HPCwire: National LambdaRail Supercharges Infrastructure

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April 28, 2009

National LambdaRail Supercharges Infrastructure

Upgrade to next-generation optical transport platform completed in record time with community assistance

CYPRESS, Calif., April 27 -- National LambdaRail (NLR), the cutting-edge network for advanced research and innovation owned by the U.S. research and education community, announces it has completed a significant upgrade to its coast-to-coast network infrastructure, further boosting the performance of the NLR backbone and setting the stage for total capacity increases beyond the current 400 gigabits per second (Gbps).

"NLR now offers its members and their participants even greater capacity, higher reliability and more flexibility to support their networking requirements," stated Erv Blythe, vice president of Information Technology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and chairman, NLR board of directors.

With this 6,750-mile upgrade, NLR's 12,000-mile, total footprint now has a uniform, industry-leading capacity and unrivaled performance. And NLR has put in place the foundation for additional capacity and speed increases in the near future.

The project involved 143 Cisco ONS 15454 DWDM (dense wavelength-division multiplexing) platforms, along with 200 transponder cards. It extended to 116 locations, from Los Angeles through Seattle, Chicago and Washington, D.C. to Jacksonville, Florida.

"Not only does the Cisco ONS 15454 offer industry-leading speeds and reliability, but it is significantly less expensive to deploy than prior generations of similar platforms, enabling NLR to pass on the savings to our members, making access to high-capacity, highly flexible optical networking affordable to researchers and educators," according to Tom West, CEO, NLR. The cost effectiveness of the upgrade has helped make possible a reduction in NLR membership fees effective July 1, 2009. For details, see http://www.nlr.net/release.php?id=39.

The very rapid pace of this upgrade, completed over a mere nine months, was the result of strong teamwork between NLR and several NLR member and partner organizations. In addition to providing the optical transport platform, Cisco performed service quality and platform monitoring and testing services. LightRiver Technologies handled the physical installation, as well as the turn-up, performance testing, and removal of the obsolete gear. Level 3 Communications ran new fiber cross-connects and helped with the preparation for the installation. BoreasNet, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), Pacific Northwest Gigapop, MCNC and Internet2 loaned or leased fiber and waves to NLR to ensure uninterrupted service for NLR users during the upgrade.

"The speed with which NLR completed this network is truly impressive," said Erik Hunsinger, account director, Research and Education Channel, Level 3. "We are pleased to be a part of NLR's commitment to the research and education community."

The Cisco ONS 15454 Multi-service Transport Platform (MSTP) is a DWDM solution that features two- through eight-degree reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) technology that enables wavelength provisioning across entire networks and eliminates the need for optical-to-electrical-to-optical (OEO) transponder conversions. The Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP interconnects with Layer-2, Layer-3 and storage area network (SAN) devices at rates up to 40-Gbps. It delivers any service type to any network location and supports all DWDM topologies.

About National LambdaRail (NLR)

Owned by the U.S. research and education community, NLR is the most technically advanced, flexible and cost-effective network dedicated to the needs of researchers and research organizations. For more information, visit http://www.nlr.net.

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Source: National LambdaRail

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