First research & education network in North America to demonstrate 100G on a production network

Ciena and CANARIE are running a successful joint 100G demonstration over CANARIE’s production network that highlights its ability to deliver powerful applications across a wide range of industrial, educational and research sectors. The demonstration showcases two CANARIE-funded research projects that use the CANARIE network to accelerate medical discoveries and innovations in brain research, and help eliminate the challenges of geography in delivering medical education to remote and rural areas. The live demonstration will be operational throughout the month of October as part of an advanced technology event for Ciena customers.

The geographic size and distributed population of Canada provide a perfect example of the challenge facing many countries as they struggle to deliver common access to high-quality healthcare education, services and research. To address this need, CANARIE is utilizing its network to ensure Canadian students, researchers and patients in remote areas have access to the same resources and care as people in the country’s large metropolitan cities. The two applications in the demonstration illustrate CANARIE’s work in this area and underscore the ways in which its 100G network may be leveraged:

     •    Health Service Virtual Organization (HSVO) – connects healthcare practitioners and students to leading-edge medical devices, information and expertise on-demand for training, patient care and research collaboration. It uses technology to overcome key challenges in healthcare delivery by expanding the reach and accessibility of distributed medical experts and healthcare resources, thereby increasing the quality of patient care and leveraging the investment in sophisticated medical equipment and resources.

     •    Canadian Brain Imaging Research Network (CBRAIN) – enables scientists to access, process, manipulate and analyze the massive and growing volume of 3D and 4D brain imaging and mapping data and conduct collaborative research to advance the understanding of brain development throughout life, including the physical and cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

As evidenced by this live demonstration, CANARIE’s network is easily upgradeable to 100G by simply adding 100G interfaces to its installed Ciena ActivFlex 6500 equipment without changing any network infrastructure or completely re-engineering the network, protecting CANARIE’s network investment while delivering ten times the capacity for advancing Canadian research, education and innovation.

“Our demonstration with Ciena showcases the value of our technology investments and 100G capabilities, as it proves CANARIE’s network to be a flexible platform supporting researchers, educators and innovators across Canada working to improve our health, our economy, our environment and our future,” said Jim Roche, president and CEO of CANARIE. “More importantly, the actual applications demonstrated over the live network help move the industry conversation beyond simply building faster networks to how that bandwidth can be utilized – through applications in healthcare, as demonstrated today, but also in applications exploring everything from carbon-free computing to new energy sources, from easing traffic congestion to better managing our ocean resources.”

Spanning across Canada, CANARIE’s network connects more than 87 universities, 103 colleges, 49 CEGEPS, 84 provincial and federal government labs and research parks, 58 hospitals and health networks, 31 cultural institutions, thousands of K-12 schools, 12 provincial and territorial optical network partners, and more than 100 international peer networks in 80 countries. Its unparalleled footprint and diverse user base enabled the transmission of 19,000 Terabytes of data last year, equivalent to the contents of a bookshelf that circles the globe almost five and a half times. Current and evolving user needs highlight the requirement for CANARIE’s deployment of advanced optical networking equipment that can scale to 100G.