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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Special Features:
U.S., CHINA, RUSSIA UNITE ON
EDUCATIONAL/SCIENTIFIC GRID
The gun has sounded, and operations on the first round-the-world computer
network ring are underway.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), along with a collection of Russian
ministries and science organizations, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS), are working on the scientific/educational network. When completed,
bandwidth between the United States and China will be increased, and the first
fiber network connection across the China-Russia border will be in place.
Bandwidth will be increased to 155 megabits per second (Mbps) between the
United States and China, which is the current speed between the United States
and Russia. The Chinese and Russian science networks will be connected at the
border cities of Zabajkal'sk and Manzhouli -- completing a ring around the
Norther Hemisphere.
The new network will provide both increased reliability and
flexibility for
researchers as they address scientific issues including joint responses to
natural and man-made disasters, safeguards for nuclear materials, better
understanding of the human genome, joint exploration of space, distributed
monitoring of seismic events and environmental studies and simulations. The
network will also enable cooperation on international fusion energy research
and support the advanced requirements of high-energy physicists. The network
will also enable collaborations between universities and local schools, such
as shared seminars, distance-learning programs and multi-national science
fairs.
Known as Little GLORIAD, the ring "begins" in Chicago at the NSF-
supported
StarLight facility, managed by the University of Illinois at Chicago and
Northwestern University. The network crosses the Atlantic Ocean to the
NetherLight facility in Amsterdam from which it continues to Moscow, then to
the Russian science city of Novosibirsk, across Siberia to the border at
Zabajkal'sk. After crossing the border to Manzhouli, the network continues to
Beijing, then Hong Kong and crosses the Pacific Ocean to complete the ring in
Chicago.
Little GLORIAD is being funded in part by a $2.8 million NSF grant to
the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Russian support for Little GLORIAD is provided
through a consortium of government Ministries and science organizations
coordinated by the Russian Research Center (RRC) "Kurchatov Institute" and the
Russian Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology. Chinese support from CAS
and through CNIC, which coordinates China-wide networking for CAS, was
finalized with an agreement signed November 12, 2003, among CAS, the
University of Illinois and Tyco Telecommunications, which is providing the
United States-China and United States-Europe bandwidth across its Tyco Global
Network.
As the name suggests, Little GLORIAD is a first step towards a
higher-speed
network-GLORIAD, shorthand for Global Ring Network for Advanced Application
Development-that the three countries are jointly developing for a mid-2004
start. GLORIAD is proposed to be a 10-gigabit-per-second optical network
around the entire northern hemisphere.
The GLORIAD network will provide Chinese and Russian scientists, educators
and
students direct connectivity to an important common interconnection point for
North American research and education networks including Internet2's Abilene,
the National LambdaRail, CANARIE, NASA's networks and the Department of
Energy's ESnet.
The GLORIAD project's partners also include SURFnet in Amsterdam, where
an
experimental exchange point into the European science and education community
will be established at the NetherLight facility. In addition to links to the
United States and Russia, this exchange point will enable new high-speed
capabilities between Europe and Asia across the Russian science and education
network.
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