PNWGP Circular, September 2003

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) Circular is an occasional update of news for and about PNWGP and Pacific Wave participants. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this update service, send email to gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net

In this Circular 005

OC-192 Abilene Backbone Connection to Pacific Northwest Completed
Pacific Wave Welcomes SingAREN and GEMnet
Comotiv Systems Joins Portland Research and Education Network
10GbE Connections to Pacific Wave Now Available
TransPacific High Definition Streaming Demo for APAN Busan Meeting
Internet2 Fall Member Meeting in Indianapolis October 2003

Current PNWGP and Pacific Wave Participants
Updating Your Contact Information
PNWGP Contact List

OC-192 ABILENE BACKBONE CONNECTION TO PACIFIC NORTHWEST COMPLETED

As part of its national backbone upgrade, Internet2 completed implementation of two Abilene OC-192 (10Gbps) segments into Seattle in July. One segment extends to Sunnyvale, California and the other to Denver, Colorado.

Much earlier this year, in preparation for the implementation of these two segments, the Pacific Northwest Gigapop upgraded its connection to the Abilene backbone to 10GbE. Internet2/Abilene participants at PNWGP may now benefit from the increased throughput to and throughout the Abilene backbone.

The two new OC-192 segments replace the prior OC-48 and OC-12 circuits at the Internet2 Seattle POP. The Abilene circuit is now supported on the Pacific Northwest Gigapop side by a Juniper T320 router and a Juniper T640 router on the Abilene side.

PACIFIC WAVE WELCOMES SingAREN AND GEMnet

Spring saw the arrival of two new Pacific Wave Participants: SingAREN and GEMnet.

SingAREN, the Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network, is a national initiative started in 1997 to create a high-speed broadband network platform supporting research and education (R&E) and advanced network technology development in Singapore, serving users from academia, research organizations and industry. SingAREN promotes and facilitates R&D in next-generation broadband and internet technologies, links Singapore's R&E community to the global information
infrastructure, and fosters collaboration.

GEMnet is based in Japan and funded by NTT laboratories to promote the use of high-speed communications infrastructure. Some of the projects supported by GEMnet include:

1. A collaborative, very long-baseline interferometry (vlbi) project done with the Ministry of Education, the national Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the MIT Haystack Observatory;
2. The Galaxy Project, which uses six radio telescopes in Japan to study astronomy and crustal deformation;
3. Super High Definition Video (Digital Cinema) transfer;
4. CAVE technology and applications done in conjunction with the University of Chicago and the University of Tokyo;
5. Testing of full-mesh DWDM network;
6. Remote monitoring of the ALMA/ASTE millimeter/submillimeter radio telescope located in Chile.

COMOTIV SYSTEMS JOINING PORTLAND RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORK

Comotiv Systems, Inc. is a Portland based company formerly called VirtualDesign.Net that provides hosted collaboration and video conferencing services. Comotiv is joining the Portland Research and
Education Network (PREN) and has been approved as a sponsored Internet2 member.

In a technology partnership with Portland State University (PSU), Comotiv will provide technology and services to support collaborative research between colleagues who are separated by thousands of miles and multiple timezones. Leading PSU faculty are also looking to this new technology to increase the effectiveness of distance learning. A pilot project with Comotiv is under discussion with PSU's Steve Reder, head of Applied Linguistics, to gauge the product's efficacy for a variety of
applications. The Comotiv server combines a shared project file facility and also allows participants to use IP-based audio and video conferencing.

10GbE CONNECTIONS TO PACIFIC WAVE NOW AVAILABLE

In August, PNWGP engineers upgraded one of Pacific Wave's two Foundary BigIron 4000 exchange switches to a 10GbE-capable Foundary BigIron 8000. Participants interested in peering over a 10GbE link at Pacific Wave may now do so. The remaining BigIron 4000 switch is scheduled for upgrade to 10GbE capability by the end of September. Shortly after installation of the BigIron 8000, Internet2/Abilene became the first participant to make a 10GbE connection to Pacific Wave. A 1GbE Abilene connection remains in place for redundancy.

TRANSPACIFIC HIGH DEFINITION STREAMING DEMO FOR APAN BUSAN MEETING

The Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) held its member meeting in Busan, South Korea during the last week in August. In support of this meeting, Pacific Wave and ResearchChannel conducted a demonstration highlighting 270Mbps streams of high-definition video. High-definition video servers were placed at the Portland end of the circuit, streamed to the client systems, and displayed in Busan. In multiple sessions over multiple days, these demanding streams successfully traversed the approximately 5000 miles (8000km) between the two locations.

The OC-12c circuit between Portland and Tokyo was donated to the IEEAF (Internet Educational Equal Access Foundation) by Tyco Telecommunications. ResearchChannel created and ran the application. Pacific Wave and the University of Washington coordinated the transpacific circuit
configuration with WIDE in Tokyo. Beyond Tokyo, the circuit was delivered over a variety of networks and infrastructures with contributions from KOREN (Korea Advanced Research Network), KT Corporation, QGPOP (Kyushu Gigapop project), JGN (Japan Gigabit Network), TokyoXP, ANF (Advanced Network Forum), WIDE, APAN, and LG Electronics.

INTERNET2 FALL MEMBER MEETING IN INDIANAPOLIS OCTOBER 2003

Internet2/UCAID will have its fall member meeting in Indianapolis October 13-16th. For more information,
http://events.internet2.edu/2003/fall-mm/index.html

CURRENT PNWGP AND PACIFIC WAVE PARTICIPANTS

Pacific Wave International Peering Services Participants
AARNet
ATTBI/Comcast
CA*net4
Defense Research & Engineering Network (DREN)
Energy Sciences Network (ESNet)
GEMnet
Microsoft Corporation
Peer1.net
Pointshare
TransPAC
TANET2
SingAREN

Pacific Northwest Gigapop Transit Participants
Arctic Region Supercomputing Center
AARNet (Australian Academic and Research Network)
Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center
City of Seattle
- King County
- Seattle Public Library
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Institute for Systems Biology
Microsoft Research
Montana State University
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Pacific Marine
Environmental Laboratory (NOAA/PMEL)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Portland Research and Education Network
- Oregon Graduate Institute
- Oregon Health & Sciences University
- Portland State University
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
Seattle Community College District
Seattle Pacific University
University of Alaska
University of Idaho
University of Montana
University of Washington
Washington State Dept. of Information Services
Washington State K-20 Network
Washington State University

UPDATING YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have changes in contact info for administration, billing, technical, routing, tech backup, or outage notifications, please email gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net or
call 206 934 5588.

PNWGP CONTACT LIST

General Information & Circular Subscriptions
1 206 934 5588 / 1 888 934 5588
gigapop-info@pnw-gigapop.net
www.pnw-gigapop.net
www.pacificwave.net

Network Operations Center (7x24)
1 206 934 5580 / 1 888 934 5580
noc@pnw-gigapop.net

Web Site Contact
webmaster@pnw-gigapop.net

PNWGP Services Manager
Jan Eveleth
1 206 221 2300
eveleth@cac.washington.edu

Network Engineering Manager
David Richardson
1 206 934 5580

Mailing Address
4545 15th Ave N.E.
Seattle, Washington 98105-4527
USA

Fax
1 206 934 5589 / 1 888 934 5589

Circular 005 September 2003
Copyright (c) 2003 Pacific Northwest Gigapop