News for and about the Internet2 community

[Don Riley <>]

Just released by SURA and partners:

http://www.sura.org/news/docs/AtlWave110806.pdf



SURA Press Release
   
Wednesday, November 8, 2006                For more information contact:
For Immediate Release                              Greg D. Kubiak
www.sura.org                                            Director of Relations and Communications
                                                                   202-408-7872 *


 AtlanticWave Improves International Research Collaboration

Washington, D.C. – The AtlanticWave service, officially launched by the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) and a group of collaborating not-for-profit organizations, is a distributed international research network exchange and peering facility along the Atlantic coast of North and South America. The main goal of AtlanticWave is to facilitate research and education (R&E) collaborations between U.S. and Latin American institutions.

AtlanticWave will provide R&E network exchange and peering services for existing networks that interconnect at key exchange points along the Atlantic Coast of North and South America, including MAN LAN in New York City, MAX GigaPOP and NGIX-East in Washington D.C., SoX GigaPOP in Atlanta, AMPATH in Miami, and the São Paulo, Brazil exchange point operated by the Academic Network of São Paulo (ANSP). AtlanticWave supports the GLIF (Global Lambda Integrated Facility - www.glif.is) Open Lightpath Exchange (GOLE) model.

AtlanticWave was proposed as an integral component of the successful proposal submitted to the National Science Foundation International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program by Florida International University (FIU) and the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC).  SURA has played a vital role in the actual creation of AtlanticWave, by providing the initial funds needed to purchase a 10-Gigabit Ethernet wave on the National LambdaRail (NLR) and the Florida LambdaRail (FLR) to interconnect the four east coast U.S. exchange points, as well as facilitating the formation of the collaboration.  The organizations collaborating in establishing and operating AtlanticWave include SURA, FIU, FLR, Southern Light Rail (SLR), MAX, Internet2, and the International Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF).

“AtlanticWave promises to expand our international efforts in scientific discovery,” said Jerry Draayer, President and CEO of SURA, a U.S. non-profit organization that fosters collaborations in science and engineering among its more than 60 member universities.  “Our mission is to enhance the research capacity of our members, the region and our nation, and extends to international collaborations. With the creation of AtlanticWave enabling enhanced research partnerships with our Latin American colleagues, our research universities should be positioned better to continue advancing world class research and education,” said Draayer.

While AtlanticWave’s main goal is to facilitate research collaborations between U.S. and Latin American institutions, it will have broader impact.   By connecting the east coast exchange points, it will enable richer collaborations among science and engineering research and education communities in the broader North American, Asia-Pacific, Latin American and European regions as well. For example, AtlanticWave will make it possible for a research laboratory at CERN, on the Franco-Swiss border, to collaborate with a laboratory in São Paulo to run an experiment that requires dedicated network resources for a fixed period of time. In addition, the service will allow Canada’s national research and education network, CAnet4, to directly interconnect with networks from Latin America who are connected to the São Paulo exchange point, such as the ANSP of Brazil.

In the short term, AtlanticWave is already having an impact on the Supercomputing 2006 conference being held in Tampa, Florida, November 13-17.  FLR engineers using optical equipment provided by Cisco Systems have extended AtlanticWave from Miami to the Tampa conference site.  This additional 10Gbps link to the AtlanticWave will make it possible for several additional research groups to demonstrate their advanced applications at the conference.

Networks already connected to AtlanticWave exchange points can automatically begin using the service to establish peering relationships with international networks. Networks interested in using the AtlanticWave service can obtain information about how to connect by visiting the AtlanticWave project web site at http://www.atlanticwave.net

# # #


The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) is a consortium of over 60 leading research institutions in the southern United States and the District of Columbia established in 1980 as a non-stock, non-profit corporation. SURA serves as an entity through which colleges, universities, and other organizations may cooperate with one another, and with government and industry in acquiring, developing, and using laboratories and other research facilities, and in furthering knowledge and the application of that knowledge in the physical, biological, and other natural sciences and engineering.
For more information, visit www.sura.org.

Florida International University’s Center for Internet Augmented Research and Assessment (CIARA) has developed the AMPATH (AMericasPATH) international, high-performance research exchange point in Miami, Florida.  AMPATH’s goal is to enable a variety of U.S. research programs in the region by acting as the major international exchange point (IXP) between the U.S. and the international research and education networks in South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The AMPATH IXP is home to the WHREN-LILA high-performance network link connecting Latin America to the U.S., funded by the NSF (award #0441095) and the Academic Network of São Paulo, Brazil (award #2003/13708-0). 
For more information, visit www.ampath.fiu.edu.

Southern Light Rail (SLR) is a Georgia Tech non-profit corporation providing access to National Lambda Rail (NLR) for the Georgia Research Alliance universities, other universities in the Southern region of the United States, and governmental and private sector organizations involved in university research initiatives.   For more information, visit www.southernlightrail.org.

The Southern Crossroads (SoX) GigaPoP is a cooperative initiative of SLR.  SoX is designed to facilitate access to current and future highly integrated, digital communications services for education and research in the Southeast.   For more information, visit www.sox.net.

The Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) is a regional advanced networking metaPoP for the Greater Washington DC area, serving over 40 of the region’s higher education institutions, federal agencies and private non-profit entities engaged in research and education activities.  MAX was established in 1998 by Georgetown University, George Washington University, University of Maryland and Virginia Tech.  As an Internet2 gigapop and also host for the NGIX-East (Next Generation Internet eXchange), MAX enables its members to connect to Internet2 and has peerings with other advanced networks including Energy Sciences network (ESnet) and other federal research networks, and GEANT.  MAX also provides access to National LambdaRail (NLR) through collaboration with MATP, the NLR node located in McLean, Virginia, to enable advance networking research and advanced applications.
For more information, visit www.maxgigapop.net.

The Manhattan Landing (MAN LAN) exchange point, located in New York City, facilitates peering among U.S. and international research and education networks. The exchange point is supported by Internet2 in collaboration with New York State Education and Research Network (NYSERNet), Indiana University, and the Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF).  Providing both high-performance Ethernet frame-based and optical interconnection functionality, MAN LAN supports leading research networks from around the world including: the new Internet2 network, Abilene, CANARIE, ENERGI, ESnet, GÉANT2, LHCnet, NYSERNet, Qatar Foundation, SINET, SURFnet, TENET, and TWAREN.
For more information, visit http://networks.internet2.edu/manlan/.

Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium, participating in AtlanticWave on behalf of the New York City-based Manhattan Landing (MAN LAN). Led by the research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes the missions of its members by providing both leading-edge network capabilities and unique partnership opportunities that together facilitate the development, deployment and use of revolutionary Internet technologies. Internet2 brings the U.S. research and academic community together with technology leaders from industry, government and the international community to undertake collaborative efforts that have a fundamental impact on tomorrow's Internet.
For more information, visit www.internet2.edu.

Florida LambdaRail LLC (FLR) is a Florida limited liability company formed by member higher education institutions to advance optical research and education networking within Florida. Florida LambdaRail is a high-bandwidth optical network that links Florida's research institutions and provides a next-generation network in support of large-scale research, education outreach, public/private partnerships, and information technology infrastructure essential to Florida's economic development.  
For more information, visit www.flrnet.org.

National LambdaRail, Inc. (NLR) is a major initiative of U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies to provide a national scale infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications.  NLR puts the control, the power and the promise of experimental network infrastructure in the hands of our nation’s scientists and researchers. 
For more information, visit www.nlr.net.

The Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation (IEEAF) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to obtain donations of telecommunications capacity and equipment and make them available for use by the global research and education community. The IEEAF TransAtlantic and TransPacific Links provide 10 Gbps transoceanic capacity. IEEAF donations currently span 17 time zones.
For more information, visit www.ieeaf.org.

-- 
Dr. Don Riley
SURA IT Fellow;  Chair, IEEAF (www.ieeaf.org)
Professor, Decision Information Technologies 
   and Affiliate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Univ. of Maryland
4469 Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD 20742
Phone/VMail: 301-405-8855      FAX: 301-405-8655
Home Office: 240-683-4564    H.FAX: 301-417-9493

"Leaders for the Digital Economy"   www.rhsmith.umd.edu
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