CITRIS UCSC and Cisco find mutual benefit in networking partnership

FromUC SantaCruz Media Relations: http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=2862

Students in the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz are getting real-world experience in computer networks through a partnership with San Jose-based Cisco Systems.

Cisco has provided funding and equipment--and challenging real-world problems--for teaching and research laboratories at the engineering school, enabling UCSC students to work directly with Cisco engineers on networking projects. The program--the Network Management and Operations (NMO) Lab--has been a big hit at both Cisco and UCSC, according to Brad Smith, adjunct professor of computer engineering at the Baskin School of Engineering.

"Some of the students have told me it was a life-changing experience to have that real-world connection to what they're learning," Smith said. "And the students have been a big success at Cisco. As word spread within Cisco, the program has begun growing faster than we expected."

CITRIS UCSC Director Patrick Mantey noted that he expects the partnership will help drive interesting master thesis and graduate student work in areas associated with managing and monitoring large complex networking systems

One such interesting master's thesis being completed at UCSC now has to do with the problem of dealing with data from a large number of source points for test data. Mantey noted that a typical use case today would involve an enterprise duplicating the data into one master report in order to analyze. The master thesis work is looking at consolidating the data from a networking point of view using virtualization.

Space and staff support for the NMO Lab are provided by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), of which UC Santa Cruz is a member. CITRIS, a partnership between four UC campuses and 60 corporations, looks at information technology in terms of solutions to the world's most pressing social, environmental, and health problems. By providing Baskin and Cisco the physical space and management for operating the NMO Lab, CITRIS enables Baskin students and faculty to create networking innovations.

More press coverage can be found at: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3815911