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