N.C. Research & Education Network extends from Atlanta to D.C.
June 28, 2005 at 4:08 pm | In ITS AnnouncementsRESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (June 28, 2005) - The North Carolina Research & Education Network (NCREN), a statewide network serving North Carolina universities, colleges and state government, has been extended to enhance research and collaboration opportunities with the addition of 775 route-miles of fiber optic network connecting NCREN to Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
….”Networks are the 21st century interstate highway system for the information and knowledge-driven economy,” said Daniel Reed, vice chancellor for information technology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and ounding director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI)…. “This enhancement to North Carolina’s network infrastructure provides a testbed for nnovation and enables us to support the world’s most demanding applications–from science to commerce to the arts and humanities–accelerating the rate of discovery through national and international collaborations,” Reed said.
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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (June 28, 2005) - The North Carolina Research & Education Network (NCREN), a statewide network serving North Carolina universities, colleges and state government, has been extended to enhance research and collaboration opportunities with the addition of a 775 route-miles of fiber optic network connecting NCREN to Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
The purchase, part of the long-term, collaborative networking strategy among the University of North Carolina’s 16 campuses, private universities, and MCNC, was the second made through FiberCo (TM), a fiber holding company, providing national-scale pricing to support U.S. research and higher education through an agreement with Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:LVLT). FiberCo has been instrumental in facilitating the acquisition of thousands of route miles of fiber by the research and education community. This effort has helped spur the build out of regional optical networks like NCREN today as well as provide backbone facilities for National LambdaRail (NLR).
“Many statewide and regional networks today have launched initiatives to develop the type of advanced networking infrastructure that North Carolina’s state government and universities developed over the last 20 years,” said John Crites, president and CEO of MCNC. “Today, we have a statewide network regarded as one of the finest in the nation. To keep our state and universities on the leading edge of discovery, we are enhancing North Carolina’s reach to other national and international research networks and the world’s leading research institutions. This extended fiber backbone provides extremely high bandwidth and the flexibility to serve North Carolina’s research needs well into the future.”
North Carolina universities and other regional universities in the Southeastern United States, including Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech, advocated the expansion of NCREN to provide faster and more direct access to a broader range of universities for research collaboration, national research networks and exchange points to reach the rest of the world.
By providing a vehicle for research and educational institutions to acquire not only long haul fiber but also collocation, maintenance services, and metropolitan fiber, FiberCo is helping efforts such as NCREN to solve advanced networking needs. With this latest network extension, NCREN will have the ability to negotiate service agreements with a broader range of commercial Internet providers in the major metropolitan areas. This is anticipated to result in cost savings for North Carolina’s universities and other NCREN customers. All 16 public universities, most private universities and colleges in North Carolina, and state government receive Internet and advanced networking services through NCREN.
Advanced networking is fundamentally changing. Research and education across a wide range of disciplines is experiencing technological advancements that literally open new frontiers of discovery by enabling research that was once impossible. Already today, many researchers and students are conducting experiments using near real-time control of scientific instruments as well as access to large files of data using advanced networks such as Internet2’s Abilene network. In the future, large-scale science experiments such as climate modeling or physics simulations which have bandwidth needs that far exceed typical production networks’ capabilities will be achievable through this latest network expansion.
The network infrastructure is no longer a commodity “plumbing” tool but an integral part of enabling research applications and collaboration. Advanced networks support national and international collaborations of “virtual” research teams that rely on resources that may reside in many geographic locations - including access and analysis of data, high-performance computing resources, and remote access and control of costly scientific instruments, such as telescopes in remote locations. The high-performance resources are typically too expensive for a single institution to support. Networks enable the sharing of resources and collaboration.
“Networks are the 21st century interstate highway system for the information and knowledge-driven economy,” said Daniel Reed, vice chancellor for information technology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and founding director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). RENCI is acollaboration of the UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University and N.C. State University to explore the interactions of computing technology with the sciences, arts and humanities. “This enhancement to North Carolina’s network infrastructure provides a testbed for innovation and enables us to support the world’s most demanding applications - from science to commerce to the arts and humanities - accelerating the rate of discovery through national and international collaborations,” Reed said.
“Information drives university research and our state’s prosperity,” said Robyn Render, vice president for information resources and chief information officer for the University of North Carolina’s 16 campuses. “The expanded high-speed network connections to Atlanta and Washington, D.C. are essential for North Carolina to maintain and enhance our leadership in scientific innovation and to recruit and retain world-class researchers, faculty and students.”
Mark Johnson, director of advanced networking for MCNC and NCREN, said the fiber backbone is more than simply a single network. The needs of high-performance research often conflict with the everyday production needs of networks serving campuses. “This added fiber backbone represents a foundation of resources, capabilities and services to build dedicated, application-specific research networks as well as production networks. The fiber provides the opportunity for vastly more bandwidth than the existing NCREN production network. Owning the fiber enables North Carolina universities and research partners to design dedicated networks with project-specific equipment to meet the unique needs of research applications,” Johnson said.
Tracy Futhey, vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer at Duke University, said that the extension of NCREN increases the capacity and flexibility of the state’s optical networking capabilities. Futhey is also chairman of National LambdaRail (NLR), 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. “The extension of NCREN complements access to NLR and other national research networks, supplementing the current research network capabilities in the region and creating further opportunities for collaboration throughout the Southeast,” Futhey said.
“FiberCo’s goal is to assist the research and education community in acquiring critical optical networking assets to facilitate the development of advanced regional fiber infrastructure. The NCREN network extension demonstrates one more example of how universities are leveraging these facilities to further advance networking technologies that will take several years to become commercialized products” said Steve Cotter, director of network services for Internet2 and responsible for Internet2’s FiberCo effort. “This collaborative effort by North Carolina universities showcases the national leadership that NCREN has demonstrated for more than 20 years in providing advanced network technology for research and education, and the collaboration throughout the Southeastern United States enabled by NCREN is a model for other regions around the country.”
“We’re pleased to announce our most recent agreement with FiberCo that will enable NCREN to extend the geographic reach of its highly advanced research network,” said Jerry Hogge, Level 3’s senior vice president and general manager, Federal and Research and Education Markets. “By providing reliable, high-quality broadband infrastructure and services, Level 3 is helping NCREN implement, operate and maintain one of the most advanced research networks in the country.”
About NCREN
Since 1985, MCNC has developed and operated the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) in collaboration with the University of North Carolina’s 16 campuses. The fiber-optic, private network is dedicated to research and education, providing a statewide network backbone to foster innovation. NCREN provides high-speed Internet, video, audio and data network services for North Carolina public universities, Duke University, Wake Forest University, other private universities and community colleges, state government and non-profit institutions. NCREN also provides access to national research networks. MCNC, founded in 1980 to be a catalyst for technology-based economic development throughout North Carolina, is located in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. For more information, please visit www.mcnc-gcns.org.
About FiberCo
FiberCoT provides a means for acquiring, holding, and assigning fiber optic network assets in support of the Internet2 community’s goals of developing and deploying advanced network applications and technologies. FiberCo facilitates the ongoing development of regional optical networking initiatives around the country to complement existing Internet2 network infrastructure while providing a strategic fiber acquisition capability on the national scale. For more information, visit: www.fiberco.org.
About Level 3 Communications
Level 3 (Nasdaq:LVLT) is an international communications and information services company. The company operates one of the largest Internet backbones in the world, is one of the largest providers of wholesale dial-up service to ISPs in North America and is the primary provider of Internet connectivity for millions of broadband subscribers, through its cable and DSL partners. The company offers a wide range of communications services over its 23,000-mile broadband fiber optic network including Internet Protocol (IP) services, broadband transport and infrastructure services, collocation services, and patented Softswitch managed modem and voice services. Its Web address is www.Level3.com.
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