TORONTO – Ontario’s advanced research and education network Orion has deployed a 100G operational network, becoming the first research and education network in the world to do so.
The $6.5 million project is the first phase of a major upgrade of the entire network infrastructure, which spans the province along more than 5,800 kilometers of fibre. Orion said that its strategy is to build on the network foundation as Ontario’s enabling innovation backbone, with greater capacity to support research and commercialization, advanced teaching and learning, public and private sectors partnerships and global-scale science and research collaborations.
"The upgrade means that Ontario is leapfrogging from a 10G backbone to 100G capacity in key parts of the network," said president and CEO, Dr. Darin Graham, in the announcement. "Moving to 100G is a generational leap in capabilities and a significant technological milestone. It helps move Ontario to the head of the pack in terms of having an extraordinary backbone in place to support new and innovative ways of enabling advanced research, innovation and scientific discovery."
The project involves changes to the network’s core architecture and the replacement of routing and optical transport equipment in most of Orion’s physical connections points. It also introduces new features, including enhanced support for IPv6, MPLS, QoS, and enhanced traffic engineering.
Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco Canada will provide the project’s next-generation optical transport and routing equipment. Now in its deployment phase, the project will be completed in Spring 2011.
