News for and about the Internet2 community

SPEED RECORD ON THE BRAZILIAN WEB
UERJ transmits data to Pittsburgh at 400 Mbps, at least

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - November 5, 2004 - The State University of Rio de 
Janeiro (UERJ) and the Brazilian National Research and Education Network 
(Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa – RNP) have promised to break the record 
of data transmission speed between Brazil and the United States. On November 
11th, from midnight to one a.m. (Brasília time), the laboratory of High 
Energy Physics at UERJ plans to transmit around 180 gigabytes of data (which 
is equivalent to more than 250 CDs) to Pittsburgh, USA. The demonstration 
will be made during the High Performance Computing, Networking and Storage 
Conference (SC2004), a supercomputing conference to be held from November 6th 
to 12th.

The data will leave a computer at UERJ and will travel a long way until they 
get to Pittsburgh, passing by at least four networks in Brazil, Europe and 
the United States: the Brazilian experimental Giga Project Network, the Latin 
American Clara Network, the European Géant and the North American Abilene, 
part of the Internet2 project. The first two have RNP’s participation.

Rehearsing for 2007

Besides the transmission, there will be a computational grid experiment 
between the equipment at UERJ and that in Pittsburgh. The grid is an 
infrastructure that permits the integrated and collaborative use of 
computers, networks, database and scientific instruments. The structure 
assembled at UERJ’s laboratory has 100 computers, which will be used to 
process jobs sent from Pittsburgh.

This demonstration will be a rehearsal for the participation of Brazil in the 
experiments with the new subatomic particle accelerator of the European 
Center of Nuclear Research (Cern, from the French Conseil Européen pour la 
Recherche Nucléaire), which should start functioning in 2007. The grid 
technology was the solution chosen to deal with the great amount of 
information which will be produced by the particle accelerator (20 petabytes 
per year, approximately the same as 28 million CDs).

Both experiments are being coordinated by professor Alberto Santoro, from the 
Institute of Physics at UERJ. In order to make them possible, the 
collaboration of Embratel, Intelig, Telemar and Telefônica has been 
fundamental - contributing with the fibers of Giga Project network, as well 
as that of Clara organization (Latin American Cooperation of Advanced 
Networks), which permitted using the capacity of Clara Network that still 
hasn’t been used.  In addition to the aforementioned organizations, 
technicians from the engineering units of Giga Project at RNP, CPqD, Clara 
Network and Géant are also involved.

About the networks involved

UERJ is directly connected to Giga Project’s network, an experimental optical 
infrastructure coordinated by RNP and the Center of Telecommunications 
Research and Development (Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em 
Telecomunicações - CPqD). Giga Network was connected to Clara Network through 
its point of presence in Brazil, located in São Paulo, specially for the 
experiments of the laboratory of Physics. 

Clara Network interconnects national academic networks of Latin American 
countries at speeds of up to 155 Mbps. RNP represents Brazil in the 
consortium, being part of the central ring of the network. The connection 
abroad is possible due to a 622 Mbps link with Géant, the European academic 
network. The construction of Clara network and its connection with Europe 
occurred thanks to the support of the European Community, by means of Alice 
project (Latin America Interconnected to Europe).

As it happens with Clara Network in Latin America, Géant interconnects 
several national academic networks in Europe and is also connected to 
academic networks in other parts of the world, among which we may cite 
Abilene, the major Internet2 project backbone, in the United States. From 
Abilene, we can get to the site of the event, the David L. Lawrence 
convention center, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

About SC2004

SC2004 is the premier international conference on high performance computing, 
networking and storage. Founded in 1988, this conference series has grown to 
now include scientists, researchers, software developers, policy makers, 
corporate managers, CIOs and IT administrators from universities, industry 
and government. Attendees become immersed in the latest state-of-the-field 
developments in technology, applications, vendor products, research results, 
national policy and national/international initiatives. SC2004 is the one 
place attendees can see tomorrow’s technology being used to solve world-class 
challenge problems today.

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For more information

SC2004 site: http://www.sc-conference.org/sc2004/
About RNP: http://www.rnp.br/rnp/
About Clara Network: http://www.rnp.br/redes/clara/
Giga Project site: http://www.giga.org/
Géant site: http://www.dante.net/geant/
Abilene site: http://abilene.internet2.edu/
Department of Nuclear Physics and High Energies site - UERJ: 
http://www2.uerj.br/~fis/dfnae/

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Contacts:
Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa - RNP
<>
(55 21)3205-9667

Alberto Santoro (UERJ)
<>
(55 21)2587-7454