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Information Technology Networking in Higher Education: Campus Commodity and Competitive Differentiator Robert B. Kvavik Associate Vice President University of Minnesota ECAR Senior Fellow EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research www.educause.edu/ecar 1 The Network’s Growing Importance in Higher Ed… Institution's Network is Much More Important to Our Strategic Goals than Three Years Ago (N=517) 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 61.9% 1.2% Strongly Disagree 1.4% Disagree 4.1% Neutral 31.5% Agree Strongly Agree • Networks are fundamental in higher education, used in diverse and creative ways to facilitate strategic goals • However, knowledge of current state and future networking plans was largely anecdotal. www.educause.edu/ecar 2 …Prompted ECAR to Conduct this Study • To provide comprehensive empirical information about the higher education networking environment • To help institutions make more-informed decisions regarding their networking approaches and plans • Identifies networking technology and practices are currently in place • Examines adoption of emerging technologies and evolution of the central IT network www.educause.edu/ecar 3 Study Methodology Survey Respondents by Carnegie Class Other, 36 Canada, 30 DR, 130 AA, 85 MA, 137 BA, 99 N=517 • Literature search • Consultation with EDUCAUSE Net@EDU Integrated Communications Solutions Working Group • Online survey in June/July 2004 • In-depth telephone interviews with 19 IT executives at 13 institutions • Informal CIO roundtable • Follow-up email questions on specific subjects on selected respondents • Three case studies www.educause.edu/ecar 4 Most Respondents’ Networks are Small Number of Institutional Users (N=513) 40,001 to 60,000, 4.1% 60,001 to 80,000, 1.9% Over 80,000, Under 1.8% 1,000, 8.0% 20,001 to 40,000, 14.6% 5,001 to 20,000, 32.4% Number of Devices (N=508) More than 40,000, 5.5% 20,001 to 40,000, 6.8% Over 80,000, 1.8% Under 1,000, 11.5% 10,001 to 20,000, 11.3% 1,001 to 5,000, 37.2% 5,001 to 10,000, 18.1% www.educause.edu/ecar 1,001 to 5,000, 46.8% 5 Higher Education is Wired; Wireless is Growing Comparison of Wired and Wireless Installations 2.39 Administrative offices 4.98 2.35 Faculty offices Libraries 4.55 3.03 3.01 2.79 2.54 Indoor public spaces Classrooms: One connection per seat 0.00 4.57 2.13 0.00 0.00 Wired Mean* 4.68 2.60 Labs / research facilities Outdoor spaces 4.72 2.12 Residence halls Classrooms: Single connection 4.96 3.63 1.00 Wireless Mean* 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 * Scale = 1 (none) to 5 (almost all) • Wireless is prevalent in areas not as quickly hardwired • Wireless mainly supplements hardwired connectivity, especially where bandwidth and security are important www.educause.edu/ecar 6 Higher Ed Network Infrastructure Snapshot Transmission Medium Standard/Bandwidth Backbone transmission Multimode fiber optic cable Backbone bandwidth 1 to 4.99 gigabits per second Backbone data transmission Gigabit Ethernet Backbone-to-end-device transmission Category 5 and 5e twisted pair Wired end-device transmission Fast Ethernet Wireless end-device transmission 802.11b Commodity Internet bandwidth 4.5 to 89 megabits per second • Larger and more complex network environments often use higher bandwidths and transmission standards www.educause.edu/ecar 7 Private Education & Research Networks Gain Momentum Connection to External Networks (Multiple Responses Allowed) 43.0% State research or educational network 39.3% University system-wide network 38.0% Internet2/Abilene 24.8% Regional gigapop 23.8% Regional research or educational network 22.8% Other multi-institutional network 17.1% National research network 8.1% Other 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% • 34 research and educational networks are now in place or being implemented to conduct multi-institutional and leadingedge research, hold cross-institutional classes, and/or access public networks www.educause.edu/ecar 8 Institutions Gear Up for Converged Networks Changes Being Made to Reflect Converged Networks (Multiple Responses Allowed) Number of Institutions 160 143 126 109 120 96 80 53 40 0 Organizational structure Central operations User support Policies Financial model • Most respondents say they are somewhere on the adoption curve between evaluating and actually running converged networks for some applications. www.educause.edu/ecar 9 Emerging Technology Adoption Focuses on Video Applications • About half of respondents indicate that IP video streaming and/or desktop video conferencing is already in limited use on their campuses • Most other institutions are either planning to implement or evaluating these technologies. • There is less use of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)— about one-fourth of institutions. • An even smaller number of institutions are currently implementing other converged services such as cable TV over the network and integrated messaging. www.educause.edu/ecar 10 Network Management is Increasingly Crucial • Placing network restriction practices is common • Restricting relaying of e-mail (63.1 percent) • Access to selected TCP/IP ports (54.4 percent). • Use packet shaping (69.6 percent ) to minimize the impact of P2P file sharing and other applications that consume large amounts of bandwidth. • Almost three-quarters use stand-alone vendor products (71 percent); two-thirds use open source network management software tools. www.educause.edu/ecar 11 Which Institutions Report a HigherQuality Network Infrastructure? • Several similar characteristics emerge among institutions that agreed that their institution has a higher quality network infrastructure: • secure, fault tolerant, and its central backbone, desktop connectivity, and wireless connectivity are optimally designed to meet future needs for • Of particular note is the role that the “softer” or nontechnical side of IT networking plays. • Technology is indeed important in network design and management, but • The network is also contextually shaped and constrained by factors like senior leadership attitudes, funding resources, and institutional mission. www.educause.edu/ecar 12 Which Institutions Report a HigherQuality Network Infrastructure? Institutions that… • consider the network to be a strategic resource • have a primary network goal of providing leading-edge network performance and services • do not consider inadequate funding to be a barrier to the delivery of networking services • have formal, comprehensive policies and procedures that cover networking issues; enforce these policies and procedures consistently; and update them regularly • provide more redundancy measures for the institution's central network • have a disaster recovery plan for the institution's data-networking capabilities www.educause.edu/ecar 13 Leadership Recognizes the Network’s Value • Respondents overwhelmingly agree that their leadership views the campus network as: • an essential resource (98 percent) and critical infrastructure (89 percent). • a strategic resource (81 percent). • Over one-quarter (28 percent) characterized networking at their institution not only as strategic but also as a “strategic differentiator” for the campus. • ECAR found that respondents whose campus leaders consider the network to be strategic rated the quality of their network infrastructure higher than others. www.educause.edu/ecar 14 Respondents’ Institution’s Primary Networking Goal Evenly Distributed Primary Network Goal Descriptor % Provide reliable performance and se\vices at the lowest possible cost Costminimizer 19.8% Provide appropriate levels of performance & services to different users, based upon their needs Demand Driven 28.4% Provide high-speed networking to the entire institution High-speed for all 25.9% Provide leading-edge network performance and services to the institution Leading edge 25.9% • Institutions whose primary network goal is leading-edge network rate the quality of their network infrastructure—design of the backbone, desktop connectivity, and wireless networks, as well as network security and fault tolerance—higher than other institutions. www.educause.edu/ecar 15 Networking Funding is Up Despite Financial Uncertainties Change in Data Network Spending 28.5% Institutions 30% 21.1% 20% 25.9% 22.9% 22.7% 20.2% 16.6% 14.9% 10% 4.0% 3.6% 2.6% 2.6% 1.2% 0.8% 0% -15% -10% -5% 0% 5% Percentage Change Past three years (mid-2001 to mid-2004) • • 10% 15% Next three years (mid-2004 to mid-2007). Yet 59 percent indicate that inadequate funding is a barrier to delivering network services. Those institutions that feel they are not experiencing inadequate funding rate their network infrastructure as stronger, especially for the optimal design of desktop connectivity and for the fault tolerance of the network. www.educause.edu/ecar 16 Effective Network Policies and Procedures are Important Network Policy Characteristic Mean* Easily Accessible 3.84 Clear and Easy to Read 3.75 Applied Consistently Across the Institution 3.50 Enforced Consistently 3.32 Regularly Updated 3.19 Comprehensive 3.14 *Scale= 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree), 5 (strongly agree) • 77.9 percent of respondents now have formal network policies and procedures • Institutions that possess formal networking policies and procedures that are enforced consistently and comprehensively and are regularly updated are more likely to rate the quality of their network infrastructure higher. www.educause.edu/ecar 17 Network Redundancy Efforts Lag Central Network Redundancy (Multiple Responses Allowed) Redundancy for all points of failure Multiple Physical Routes (Multiple Responses Allowed) Mulitple Service Providers 9.0% 28.0% Multiple Physical Routes off Campus Redundancy of some single points of failure 74.0% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 37.0% Multiple Physical Routes on Campus 0% 43.0% 20% 40% 60% 80% • Institutions that focus on redundancy report their backbone network is both fault tolerant and optimally designed to meet future needs. www.educause.edu/ecar 18 Disaster Recovery Efforts Need Improvement, too • Perhaps it is a matter of priorities, funding, and perceived risk, but 40 percent of respondents report that they do not have a disaster recovery plan for data networking on campus. • ECAR research shows that institutions with a documented disaster recovery plan for their network characterize the quality of their network infrastructure more positively www.educause.edu/ecar 19 The Future of Network www.educause.edu/ecar 20 Implications • Align the institution and the network. • It is important to explicitly understand the overarching institutional characteristics and reflect these in campus network plans and goals. • The network is never done • Because higher education thrives on discovery and experimentation, user networking needs cannot be fully anticipated. • IT leaders must constantly look within and beyond higher education to anticipate emerging technologies that will transform the institution and potentially create new security, integration, and support issues. • As networks grow, demands are made not only for higher bandwidth and transmission speeds but also for more automation to support network management, for extended user support hours, and for stronger network redundancy. www.educause.edu/ecar 21 Implications • Ensure ample network investment • IT leaders are implementing new ways to secure adequate financing for their networks including building new funding models to sustain their network infrastructure, enhancing vendor partnerships beyond equipment discounts, and investigating the addition of value-added or new services to generate revenue. • Focus resources on network security and reliability • • As networks become essential—and often strategic—to core institutional processes, network security and reliability become even more critical and will continue to require significant IT and financial resources. Make use of opportunities provided by private higher education networks www.educause.edu/ecar 22