NACS News 2002.3
March 8, 2002

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In this Issue:

LASER LINK TO NORTH CAMPUS:

The network link between UCInet and North Campus has been upgraded with high-speed laser technology.

PEER-TO-PEER APPLICATIONS ON UCINET:

New network applications for sharing large files could adversely affect core-mission network uses without active network management.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS:

GIS software is growing in popularity at UCI. Special licenses and training are now being offered.

 

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Laser Link to North Campus

North Campus has been connected to UCInet via a new 100 megabit/second (Mbps) laser link connection. The TereScope 3000, from Optical Access, provides a full-duplex connection at more than sixty-five times the bandwidth of the previous 1.5 Mbps microwave connection. In addition to the higher bandwidth laser link, a backup 11 Mbps network connection has been installed using 802.11b wireless Ethernet. (The laser can suffer degradation in extremely foggy conditions.)

The new link improves the transfer of data between the two sites to keep up with increasing demand as well as to address the problem of legacy equipment no longer supported by the manufacturer. The laser solution was chosen over trenching cable to North Campus which would have entailed three times the cost. The laser employs an "eye safe" beam which will not harm creatures straying into its path.

This upgrade improves the networking capabilities of the Air Pollution Labs, Facilities Management, the Arboretum, the College of Medicine's Child Development Center, and other North Campus organizations.

Peer-to-Peer Applications On UCInet

First popularized by Napster, peer-to-peer file sharing, or P2P for short, is a growing concern for network administrators. The newest generation of P2P programs, such as Morpheus and Kazaa, download not only music files, but photos, applications, and even video files with sizes ranging from multi-megabyte to multi-gigabyte. Users engaging in this activity can adversely affect network performance.

Instruction and research on campus and affiliated locations depends on a high-performance network infrastructure, and the University must act to preserve it for its intended use. Beyond this concern, increased downloads from the commercial Internet increases the cost of UCI's connection to the Internet.

In response, Residential Networking Services has installed a specialized gateway that allows Housing to fine-tune the flow of specific kinds of network traffic. In particular, Housing has limited the amount of total bandwidth that P2P can consume, while keeping connections for academic uses wide open.

P2P applications are not permitted on the campus wireless network (UCInet Mobile Access, http://www.nacs.uci.edu/ucinet/mobile/) because such traffic would overwhelm the network and prevent other uses. Wireless is both a slower technology as well as a shared one (that is, all users are sharing the bandwidth of a single connection). We welcome campus comment on this issue.

Geographic Information Systems

How many people between the ages of 18 and 24 with an income above $50,000 live within 4.5 miles of the Pacific Ocean between Oceanside and Redondo Beach? What is the proximity of children in a community, who have elevated concentrations of lead in their bodies, to older structures that might contain lead-based paint?

These questions, which require both spatial (i.e., geographic) data and tabular information to answer, are typical queries that can be posed to a Geographic Information System, or GIS. At its core, the GIS combines and employs two computer technologies: a graphical display of digital map features and a database that contains records which characterize each of those map features.

Simple queries can pull up data regarding a given geographic location or display all locations matching a criterion. More elaborate queries can be composed which allow researchers to detect new relationships (and derive new data) between things on the ground surface - or on any surface for that matter. GIS technology is used in support of such divergent applications as restoring ancient frescos and landing probes on Mars.

GIS use at UCI is relatively new, as is campus support for the growing interest in GIS. This year UCI purchased a campus-wide license for the use of ArcView and ArcGIS software (at no charge this year to researchers). ArcView and ArcGIS, the leading software in the GIS industry, are being installed on Windows-based computers in NACS' laboratories and in various departmental laboratories around campus. GIS classes are in progress this year in Social Ecology, GSM and University Extension. Contact NACS for more information about GIS at UCI.