BIG DATA

Students from around the world participate in leading edge network technology development: Internet2 today announced that it has completed its fourth Google Summer of Code program, which has enabled students from around the world to participate in the development of leading-edge network technologies that will have a direct impact on the progress of advanced research and education applications. Google Summer of Code is a program that offers premier student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects. Google, an Internet2 corporate member, has worked to bring together over 2,400 students with over 175 open source projects to create millions of lines of code. Internet2 has participated in Google Summer of Code since its inception in 2005 enabling 22 students to participate in the development of next generation performance monitoring technologies as well as revolutionary dynamic circuit networking software each of which have directly contributed to supporting researchers in fields such as high-energy physics and radio astronomy. “The Google Summer of Code program at Internet2 extends valuable professional experience to students who are interested in playing an active role in the development of high performance networking environments,” said Jeff Boote, Internet2 senior network software engineer. “In just a few short months, the students involved in Internet2 Google Summer of Code 2008 program successfully delivered valuable enhancements to several of our key network performance and dynamic circuit software initiatives. These technologies are under active deployment by academic institutions and research networks worldwide.” Internet2 Google Summer of Code 2008 students included: Merlijn Hofstra of Hogeschool Utrecht, Den Haag Netherlands; Gianluca Campanella, The Free University of Bozen – Bolzano, Bolzano BZ Italy; Ahmed H. El-Hassany, Islamic University of Gaza, Gaza Palestine; and Dan Bracey, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg VA. These students participated in the development of a Java Client for OWAMP, an application used to determine one-way delay between points on the network, perfSONAR-PS Configuration Software and a Network Performance Toolkit configuration each of which will be added to the next NPToolkit release. Students also contributed to the development of a programmatic interface for the Internet2 Dynamic Circuit Network, which enhances the usability of the DCN by allowing applications to automatically allocate network resources, rather than depending on a user to do so. Boote added, “Our organization is grateful for the work these talented students have contributed and look forward to continued collaboration with them throughout the year as we work to further refine the code and integrate their work into our offerings for our community.” Internet2 plans to continue to participate in the Google Summer of Code program in 2009 should the program run again. Students interested in applying should read up on the program at code.google.com/soc/ and watch for announcements on the program from Google on the Google Open Source. Blog at its Web site.