UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA Council on Information Technologies and Services March 31, 1994 (typographical and timeline corrections: MPH, RHS, RLS, SBT 28 April 1994) Planning for the Campus Communications Network for 1999 Report of the Council Network Group Members Dale Canelas Robert Cremer Mark Hale Tom Hintz Richard Newman-Wolfe Ron Schoenau Rick Smith, coordinator Sharon Wheeler The Network Group received a list of goals and issues for campus networking from the Council on Information Technologies and Services. Portions of this group met three times (four if one counts the Council discussion on January 13) to discuss a means of setting the planning process in motion as Council agenda items for the next year. This report is the outcome of these discussions. Throughout this document the word "communications" refers to all of voice, video, and data. The following five goals are to be the focus of the planning process: Goal I.Develop a 5-year statement of directions for UF networking. Within this broad goal are four more specific ones: Goal II. Address and plan for well-defined, well- understood sources of support for every network user. Goal III. Address and plan for well-defined relationships among the large network organizations. Goal IV. Develop at least two reasonable funding models that take into account the likely form of usage- based charges. Goal V.Consider whether to obtain a communications study using external consultants to analyze and plan options for the future of UF's communications network and proceed accordingly. All five goals are so intertwined that the group recommends that planning proceed simultaneously. This can be accomplished by encouraging the task groups to make frequent progress reports to the Council to maintain coherence, to propose and evaluate multiple options, and, as much as possible, to focus on organizational and policy areas. Members of this Network Group will provide clarification of any ambiguities in the recommendations to the task groups. The remainder of this paper outlines the desired results for each goal, recommendations for achieving each, and schedules for the required efforts. Goal I.Develop a 5-year statement of directions for UF networking. This goal should yield a clear technical and organizational vision of what the network will look like in five years. This plan should include 1.Technological trends, particularly, a statement of direction on the convergence of voice, video and data technology 2.Funding options 3.A user support plan 4.Coordination with affiliated metropolitan and wide-area networks 5.Organizational vision 6.Design issues such as redundancy, security, and disaster recovery 7.The usefulness and economy of out-sourcing portions of network services 8.Coordination with other campus planning efforts such as the Campus Master Plan Recommendation 1. Council's Standing Committee ("S.C." hereafter) on Networking and Telecommunications should create a working group to appraise emerging technologies and their likely impact and value for UF networking. This report should evaluate the desirability and feasibility of each technology. The report would address specific networking goals or statements of direction from the Council for the following year and would build in an annual review process and updating of the document. This report is due in the office of the Executive Director by July 1, 1994. Recommendation 2. S.C. on Networking and Telecommunications should report on network design issues related to redundancy, reliability, security, and disaster recovery. This report should discuss various (more than one!) options for providing redundancy with an evaluation of their feasibility, expected down-time, performance, etc. This is due in the office of the Executive Director by June 1, 1994. Recommendation 3. Council's S.C. on Administrative Computing and S.C. on Academic Computing should study and report on security issues. The report should identify specific areas which expose the University to risks - payroll, student records, student access, privacy, personnel files, etc. Discussion and recommendations should include appropriate degrees of risk and means of enabling security through policy, personnel, and physically securing communications areas. The report is due in the office of the Executive Director by May 1, 1994. Recommendation 4. Based on the joint report (Recommendation 3) from the S.C. on Admin. Computing and the S.C. on Acad. Computing, the S.C. on Networking and Telecommun. should examine various technical means for providing security through authentication mechanisms, encryption, etc. This report is due in the office of the Executive Director by June 1, 1994. Recommendation 5. A Council Work Group, with members from FCLA, HEALTHNET, ICON, NERDC, and Network Services, should report on the role of networking at UF in metropolitan and wide area networking. This report should make recommendations on how UF and external providers can cooperate to facilitate their missions, and, where possible, identify mutually beneficial areas of technology transfer. It should also discuss possible financial and technical resource problems. This report is due in the office of the Executive Director by July 1, 1994. Recommendation 6. Form a team of three planners and writers to create a Network '99 plan. This team should be formed immediately. They should begin writing the statement immediately, even though this statement will coalesce the outcome of the other reports and Council recommendations. This report is due in the office of the Executive Director by September 1, 1994. Goal II. Address and plan for well-defined, well- understood sources of support for every network user. The network exists for the users. In the haste with which networking has developed, user support was left underdeveloped in parts of campus. The loss of many networking personnel to private business and the lack of funding for user support must be addressed. The Data Network Management Statement which was approved by the Council on July 1, 1993 contains a skeletal statement for user support. This plan needs to be reviewed, expanded, formalized, and promoted to all parts of the University. This would be the first step in establishing where the user turns for support. Among the issues which need to be addressed are: 1. Student network support 2. Classroom network support 3. Educational services 4. User expectations of services, reliability, performance, and security 5. Communication with users 6. The organizational separation of hardware and software support 7. Means of seeking support - single point of user contact 8. Identification of network support personnel 9. Off-campus access to the network. Recommendation 7. The S.C. on Acad. Computing and the S.C. on Admin. Computing should evaluate the issues listed above in relation to user support and together make a set of prioritized recommendations as to needed responses. Reports should be in the office of the Executive Director by June 1, 1994. Goal III. Address and plan for well-defined relationships among the large network organizations. Recommendation 8. A Council working group composed of representatives of CIRCA, HEALTHNET, ICON, NERDC, Network Services, Physical Plant Division, and the Executive Director should summarize their understandings of the existing relationships (both official and informal) and should include lists of benefits and problems. This group should revisit the "integration concept" agreed upon in the June, 1992, resolutions. Of particular interest is an evaluation of University-wide benefits of degrees-of- integration versus degrees-of-autonomy. A report should be in the office of the Executive Director by August 1, 1994. Recommendation 9. A Council working group composed of representatives of CIRCA, HEALTHNET, ICON, NERDC, Network Services, Physical Plant Division, and the campus coordinator for the Campus Master Plan should establish a formal relationship to coordinate planning of the communications portion of the Campus Master Plan. This agreement should provide a means for communication between the Master Plan process and the Network '99 Plan (Recommendation 6.) This agreement should be in the office of the Executive Director by June 1, 1994. Goal IV. Develop at least two reasonable funding models that take into account the likely form of usage- based charges. Funding is among the major barriers to improved network support and services. As substantial portions of the network have grown in an ad hoc manner, funding in some instances has similarly been ad hoc and inadequate. There are pressures from within the University to provide better service, hence a better-funded service. There are also pressures from outside the University: 1.From the telecommunications carriers who state that they will assist in development of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) only if they do not compete with government-subsidized services. 2.Increasing use of the existing Internet with consequent degradation of responsiveness and utility. 3.Technological development and deployment of a common digital packet size (the ATM cell) and the accompanying move to measured rate service by the telecommunications carriers. 4.The emergence of charge-back, value-added network services. Outside pressure indicates that University communications charges will increase. All of these trends point towards the need for some means of usage-based charges. Thus it will be important to weigh the present commitment to universal service (which is only partially achieved in UF's current model of telephone funding). How will funding and usage-based charging affect usage patterns? What accounting overhead will be created by the funding mechanism? Recommendation 10. The S.C. on Admin. Computing should provide several models for funding basic core operations. They should provide an evaluation of the models based on criteria such as accounting overhead and encouraging universality of service. The S. C. on Academic Computing should assess the potential impact on academic life of the models proposed by the S.C on Admin. Computing. The S.C. Admin. Computing report is due in the office of the Executive Director by July 1. The S.C. Acad. Computing response is due in the office of the Executive Director by July 1, 1994. Recommendation 11. A small Work Group of the Council should be formed to analyze the models from Recommendation 10. This group should include some external (to the Council) "consultants" drawn from the faculty and staff. This report is due in the office of the Executive Director by Aug. 1, 1994. Goal V. Consider whether to obtain a communications study using external consultants to analyze and plan options for the future of UF's communications network and proceed accordingly. A communications study was sanctioned by the Council at the time of the adoption of the last telephone contract with Southern Bell. At that time it was conceived as primarily a telephone study which would lay out the options and a plan of action before the next contract. Since that time, the convergence of digital, voice, and video services has emerged with anticipated ATM services. That trend is the reason for broadening the study to include all of telecommunications. Recommendation 12. The Council should discuss the role and extent of the communications study in network and communications planning and decide whether to proceed with this study. This should appear on the Council agenda as soon as possible (e.g. by May 1, 1994). Such a study would impact campus network planning and organization. Should it receive approval and funding from the Provost, the study should begin as quickly as possible with a report within two years.