ORION Newsletter

February / March 2007

Mark your calendars - 2007 Ontario R&E Summit
Mark your calendars for the 2007 Ontario Research and Education (R&E) Summit. The fourth annual Summit takes place June 4 and 5, 2007 at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. "The Promise of Technology" is this year's theme. Keynotes, plenary and break-out sessions will explore the impact and potential of innovative "cybertechnology" in advancing scientific discovery, research and learning in Ontario. Once again, the Summit brings together leaders and innovators from Ontario's research and education community, while showcasing projects and initiatives that illustrate the exciting capabilities now made possible through advanced networks and new collaborative tools and technologies. The Summit program is now in development. For more information and sponsorship opportunities, visit www.orion.on.ca/2007orionsummit.

ORION selects next-generation optical and routing gear for core network upgrade
ORION is expanding to 5,800 kilometres from its current 4,300-kilometre span with new, next-generation gear from JDSU and Juniper Networks. Ontario's R&E optical network recently turned up the first phase of its core network upgrade with next-generation optical gear from JDSU. The second phase of the upgrade will be completed by the end of March with Juniper Networks' new routing gear. The first phase involved 320 kilometres of new fibre from North Bay to Peterborough, with JDSU's WaveReady DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) optical gear. Juniper Networks' new M120 routing equipment is expected to be installed in the next two months at ORION Points of Presence (PoPs) in Peterborough, North Bay, Toronto and London. The M120 gear supports next-generation Internet Protocol applications, including IPv6, MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) and QoS (Quality of Service). The network upgrade, made possible with financial support from CANARIE, is very important to ORION's users since the new links add critical back-up and resiliency to the network.

ORION sponsors ACAATO conference, Feb. 18-19, 2007
ORION is once again a proud sponsor of the ACAATO (Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario) annual conference, which takes place February 18-19, 2007, at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto. This year, the conference is hosted by Centennial College and will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Ontario's college system. The goal of the conference is to ensure that college education and training is at the forefront of a provincial and national skills agenda. One of the most anticipated is a session on applied research and commercialization in colleges, presented by Ray Hoemsen (Director, Applied Research & Commercialization, Red River College), Marti Jurmain (Director, Research & Innovation, Niagara College), Dr. Rick Miner (President, Seneca College), and Greg Weiler (Dean of Applied Research, Innovation & University Partnerships, Fanshawe College). In addition, the Premier's Awards, which honour six college graduates for their outstanding career achievements, will also be announced. For more details about the conference, visit www.acaato.on.ca/2007conference/index.html.

$88M investment creates national high performance computing network
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) recently announced an investment of $88 million for the creation of the first ever pan-Canadian network of High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities, a national resource that will benefit the entire spectrum of research in Canada. The process leading up to this announcement mobilized Canada's entire HPC community - previously operating as seven separate regional consortia competing for resources - to work together on the development of a unified HPC strategy for Canada. The $88 million is comprised of $60 million from the CFI National Platforms Fund, $18 million from the CFI Infrastructure Operating Fund, plus $10 million from NSERC. This major investment will ultimately benefit more than 6,000 investigators doing intensive computationally-based research at over 60 institutions across the country. Over the past several years, rapid developments in HPC technology have revolutionized the way research is done. Capable of performing calculations thousands of times faster than a regular desktop computer, HPC technology can produce results in a single day that would normally take a year or more. For more information, please visit www.innovation.ca/media.

NANOG (the North American Network Operators' Group) in Toronto
The organization hosted its 39th conference in Toronto this week at the Sheraton Centre. The Feb. 4 to 7 conference provided a forum for information exchange for over 350 engineers, network operators and researchers in attendance. The keynote speaker was Mark Kortekaas, Chief Technology Officer of CBS Interactive for the American television network, who explored the question of the hour among network operators the world over, "Video over the Internet: Can we break the Net?" One of the sessions looked at the impact of the six large earthquakes that hit Taiwan last December, severing major cables and causing major disruption to Internet routing. Additional topics included the debate over net neutrality, attacks on ISPs by hackers, and protecting user privacy when tracing network traffic. The Toronto conference was co-hosted by the Toronto Internet Exchange and Teleglobe, a VSNL International company. ORION was also a sponsor. NANOG meetings are organized by Merit Network, Inc., Michigan's research and education network. For conference abstracts, visit www.nanog.org.

Registration still open for Megaconference Jr. 2007
Registration is now open and the schedule of presentations posted for the fourth annual Megaconference Jr. on February 22. Megaconference Jr. gives students in elementary and secondary schools around the world the opportunity to communicate, collaborate and contribute to each other's learning in real time, using advanced multi-point videoconferencing technology. Participants will be able to address questions to presenters and to collaborate with geographically diverse peers in collaborative learning activities, thus building international cultural awareness. Join over hundreds of sites from countries all around the world including Portugal, Australia, Canada, Japan, Indonesia, England, Spain, Slovenia, Pakistan, and the U.S. Participants will also have a chance to win exciting prizes from vendor sponsors Polycom, Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC), and VuPorts. Register at: www.megaconferencejr.org.

Ontario schools join global Student TV
Several Ontario colleges and universities have responded to the call to join the new Open Student Television Network (OSTN) and submit student television content to the new IP-based television channel. The channel is multicast over Internet2 and available to ORION-connected institutions in Ontario. A number of institutions have started the process to transmit the channel on campus and work with students and faculty to submit content. The first to join was Belleville's Loyalist College, last fall. Several schools are following suit, including Brock University in St. Catharines, Cambrian College in Sudbury, Fanshawe College in London, Georgian College in Barrie, Humber College in Toronto, Queen's University in Kingston and York University in Toronto. Niagara College, which recently opened its newly-renovated broadcasting facility, after a $1 million renovation, is also looking to join. A live stream of OSTN is available for viewing from the ORION Student TV portal. Learn more at www.orion.on.ca/research/orionstudenttv.

Ontario looks at broadband
Ontario has launched a process to consider the social and economic development potential of broadband. Working in collaboration with the Ministry of Government Services, the University of Toronto's Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) facilitated a preliminary workshop in December, involving public policy and academic officials. As a result, several research questions have emerged to set the stage for a broader consultation. The government has issued a Call for Papers to the academic community to provide a "state-of-the-art" look at the Ontario context and consider best practices and directions in other jurisdictions. The papers will explore the implications for the role of government, the private sector, the community, and academia in supporting the utilization of broadband for social and economic development. The ministry is also working with The Ontario Rural Council to host community working sessions in February and March, to seek input on the potential for broadband in rural areas. A broader workshop, in late spring, will look at the findings from the previous workshops and research papers, bringing together community representations, academic and representatives from public and private sectors. Learn more at http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/broadband.

People News
John Levay started as the new Director of Information Services at Niagara College in January. John will continue to teach at Brock University and Niagara College. Ken Woo, Information Technology Director at Ryerson University, is the new Chair of GTAnet. He replaces York University's Bob Gagne in the position. Other positions on the GTAnet board include Vice-Chair Thomas Goldthorpe of the University Health Network, Secretary Robert Botham of Humber College and Treasurer Eugene Siciunas and NOC Manager Bob Chambers, both of the University of Toronto. John Davies, currently Vice-President Administration, was recently announced Humber College's third President and Chief Executive Officer. He will succeed Dr. Robert A. Gordon, effective July 1, 2007. Mamdouh Shoukri, currently the Vice-President of Research and International Affairs at McMaster University, has recently been appointed the seventh President and Vice-Chancellor of York University, after current president Lorna Marsden retires this summer after 10 years.

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