News for and about the Internet2 community

["Greg Wood" <>]

FOR RELEASE:               CONTACT:    Donald F. McMullen
Oct. 18, 1999                              812-855-0360
                                                   



                                                   Karen Adams
                                                   812-856-5596
                                                   


NEW HIGH PERFORMANCE NETWORK APPLICATIONS PROGRAM
AWARDS GRANTS TO IU RESEARCHERS

        BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new grant program at Indiana University is
supporting research into groundbreaking network applications that enable
remote astronomical observation and collaborative musical "jam" sessions;
develop human-computer interfaces for accessing information available in
digital libraries; create a three-dimensional tour of the Mayan city of
Chichen Itza; and help to establish a multi-disciplinary teaching, learning
and research center for the study of child growth and development.

        The High Performance Network Applications Program (HPNAP), an
initiative of IU's Office of the Vice President for Information Technology,
recently awarded 19 grants to assist IU faculty, graduate students and staff
in developing innovative applications for research and teaching that require
high performance local, regional or national advanced networks. A high
performance network connection can be up to 50,000 times faster than a
standard dial-up modem connection, with the ability to process nearly 1.5
billion bits per second.

        HPNAP aims to significantly and qualitatively accelerate the
evolution of next- generation network-based applications and research tools
at IU. The applications developed through this initiative will provide
considerable competitive advantage to the university in the areas of
teaching, learning and distributed education, and in new collaborative
technologies.

        One application to be developed under HPNAP is a collaborative
learning tool for distributed education called "We Think!" Proposed by
researchers in IU's Kelley School of Business, "We Think!" will enable up to
40 concurrent, collaborative learning exercises among pairs of students in
distributed classrooms, each performing exercises via personal control of
voice, video and data-sharing as effectively as students who are physically
sitting beside each other. "We Think!" will offer students the benefits of
interaction with peers in other countries, cultures and academic
disciplines, and universities will benefit from the economic and strategic
appeal offered by inter-institutional courses.

        "High performance digital networks and distributed software systems
have the potential to change our whole social fabric -- to significantly
influence and expand the way we work, communicate, learn, conduct research,
and retrieve and store information," said Donald F. McMullen, director of
HPNAP and principal scientist in the Advanced Information Technology
Laboratory at University Information Technology Services. "This is evident
in the wide range of applications proposed to HPNAP by researchers in
disciplines across the sciences, the arts and education."

        Through a number of recent efforts, including participation in the
Internet2 Abilene network, the National Science Foundation's vBNS research
network, and development of the TransPAC international research network, IU
has achieved a position of prominence in advanced networking.

        "As a result, the IU community has gained unprecedented access to
high bandwidth networks," McMullen said. "The proposals awarded under HPNAP
will develop a new generation of applications that can effectively use the
capabilities of these high performance networks, as well as other emerging
high performance network connection technologies such as cable modems, xDSL,
satellite and wireless."

        For more on the funded research proposals, see the HPNAP Web site at
http://www.indiana.edu/~uits/hpnap/

        It is anticipated that a second call for proposals will be issued in
late fall.

The above material is from:
Indiana University Office of Communications and Marketing
Carmichael Center, Suite 201 Bloomington, IN 47408-4003.
Phone:  812-855-3911. Fax: 812-855-7002. E-mail: 

Web site: http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/ocm/



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From: Laura Wolf 
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Subject: NSF Award Paves the Way for the Next Phase of STAR TAP(SM)
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Due to formatting problems that occurred during the first transmission, I 
am re-issuing our press release.  Sorry for the duplication.
____________________________________________________________________________ 
______________________________

University of Illinois at Chicago Electronic Visualization Laboratory (M/C 
154)
851 S. Morgan St., Room 1120 SEO, Chicago, IL 60607-7053, (312) 996-3002




October 25, 1999


Contact: Laura Wolf
(312) 996-3002



NSF Award Paves the Way for the Next Phase of STAR TAP(SM)

Having successfully linked more than 100 U.S. universities and national 
laboratories to most of the world's premier international networks in just 
over two years, the University of Illinois at Chicago Electronic 
Visualization Laboratory (EVL) will use a second National Science 
Foundation (NSF) grant to enhance the network services of its STAR TAP 
program.

This summer, the NSF announced that, through this new award, it is 
extending its original three-year grant of $2 million, to $5 million 
through 2003, securing STAR TAP as the focal point of next-generation 
internet providers.

"We were extremely pleased that STAR TAP had achieved the goals set forth 
in the 1997 award, and we wanted to let the research community know that 
they could count on STAR TAP's continued presence for at least another 
three calendar years--a long time in 'internet years,'" said Steve 
Goldstein, NSF Program Director for International Networking.  "That's why 
we made the second award well before the term of the first one had 
expired.  We have learned that persistence is important, because crucial 
international scientific collaborations need to have confidence in the 
staying power of the infrastructure on which they depend."

The Science, Technology And Research Transit Access Point, or STAR TAP, is 
a proving ground for long-term interconnection and interoperability of 
advanced international networking.  Launched in 1997, it provides a 
universal peering point in the U.S. where international networks have 
formal agreements to exchange data traffic with the NSF's vBNS and other 
advanced networks, such as Internet2's Abilene, and those of the U.S. Dept. 
of Energy, U.S. Dept. of Defense and NASA.

"STAR TAP has persistence, many U.S. and international peers, value-added 
services and enough critical mass to attract the contributions of many 
members of the networking and scientific research communities," said EVL 
director Tom DeFanti, "Our goal is to generate higher level services to 
decrease latency and improve bandwidth performance.  These services include 
the newest protocols and technologies to simplify connectivity and 
facilitate digital media broadcasts.  We are particularly pleased that this 
new award makes possible the addition of John Jamison, STAR TAP senior 
research scientist, to our team."

International research networking organizations that peer at STAR TAP are: 
CANARIE (Canada), CERN, IUCC (Israel's Inter-University Computation 
Center), MIRnet (Russia), NORDUnet (Nordic countries), SURFnet (The 
Netherlands), RENATER2 (France), SingAREN (Singapore), APAN (Asia-Pacific), 
and TANet (Taiwan).  Israel has linked via satelliteimportant technology 
for countries without sufficient optic cable access.

EVL manages STAR TAP in collaboration with the Mathematics and Computer 
Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago's Metropolitan 
Research and Education Network (MREN), Northwestern University's 
International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR), Indiana 
University, and Ameritech Advanced Data Services (AADS).

About EVL
UIC's EVL is a graduate research laboratory specializing in networked 
virtual reality and real-time interactive computer graphics.  It is a joint 
effort of the UIC's College of Engineering and School of Art and Design, 
and represents the oldest formal collaboration between engineering and art 
in the country offering graduate degrees to those specializing in 
visualization.  EVL receives major funding from the NSF and is a partner in 
the National Computational Science Alliance.  For more information, see 
http://www.evl.uic.edu

About STAR TAP
STAR TAP is the crossroads that supports the long-term interconnection and 
interoperability of advanced international networking in support of 
applications, performance measuring, and technology evaluations.  The STAR 
TAP anchors the international vBNS connections program. STAR TAP is made 
possible by major funding from the NSF, awards ANI-9712283 and ANI-9980480, 
to the University of Illinois at Chicago.  For more information, see 
<http://www.startap.net>

STAR TAP is a service mark of the Board of Trustees of the University of 
Illinois.

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From: Karen Green 
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Subject: NEWS: Hi-Tech Companies Will Show their Wares at SC99
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Karen Green, 217-265-0748, 


***Hi-Tech Companies Will Show their Wares at SC99***

PORTLAND, OR., October 20, 1999--In case you haven't heard, SC99 is not a
conference aimed strictly at academics and government researchers. In fact,
78 high-tech companies from around the world will be represented on the
exhibit floor when the conference opens.

SC99, the annual high-performance networking and computing conference, will
be held Nov. 13-19 at the Oregon Convention Center. The exhibit hall opens
Monday, Nov. 15, with a gala preview from 7 - 9 p.m. Exhibit Hall hours
will be 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 16, and Wednesday, Nov. 17, and
10 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17.

The SC99 industry exhibits compliment the technical program and feature
industry leaders in high performance computing and networking as well as
software, visualization, tools, storage, applications, and services. Each
of these exhibits offer product information, demonstrations, and the
opportunity to talk with key company representatives. 

"High-performance computing and networking is a major part of the
technology industry today," said Sally Haerer, a member of the SC99
coordinating committee and chair of SC99 exhibits. "These are companies on
the bleeding edge of technology, and they range from some of the industry
giants to small start-ups that fill a very specific niche."

Major U.S. corporations that will have a presence on the SC99 show floor
include Compaq Computer Company, Cray Research, Dell Computer Corporation,
Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, MCI WorldCom, SGI, and Sun Microsystems, Inc.
In addition, several foreign high-tech companies, including Fujitsu,
Hitachi Ltd., and NEC-HNSX Supercomputers Inc. will present exhibits at the
conference.

Highlights of the SC99 industry exhibits include the following.

*GST Telecom and Nortel Networks will present the National Transparent
Optical Network (NTON). NTON, a DARPA-sponsored "supernet" project, is a
next-generation OC-192 network from San Diego to Seattle.

*Hitachi will demonstrate its newly released SR8000 supercomputer, which
has a  theoretical peak performance of 6 teraflops, the world's fastest.

*MCI WorldCom will provide technical information about the very
high-performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS). The vBNS is a national
network now operating at 622 Mb/s provided in partnership with the National
Science Foundation to five supercomputing facilities and more than 90 of
the top U.S. research institutions.

*Sun will feature demonstrations on portal supercomputing, bioinformatics,
medical research, and space research, as well as structure modeling and
visualization tools.

*Alta Technology, the makers of high-performance parallel and distributed
systems, will display three families of Linux-based multiprocessor systems:
the AltaCluster; the M-Cluster, and the R-Cluster.

SC99 Industry Exhibitors also participate in the Exhibitor Forum, which
provides insights into new technologies, often presented by CIOs and CTOs.
In past years, the Exhibitor Forum has had standing-room-only crowds. A
schedule is available at www.sc99.org/forum

For more information on SC99 or to register for the conference, see
http://www.sc99.org/.

###

---------------------------------------------------             
Karen Green
Assistant Director for Communications
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
605 E. Springfield Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820

ph: 217-265-0748, fax: 217-244-7396 
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
----------------------------------------------------

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