WASHINGTON, D.C. – Six of the world’s leading research and education networks, including Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network (CANARIE), have announced their intent to build the world’s first 100 Gbps intercontinental transmission links for research and education.
Leaders from CANARIE, Internet2 and the U.S. Department of Energy’s ESnet in the U.S.), NORDUnet, (Nordic countries), SURFnet (Netherlands), and GÉANT (Europe) made the announcement yesterday at the 2013 Internet2 Annual Meeting before 800 technology, education and research leaders.
The telcos will create a public-private partnership with the commercial sector, such as equipment vendors and carriers active in the North Atlantic, to advance global networks for research and education.
The group is inviting national research and education networks (NRENs) from around the world to participate in the project, titled the “Advanced North Atlantic 100G Pilot” or ANA-100G. The goal is to stimulate the market for 100 Gbps intercontinental networking and to advance global networks and applications to benefit research and education.
In the past year, many NRENs around the world have upgraded to 100 Gbps transmission speeds. But until now, intercontinental network links have not followed suit. ANA-100G will accelerate discovery in data-intensive science disciplines such as high-energy physics, radio astronomy and genomics, as well as spur development of revolutionary new networking applications and architectures.
“This project illustrates how the NREN community works together today to advance leading-edge infrastructure that supports tomorrow’s research discoveries, innovative educational models and digital processes, and technologies that may become part of our daily lives in the future,” said CANARIE CEO Jim Roche in a statement.
Today’s announcement comes more than a decade after the worlds advanced research and education networks upgraded to 10G technology. In September 2002, the world’s first 10 Gbps link between New York City and Amsterdam was put into production for the iGrid2002 Conference held in Amsterdam.
The six leaders will test the new transmission links, applications, resources, monitoring techniques and advanced technologies such as software-defined networking, between as many as four open exchange points, including MAN LAN in New York City and NetherLight in Amsterdam. These efforts will help determine the operational requirements needed to effectively run 100 Gbps wavelengths between North America and Europe.
