ACADEMIA

Internet2 NET+ Services expand to help universities address research, education, big data and innovation challenges

Internet2 and some of the nation's most prominent high-tech firms announced today partnerships that would expedite the delivery of cloud services to college campuses nationwide, and address research, big data and innovation challenges. Internet2, the world's most advanced networking consortium led by the U.S. research and education community, is pleased to be joined by Aastra; Adobe; Box; CENIC; Dell; Desire2Learn; Duo Security; DuraSpace; Evogh; HP; Level 3 Communications; Merit Network, Inc.; Microsoft; Savvis, a CenturyLink Company; SHI International; and The Solution Design Group in this initiative. The Internet2 NET+ Services' announcements were made at the Spring 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting. Go to http://bit.ly/JVsFLD to read about the specific offerings.

"These major cloud service partnerships are customized to meet the needs of the Internet2 community and these offerings range in stages from incubator, proof-of-concept, early adopter and general availability," said Dave Lambert, Internet2 CEO and president. "No other organization in the United States is able to offer this level of collaboration between higher education and the technology industry to launch these strategic cloud services to effectively and efficiently advance research, innovation and the education mission of our nation's leading universities."

"We are working with our industry partners to explore new ways to utilize this new capacity to build a cloud environment that is suited to our needs," said Shelton Waggener, Associate Vice Chancellor and CIO University of California Berkeley, who is the in-coming Internet2 Senior Vice President to oversee NET+ Services. "Our NET+ partners recognize that our organizations can help them develop new business models, services, and technical innovations that will address our needs for big data, research, education and administration.

"By working together, we can leverage cloud and other services to use these tools in innovative ways to transform our campuses," added Waggener. "To our industry partners who provide services around our network resources, I want to call out to you – consider the possibilities of what our combined efforts can bring to the future." Internet2 NET+ offerings provide "above the network" services to Internet2 member organizations, including higher education, government, and industry. The new services are tailored to the needs of the Internet2 community, cost and administratively effective, and leverage Internet2ʼs 100G network and InCommon identity management services.

For more details about these new Internet2 NET+ Services, visit http://www.internet2.edu/netplus or email netplus@internet2.edu to participate in the service offerings.

The Spring 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting held Sunday, April 22 to Wednesday, April 25 in Arlington, VA, includes nearly 800 technology leaders involved in research and education from throughout the United States and the world. The education and technology executives addressed groundbreaking innovations, brought about through the implementation of Internet2's 100G network—the first transcontinental 100 Gigabit per second network in the world, new network technologies, and opportunities for higher education leaders to deliver services that leverage this innovation platform. A complete meeting schedule listing 120 sessions and netcasts can be found on the Spring 2012 Internet2 Member Meeting website.