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ICN to Focus on Services

Now that the great majority of ICN primary constituents (education, library, and museums) are connected to the network, the ICN is turning its focus towards services that meet the needs of constituents and take full advantage of the ICN's Illinois educational Intranet.

Filtering
In January 2003, the ICN began offering a centralized filtering solution that allows constituents to purchase filtering services without the need for premise equipment or technical expertise on site. The ICN currently has almost 17,000 computers using the service. Details can be found at www.illinois.net/services/filtering.

Three new service offerings have recently been added to the list of ICN services: IP Video, Quality of Service, and IP Multicast.

IP Video
The ICN is now offering a centralized Internet Protocol (IP) (H.323) Video Service allowing constituent IP video endpoints to register with and utilize the services of a Gatekeeper, an IP (H.323) to ISDN (H.320) Gateway, and an H.323 Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). The IP Video Service offers the benefits of lower cost and increased flexibility. Access to enterprise class IP video network components deployed by the ICN means constituents can benefit from full service without the need for a major investment in equipment.

Quality of Service
The ICN offers IP Quality of Service (QoS) in order to allow constituents to use the ICN for delay sensitive applications such as IP video. Included with the service is the QoS configuration on ICN managed access routers and ongoing technical support for the QoS configuration. The annual recurring cost for QoS will be waived for constituents who sign up for the ICN IP Video Service.

IP Multicast
IP Multicast is a transmission of one to many and is usually used for streaming video and other bandwidth intensive applications. IP Multicast enables multiple hosts to receive a video transmission that originates from a single video stream. This capability conserves bandwidth for the receiving institution as well as the content provider. Cisco routers must be using IOS 12.0 (10) or newer to use the service. For assistance in identifying the local requirements necessary to receive multicast traffic at your institution, please contact your RTC.

Future Offerings
Based on constituent needs, available resources, and potential cost savings, the ICN staff has identified and prioritized new service offerings for rollout during the first and second quarters of 2004. The list of services includes: anti-virus software; WAN management for indirect connections; security scanning; technical training; firewall management; and MPLS tunneling. Outreach activities to constituents, either through regional meetings or surveys will be conducted in the spring in order to help identify constituent interest and need for additional service offerings. As always, the ICN encourages constituents to express their needs and ideas and to communicate with ICN staff regularly. Detailed information about service offerings and special purchase opportunities will be updated on a regular basis at www.illinois.net/services.