Lab director Barry Reinhold '81, '88G. Photo by Michael Warren '83

Can We Talk?

Because today's data networks contain a mishmash of different computers made by a large number of different vendors, compatibility is crucial. It's important to anyone who wants to send e-mail across the Internet, search for information on the World Wide Web or share budget spreadsheets with colleagues on a company's internal network.

Companies like Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and Lucent travel to IOL to use the test suites to do their compatibility testing. The test site that is being noisily constructed under Reinhold's supervision right now is for a Fibre Channel Industry Association group test. (Fibre channel is a highly reliable technology for transmitting data between computer devices at a rate of up to one billion electronic bits per second.) The companies that bring products to a test period also contract with the lab to perform testing for them on a continuing basis, creating relationships that have proven highly beneficial to both parties.

"The IOL has done an absolutely wonderful job for us," says Jo Beth Metzger, a senior engineering manager at Cisco Systems, which manufactures networking equipment for the Internet and is one of the most valuable companies in the world. Metzger is in charge of development and quality control for a Cisco high-speed switching and routing chip. Hers is just one of many Cisco groups that contract with the IOL. "They're always responsive, they're doing extra things for us when we need help, and they're alerting us to problems very quickly," she says.

A High-Tech Apprenticeship

The seeds for the IOL were planted in 1978. At that time Barry Reinhold was an undergraduate at UNH, majoring in physics and computer science, and a member of the Dean's Advisory Committee for the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. He recalls then-dean Richard S. Davis stating that the university was going to have a hard time competing in high-technology education during the last quarter of the century, given the political situation in New Hampshire.