The Next Big Cloud: Internet2

Several higher education institutions joined forces in 1996 to attack their technology needs. The result was Internet2, a member-owned consortium to better address common technology challenges. Internet2 has grown to include more than 220 U.S. universities, 60 corporations, 70 government agencies, 38 regional and state education networks and more than 100 national research and education partners around the word.

One of Internet2's key missions is to help members achieve their goals through collaboration. The Internet2 "NET+ SIP Program" team is creating a broad portfolio of hosted cloud services; including unified communications and trunking. Before a service becomes available to its membership, it is put through a series of phases. The fifth phase is general availability to all Internet2 members. Aastra and Level3 are currently in the fourth or "early adopter" stage, and Vidyo is in the third, or "service validation" stage.

An Internet2 team issued an RFP in January 2012 for Hosted PBX and SIP trunk services. After evaluating bid responses, Aastra's Clearspan for Hosted PBX and Level 3 for SIP trunk services were selected. The intent is to replace existing PBXs or other hosted solutions an organization may be using with a less expensive alternative through the Internet2 network.

There are two levels of service from Aastra's Clearspan-basic and premium. The basic service provides the user with a core set of telephony features such as Hold, Transfer, Conferencing, etc. The premium service offers full PBX features. Voicemail and unified messaging can be added to either the basic or premium packages. There are also call center and conference features, and other advanced telephony features available.

The early adopter campuses for Aastra include Iowa State and Tulane University with general availability to all eligible campuses targeted for this spring. The initial results from the pilots include:

• Improved Business Continuity

• Reduced Complexity

• Lower Risk of Obsolescence

• Lower TCO

• Lower costs ($7-$8 per seat) via community scale

• Accelerated UC adoption

Also recently announced, Internet2 reached an agreement with Vidyo for a low-cost, subscription-based video communications offering. The Vidyo-based service will provide member institutions and other higher education and K-12 educational communities with a means to connect with high quality visual collaboration services across all institutions. Internet2 partnered with ID Solutions, a global visual communications solutions provider, to deploy and host the service.

Users will be able to access the service on Windows, Mac OS X, iOS and Linux platforms as well as legacy H.323 and SIP devices. It is expected that the service will greatly enhance communication and collaboration between faculty, administration, classrooms, researchers and students at Internet2 affiliated institutions and businesses. Some of the anticipated use scenarios are: research collaboration, virtual classrooms, K-12 outreach, HIPAA-compliant telemedicine and encrypted DOD communications for particularly sensitive environments, and communication between non-university affiliates and partners.

We often think of clouds along public or private lines, but a consortium among like-minded members provides an interesting alternative. Before wide adoption, the Internet was used widely among universities. Now, Internet2 is taking it to the next level.