offered range from processing and creating cyber threat intelligence, to security event monitoring, triaging, and analysis.

GlobalNOC and Internet2: An impactful partnership Internet2 was a founding partner of GlobalNOC 20 years ago, and this ongoing partnership remains one of IU’s deepest and most impactful.

Internet2 is the nation’s largest, coast-to-coast R&E network, enabling scientific research, collaboration, and discovery across the US. IU is the proud home of the Internet2 NOC and IU’s GlobalNOC engineers and networking professionals provide operations support for the network. In 2017, GlobalNOC and Internet2 signed a new agreement to formally extend the partnership for another five years.

Internet2 is GlobalNOC’s longest-standing and largest strategic partner. IU is home to the Internet2 NOC, enabling largescale research and scientific collaboration among colleges and universities across the US.

COMPLETED SEAMLESS NETWORK REARCHITECTURE In 2017, the Internet2 NOC completed a rearchitecture of the network in order to improve overall service levels and reliability. The project team successfully migrated the entire Internet2 network forwarding protocol and system for network service provisioning to a new forwarding architecture. This required the team to replace backbone equipment in dozens of sites across the US, and create a new network forwarding system from the ground up. The team successfully managed this endeavor with minimal disruption to end users.

Internet2 provides a custom network for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 2017, GlobalNOC signed an agreement with USDA to provide operational services for this custom network to help the USDA Agricultural Research Service improve network uptime and performance.

NEW SECURITY SERVICE TO HELP CAMPUSES PROTECT NETWORKS Internet2 created a new service in 2017 to protect schools from DDoS attacks. The Internet2 NOC worked with the scrubbing service provider and end users to develop and implement the service on the Internet2 network. This service allows universities to route data through a specialized system that will scrub DDoS traffic from the stream, while still allowing legitimate traffic to pass through.

CUSTOM, TARGETED NETWORK NOTIFICATIONS The Internet2 NOC improved communications with the Internet2 community, providing direct, custom notifications about the outages and maintenance windows directly to the users affected by them.

In his role as executive director of the Internet2 NOC, Jon-Paul Herron (above) ensures Internet2’s network receives high-quality support from GlobalNOC. The Internet2 NOC teams successfully engineered and implemented a new, dedicated, custom-built 16-site network service for the Pacific-12 athletic conference over Internet2. GlobalNOC engineers successfully created this new network using the Internet2 backbone. By the end of 2017, this network had already been used to stream more than 1,000 athletic events.

Connecting the world: International Networks International Networks at IU (IN@IU) supports network connections that enable cooperation and collaboration in research and science to flourish across oceans and between continents. Operating networks that connect the US to Asia, Europe, and Africa, the IN@IU team expanded its outreach in 2017, engaging educators and scientists in new locations around the world. Because good measurement and monitoring are key to improving network performance, we continually develop new data sources, analytics, and visualization tools, as well as provide network engineering training to engineers in dozens of countries.

IU leads TransPAC, a network that connects the US to Asia, as well as the Networks for European, American, and African Research (NEAAR) project. Combined, these networks carry traffic connecting researchers in 179 different countries.

LAUNCHED NEW ASIA PACIFIC RING NETWORK In December 2017, IN@IU was one of six partners that announced the development of the Asia Pacific Ring (APR)—a reliable, redundant 100G network resource consisting of multiple circuits and exchange points to support US-Asian collaborative research and science. This R&E backbone connects Seattle and Los Angeles with Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. To make this possible, IU partnered with the Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network, the Japanese National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Singapore’s National Supercomputing Centre, the Japanese National Institute of Informatics (NII), the Japanese Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) Project, and US-supported resources from partners Pacific Wave and Internet2.

Jennifer M. Schopf, Ph.D., (above) serves as director of International Networks. Her years of professional experience at the NSF, Argonne National Laboratory, and the University of Edinburgh enable her to understand the particular needs of scientists and researchers who use our high-performance international networks to collaborate and share data with partners in other parts of the world.

The IU-led NetSage project has deployed a portal that shows the behaviors of all NSF-funded international circuits and exchange points. Through the use of open-source components and a canonical test point, it is now possible to see unparalleled details through the analysis and visualization services for these links. End users and network owners can understand behaviors of the networks and use the information gathered to conduct more reliable data transfers.

See it yourself at portal.netsage.global.

SUPPORTED CLINICAL RESEARCH IN KENYA WITH AMPATH PROJECT IN@IU worked with the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) project, a consortium of North American academic health centers led by IU, in partnership with the government of Kenya, to improve international data transfers from remote clinical sites in Kenya. The IN@IU team leveraged partnerships with the Kenyan Research and Education Network (KENET) and the UbuntuNet Alliance to help AMPATH become a member of KENET. This allowed AMPATH to switch from expensive, unreliable commercial networks to dedicated, advanced R&E infrastructure. AMPATH is now able to take advantage of IU-supported resources to support highquality research ranging from basic science to translational and implementation research, thereby enhancing healthcare practices and developing healthcare leaders on both continents.

TRAINED NETWORK ENGINEERS IN THE PHILIPPINES In March 2017, IN@IU team members traveled to Manila, Philippines, to present the first international Operating Innovative Networks (OIN) training session at the request of the Philippine Research Education and Government Information Network (PREGINET). This training covered a wide range of topics over two days, including Science DMZs, the perfSONAR measurement tool, and software defined networking (SDN), with a focus on performance aspects. This exercise enabled advanced networking support for a broad set of applications and strengthened collaborations through faster data transfers. It was one of 14 training sessions offered by the team in 2017, domestically and abroad.

Looking ahead to 2018 Networks at Indiana University continues to strive for excellence, and to provide exceptional connectivity to people doing important work. Here’s a quick glimpse at what we’re looking forward to in 2018:

CAMPUS NETWORKS • Enhancing network security across all campuses by adding a Secure Sockets Layer Virtual Private Network (SSL VPN). An SSL VPN offers a secure way for users on a variety of computers and devices to access resources at multiple locations • Upgrading key network infrastructure on the edge of the IUPUI and IU Bloomington campus networks to ensure continued network integrity on those campuses • Enhancing the IU Data Center firewalls to provide cutting edge security with faster performance and enhanced data access

I-LIGHT • Completing the migration of all Layer 2 (member connections) to the Ciena platform to provide improved performance and reliability • Increasing access for research and education at DePauw University through NSF-supported upgrades to their I-Light connection • Providing additional educational opportunities for I-Light network engineers through a new Network Engineering Tutorial program

GLOBALNOC • Supporting US R&E institutions’ use of the cloud by helping Internet2 to develop new and useful connectivity capabilities • Advancing services for faster data transfers, better supported collaborations, and additional educational services though planning and development of the next generation Internet2 network • Extending security support for our partners through additional monitoring of security alerts and associated data feeds for OmniSOC member systems and networks

IN@IU • Providing additional capacity for research collaborations via a link between Guam and Asia as part of TransPAC • Enhanced support to explain network use through the analysis of flow data through extensions to NetSage, and deploying additional infrastructure domestically • Providing perfSONAR measurement training domestically and abroad, with a focus on NRENs in Africa, and the distribution of small measurement nodes • Extensive assistance to collaborating scientists through end-to-end support, both internationally and domestically

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