Announcing the GlobalNOC Summer of Networking Program

The GlobalNOC has a long history of hiring students to work on projects during the summer.  In fact, many of our software developers and system administrators started with us as students.  This summer we anticipate having about 8-10 students working in multiple areas of the GlobalNOC including Systems Engineering, Service Desk and Network Architecture.

With such a large group of students, we decided to pilot a program to provide additional training opportunities in a group forum.  Our plan is to have group training/seminar sessions one afternoon a week.  The initial sessions with include presentations and training by GlobalNOC staff to the students.  Towards the end of the summer, the sessions will be focused on the students presenting their work from the summer or a networking topic they've been researching during the summer to each other.  Since the students will be split between the IUPUI and IUB campuses, most of the group sessions will be conducted via high-definition video conferencing, but at least two of the sessions will be conducted face-to-face with all the students.

There will also be opportunities for students to shadow GlobalNOC staff in areas other than the area in which they are working.  So a student working on software development in the Systems Engineering group would have a chance to learn about the Service Desk, Network Engineering and Network Architecture groups by shadowing someone in each of those areas.

This is a pilot, so we may need to make adjusts during the summer, but I think this will be a great opportunity for students to get hands-on experience managing large-scale networks.

Openflow Trip

Nothing like back-to-back weeks of travel !   This week we're headed to Silicon Valley for a series of meetings related to Openflow including stops at Stanford University and HP Labs.  Actually, last week's trip to GEC7 at Duke University was related to Openflow as well.   If you haven't checked out Openflow yet, I'd encourage you to do so (www.openflowswitch.org).  It's a standard API that allows external systems (think PC servers) to manipulate the forwarding ASICs in switches and routers.  IU was recently awarded an NSF grant through the GENI program to help get Openflow deployed on campuses.

Heading to GEC 7

I'm heading to GEC 7, the 7th GENI Engineering Conference, tomorrow with several colleagues from the IU GlobalNOC.  IU has received multiple GENI grants so far including one for the Openflow Campus Trials which I'm working on along with the PI, Chris Small.  Tomorrow night we'll be doing a demo of our current Openflow deployment that includes 6 HP switches running Openflow capable code along with the NOX and SNAC Openflow controllers.  You can check out our project page on the GENI Wiki for more information.