#OneNetChampions: Jeremy Evert, Ph.D.

Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Associate Professor, Computer Science

How long have you worked for your organization?

6 years

Describe what you do on an everyday basis.

I help students from computer science and other majors get started with programming and understand the math behind problem-solving. I also mentor people on their career development. My hobby is supercomputing, and we continue to partner with OneNet and others across the state and nation to advance our capabilities here at SWOSU. My goal in supercomputing is to focus on usability. We are partnering with the National Science Foundation’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) Cyberinfrastructure Resource Integration Group to build a system that is easy for students to get started with. Thanks to Dr. Eric Coulter and Arianna Martin, we are closer than ever to getting where we need to be.

How long has your organization been a OneNet customer?

SWOSU has worked with OneNet for nearly 25 years. We think SWOSU started working with OneNet shortly after it began. I was introduced to OneNet through my involvement with the OneOklahoma Cyberinfrastructure Initiative about seven years ago, when I started working in research computing.

How does high-speed internet help your organization serve your community?

OneNet is the service provider for our university. Everything we do as faculty is tied to the network. Without our network, we would not have been able to function during the pandemic. Thanks to OneNet, our network was the least of our concerns. We use internet-based resources for classroom instruction, research projects, communication with our teams, and file storage. In addition to traditional campus internet, OneNet has partnered with SWOSU to provide a separate connection for our student research lab, Blue Thunder Alley. In that lab, we have students working on cybersecurity projects, including cybersecurity competitions. The network is managed by students. The students configured a dedicated firewall and switch and handled termination of ethernet in the lab itself. Part of the dedicated separate network is for the OneOklahoma Friction Free Network. This network connects our research computers to other research computers around the state. These machines have been configured to allow high-speed transfer of publicly available data sets for research purposes. This allows researchers from across the state to collaborate on projects easily. One of the most fun use cases we had for the research network was when SWOSU had the opportunity to provide a host for backing up the supercomputer at the University of Central Oklahoma. This could have been a struggle, but thanks to the help of OneNet, it just took a little to configure the tool we used to transfer the data, and everything just worked. This network continues to support our research computing as we apply for additional funding for more servers to support our students.

Why are you a OneNet champion?

OneNet does a great job of providing quality, high-speed internet. They are kind to work with and knowledgeable. They primarily work with SWOSU Information Technology, but they also do so much more. The OneNet team helped me become a part of my first National Science Foundation grant. OneNet plays a great role in our weekly statewide calls for cyberinfrastructure and research networking. OneNet is the common friend for all of us at universities. This allows us to collaborate quickly and grow projects in Oklahoma that have not been possible in other states. The OneOklahoma Friction Free Network is just one great example of the partnership OneNet has facilitated for the state of Oklahoma.

What would you tell others about OneNet?

If you are working in education in Oklahoma, I don’t need to say much. OneNet is involved with key players at every level around the state. OneNet provides a fabric that allows our state to do things others can’t imagine. Some universities in other states struggle to set up a campus-wide science demilitarized zone for research computing. OneNet has helped Oklahoma connect 17 schools to a statewide network.  For people that really are trying to get work done, OneNet seems almost too good to be true sometimes. I know SWOSU could not have done what it has done with research computing without the collaborative partnership with OneNet.

Read about student research networking at SWOSU’s Blue Thunder Alley.