ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

Business Structure and Governance

ARE-ON is a state entity governed by the presidents and chancellors of participating institutions, in cooperation with the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.

The organizational structure of ARE-ON includes a Board of Directors as the governing body, the Management Council to oversee day-to-day operations with the Executive Director, and a Steering Committee as the primary technical advisory body working with the Chief Technology Officer.   Initially, the CEO of each of the eleven four-year public universities selected an institutional representative to serve on the Steering Committee to drive the deployment of the infrastructure. 

The permanent governing body is a Board of Directors composed of the presidents and chancellors of the eleven founding institutions, the Board of Directors’ will have decision-making authority for the ARE-ON organization. Responsibilities include, but will not be limited to:

• Hiring, and evaluating the Executive Director

• Developing and implementing strategic plans as needed

• Ensuring adequate resources are available and are managed effectively

• Determining and monitoring programs and services

• Formulating Board policy

• Fulfilling fiduciary responsibility

• Evaluating and modifying, as necessary, the Board’s mission and purpose

• Forming and appointing the Management Council, consortium committees, task forces,
  and study groups as deemed appropriate
  

Upon completion of deployment, the ARE-ON Management Council will be activated to manage the Strategic intent of the program. The Management Council is composed of executive level decision makers from founding ARE-ON member institutions as well as executive level representation from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, Department of Economic Development, and state Cyberinfrastructure Initiative. The Management Council will focus on relevant applications. The ARE-ON Steering Committee (SC) will continue to be the primary technical advisory body to the Management Council through the ARE-ON Chief Technology Officer.

ARE-ON’s personnel consist of an Executive Director, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) two network engineers, and Director of Administration and Planning.

The Executive Director will work closely with the Board of Directors and Management Council to fulfill the mission of the organization and will be responsible for developing private/public partnerships, developing the organization’s strategic, marketing, management and operational plan, achieving financial independence, increasing membership, and overseeing day-to-day operations.

The CTO will assist the Executive Director in all aspects, but his/her primary responsibility will be developing and implementing technology initiatives for ARE-ON. In addition, the CTO will be responsible for overseeing network operations. An Engineering Work Group with representatives from the membership will assist the CTO in formulating operational guidelines and policies and procedures for connectivity to the network.

Two network engineers are on staff. The network engineers assist the CTO with the planning and design of the network and are responsible for installation, monitoring, support, optimization of all network hardware, software, and communications links. The engineering staff will maintain the Network Operations Center (NOC), and will provide customer service and support for ARE-ON’s member institutions and customers. Responsibilities include monitoring the operation and status of ARE-ON’s network devices and communications links, analyzing and resolving network hardware and software issues, and providing end user training where required.

 The Director of Administration and Planning will be responsible for coordinating operational activities, providing data for strategic planning and budget development, tracking budgets, developing and implementing inventory and operating controls, administering software and vendor contracts, overseeing procurement compliance, and customer service activities.

OPERATIONS

The Executive Director, CTO and Director of Administration and Planning will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations of the organization. In addition, the CTO will have direct responsibility to set up and oversee NOC services and the Director of Administration and Planning will have responsibility for developing and implementing inventory and operating controls.

Designing the network for redundancy to reduce ‘hard’ outages is critical to the overall operation of the network.  A redundant core network relieves the time-critical nature of problem resolution. This in turn, reduces the number of staff needed in the network operations area. ARE-ON’s network has been designed to be redundant on the backbone and redundancy at the connectors is planned. While it may not be possible in all cases, ARE-ON’s connection policy will be that ARE-ON owns and manages the network up to the connector’s DMARC. This policy simplifies problem resolution and provides better management of the network and its resources. The ARE-ON Engineering Working Group has developed a white paper, Criteria for Creating a Successful Regional Optical Network in Arkansas, that details network design, policies and procedures.

Network operation services will be available 24x7x365 and will be provided by a combination of outsourcing, in-house staff and member assistance. NOC services for Layer 0 &1 will be outsourced; services for Layer 2 & 3 will be handled in-house. A representative from each connector will be trained to provide on-site assistance if needed. ARE-ON staff, trained staff from the membership and vendors will perform remote hands.

External Quality Assurance

Independent reviews by professionals associated with research and education organizations including Internet2, National Lambda Rail, and regional optical networks (RONs) connected to NLR or I2 will be used to provide oversight of plans, transactions and vision for ARE-ON.  The external quality assurance efforts for transactions and activities will be done in collaboration with the reviewers and the ARE-ON Board of Directors, Management Council,` and Steering Committee.

Risk Assessment and Contingency Plans

During the implementation of any highly complex technology project, a certain amount of risk must be accepted.  A successful implementation will manage the risk through contingency plans, careful planning and scheduling, maintenance and services contracts, and even through reserve capital to cover unexpected expenses.  The white paper produced by the ARE-ON Engineering Working Group, Criteria for Creating a Successful Regional Optical Network in Arkansas, details many of the technical measures to be taken to reduce risk through network design.  In short, through the use of carrier grade equipment; pervasive redundancy in electronics, fiber optical cabling, and connectivity to service providers; power protection through batteries and generators; and geographically diverse backbone routing/switching cores, risk of full network breakdown or even outages to individual member institutions can be minimized.  Network design and the use of proper equipment can reduce the risk of equipment failures, fiber cuts, and power outages.

There are risks that network design and redundancy may not adequately cover, in which case other plans are necessary.  Wide-scale weather related outages, such as might occur during a tornado or severe ice storm, or other disasters such as fire may require rebuilding certain infrastructure in a short period of time.  ARE-ON must have contracts that place service providers such as fiber installers and equipment suppliers on retainer to provide repairs as quickly as possible on short notice.  ARE-ON must maintain a disaster recovery plan that will enable its staff to react quickly in the event there is a large service-affecting outage.

Weather related damage, forced facilities relocations (such as might occur if a fiber optic cable must be relocated as a part of a street renovation project), accidents, vandalism, or even terrorism will require that ARE-ON maintain a reserve fund for unanticipated expenses.  An alternative may be to obtain an insurance contract to cover these types of expenses, or a line of credit at a banking institution.

Security risks must also be managed.  The security of the network itself must be a priority, with security controls placed on access to every network element.  ARE-ON must adhere to the state’s security standards as a minimum, including password controls, appropriate levels of access for network and management personnel, and encryption of sensitive communications.  Physical security controls must be implemented at every location where ARE-ON backbone equipment is located.  Each location must have locked entries, with appropriate vetting of personnel having access to the facility.  ARE-ON staff should also be appropriately screened through background checks done as a part of the employment process.

Human error is also a risk that cannot be ignored.  Service-affecting outages due to equipment configuration errors can be mitigated through a careful change management process that includes peer review and/or management approvals prior to implementing changes.  The change management process must be flexible enough, however, to permit rapid action in the event of an emergency or other problem situation that must be dealt with quickly.

During each step of the ARE-ON implementation, contingency plans will be in place that will provide means for fallback or alternative connectivity to the member institutions affected by the changes in the event problems occur.  In some situations, parallel operations under the old and new infrastructures may be possible for a period of time until the new facilities are stable.  Redundancy in the network will enable automatic rerouting of data traffic to alternate paths as one part of the network is worked on.

Implementation
The build-out and implementation of the ARE-ON network will be conducted in phases.  The first phase, which has been completed, was to build an optical network between Fayetteville and Tulsa and to connect the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, to national research networks such as Internet2 and National LambdaRail.  Successive phases will light segments of the backbone network and add universities on a priority basis.  It is anticipated that work in multiple phases can take place concurrently without impacting progress.

Phase 1 – Connect UAF to NLR and Internet2 via OneNet (complete)

Phase 2 – Fiber construction and acquisition

1. Construct fiber and one building in Alma, Fort Smith, Russellville, and Monticello to UAFS, ATU, and UAM

2. Construct fiber in Conway, North Little Rock, and Arkadelphia to UCA and HSU

3. Construct fiber in Pine Bluff to UAPB

4. Construct fiber in Little Rock to UALR and UAMS

5. Acquire fiber to Jonesboro to ASU

6. Acquire fiber to Magnolia to SAU

7. Acquire fiber in Monroe (LA) to ULM

8. Acquire alternate routes to UCA, UAPB, and HSU campuses

Phase 3 – Deploy optical equipment to light the network

Phase 4 – Deploy core routers and connections to service providers

1. Internet2

2. National LambdaRail

3. Commodity Internet

4. Commercial Peering Service

5. National TransitRail

Phase 5 – Connect campuses to optical backbone

1. Provision wavelengths across optical network

2. Connect campus routers to optical network

3. Migrate campus existing services to use ARE-ON service providers

Phase 6 – Complete Dallas to Tulsa connection

OUTREACH AND PROMOTION

Products and Services

Building, enhancing and supporting research and education is the primary focus of ARE-ON support for non-research activities will be provided as appropriate. Workshops on using the new infrastructure to collaborate and build public/private partnerships will be offered. In addition, ARE-ON will offer workshops on opportunities that now exist for researchers and teaching faculty using the new infrastructure.  Among the service offerings will be direct connections at speeds of 1Gb, 2.5Gb or 10Gb. In addition, indirect layer 2 and indirect layer 3 connections will be offered. Opt-in services for all connectors will include Commodity Internet Service (CIS) and opt-in services for the direct connectors and indirect layer 2 connectors will include layer 3 peering. Additional services such as TransitRail and business continuation/disaster recovery may also be offered. Opportunities and services offered to ARE-ON member institutions will not be designed to compete with commercial providers of similar services. ARE-ON will take advantage of specific higher education pricing in order to best serve the research and academic community.

The Market Analysis

Analysis of other regional research and education networks shows that research and education organizations will be the primary market. Secondary markets include research collaborators from the private sector, state agencies, libraries, museums, public sector partnership and health care organizations.  ARE-ON supports collaborative efforts led by member institutions.  No one else can contract with ARE-ON resources.

Optical networks provide new opportunities for federal grants in research and education, which in turn adds to the overall economy. Shaping the Future: The Economic Impact of Public Universities[1] found that research universities return between six and eight dollars for every dollar of external funding and create an average of 36 jobs for every million dollars of funding. The mean number of startup companies they spawn is 11 and those startups, on average, will create 445 new jobs over five years. Universities in general return five dollars for every dollar of state money invested. A neighboring state began their optical networking initiative in 2005. Since then, they have already received $30 million in new federal funding that would not have been possible without the optical network. Using the statistics from Shaping the Future, the state has the potential of adding 1,080 jobs and adding $180 – 240 million to the state’s economy. The state has additional proposals worth $200 million under review. The grants for these proposals required infrastructure that previously was not available to the state.

The flexibility and security offered by optical networks opens the door for research with federal agencies such as DoD and Homeland Security. It also creates opportunities for research with agencies that must protect individual data such as patient records.

Outreach Strategies

ARE-ON will increase awareness of the opportunities and capabilities through workshops, partnerships and collaborative projects. ARE-ON will actively pursue shared infrastructure agreements with neighboring states in an ongoing effort to leverage collective investments.

Workshops will include discipline specific topics such as science and network applications but will also include information on building public/private partnerships, collaborating over the new infrastructure and general information on the opportunities and capabilities the network provides.

A number of projects that will increase awareness are either in the early planning stages or have started. Researchers at the Fayetteville campus have secured funding from a NSF MRI planning grant to plan a mid-sized grid-computing cluster connected by ARE-ON. Other projects envisioned include: a remote sensing project led by UA Little Rock, a large computational grid project led by UA Fayetteville with private partnership and an imaging database for forestry led by UA Monticello. In addition, founding member Chief Academic Officers are actively working with local faculty and students to enhance and/or create new applications that will empower the users based upon the new capabilities provided by ARE-ON. An excellent example of this strategy is the integration of ARE-ON resources into the Situation Arkansas initiative created by Arkansas Tech University as a scalable tool focused upon the academic and operational realities of preparing the citizens of Arkansas for any all-hazard event. Creating new applications and enhancing existing applications will drive the success of ARE-ON into the future.

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