ACADEMIA

Internet2 has announced the completion of an advanced upgrade that enables 100 Gigabit per second capabilities to the Manhattan Landing (MAN LAN) international exchange point in New York City. MAN LAN, a partnership between Internet2, Indiana University and NYSERnet, will be better positioned to serve both international and U.S. research networks and allow scientists to address energy, climate and other research challenges, particularly when paired with the 100G upgrade of the Internet2 optical infrastructure. MAN LAN’s new capabilities will be used for the first time to support several network demonstrations at SC11, the premier international conference of high-performance computing, networking, storage and analysis, in Seattle, Nov. 12-18.

“As international collaborations grow in number, complexity and importance, it is critical to have the capacity at MAN LAN and the other international exchange points to bring traffic effectively into the Internet2 network and to its connectors, said Rob Vietzke, vice president of network services, Internet2. “Upgrading MAN LAN to 100G and adding more port capacity assures our global capabilities are matched with our newly deployed domestic 100G network.”

Global exchange points, like MAN LAN, form a critical intersection of regional, national and international communications for research and engineering. For example, the America Connects to Europe (ACE) project and GÉANT—the pan-European data network—will benefit from the increased capacity and the "network effect" of MAN LAN increasing diversity and quantity of connections.

The MAN LAN project is part of the recent completion of the world’s first transcontinental deployment of a 100G network using coherent technology. The new 8.8 Terabit per second network is equipped with 100G optical backbone connections. Those connections are now operational between Atlanta; New York; Washington D.C.; Cleveland; Chicago; Kansas City; Denver; Salt Lake City; Sunnyvale, Calif.; and Seattle. The 100G deployments will insure that traffic moves efficiently and without delay.

MAN LAN is being used to demonstrate high-resolution remote scientific virtualization and an open-source Ethernet Operations, Administration and Management implementation in the Dutch Research Consortium’s booth #642, to demonstrate international signaling that will support global reach of the Open Science Scholarship and Services Exchange in the Internet2 booth #1327, and for general connectivity to Europe during SC11.

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