Indiana U Helps Launch 100 Gbps Trans-Pacific Circuit
Indiana University is leading a
collaborative project with the Pacific
Northwest Gigapop to establish a trans-Pacific 100 gigabit-per-second
(Gbps) circuit dedicated to research and education.
The circuit, called the TransPAC-Pacific Wave, is already operational
between its node in Seattle, WA, and an access point in Tokyo, Japan. Additional
work on the circuit is scheduled for completion this fall and will provide
direct connectivity to the Tokyo Research Exchange. The completed circuit will
be 10 times faster than current connectivity rates available to researchers
between the United States and Asia.
"This milestone is great news," said Greg Bell, division director at the
United States Department of Energy's Energy
Science Network, in a prepared statement. "The world's hardest problems can
only be solved through global collaboration, and 10-gigabit links will soon be
insufficient to support large-scale science."
The TransPAC-Pacific Wave is named after the two National Science Foundation-funded projects that
collaborated to establish the circuit. The TransPAC4 project is led by Jennifer
Schopf, director of International Networks at
Indiana University, and supports backbone circuits between the United States
and Asia. The Pacific Wave project is a distributed open exchange created by
the Pacific Northwest Gigapop and the Corporation
for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC). The Pacific
Northwest Gigapop is the provider of the link for the TransPAC-Pacific Wave.
Schopf called the TransPAC-Pacific Wave circuit a "game changer for the world
of big data research" because "researchers will now be able to share their
largest databases at extremely fast speeds."
According to information from Indiana University, the TransPAC-Pacific Wave
circuit will support research and education network traffic across the Pacific,
as well as ultra-high-definition video distribution, real-time instrument
control, telepresence, virtual reality and big data applications for research.
It will also support software-defined exchange and networking, including
OpenFlow, and improved interconnections between Asian research and education
networks and their counterparts in the United States.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].