ACADEMIA

Indiana is the first state to launch a high-speed 100-gigabits-per-second (Gbps) network link dedicated to research and education. The new network, named Monon100, is 10 times faster than the current network link. With it, scientists and medical researchers will be able to rapidly share the massive amounts of data created by modern digital instruments such as gene sequencers, powerful microscopes or the Large Hadron Collider.

Monon100 runs from Indianapolis to Chicago, linking the Indiana GigaPoP with Internet2, a national research and education network. The Indiana GigaPoP, a partnership of Indiana University and Purdue University, serves as the network hub for the state's colleges and universities.

"This bold new step will keep Indiana at the forefront of network capability in the United States and open up remarkable possibilities for sharing information and knowledge essential to maintaining the economic vitality of our state and region," said IU President Michael A. McRobbie. "The inability to share massive data sets is one of the greatest barriers currently facing U.S. researchers and innovators. This advanced high-speed network will help overcome this barrier and give Indiana's scientific and medical research community a powerful tool in its continuous quest for scientific discovery."

Monon100 is named after the Monon rail line that connected Indiana's higher education institutions to the rest of the world through Chicago. In a similar way, Monon100 will provide wide-open connectivity between institutions of higher education in Indiana, increasing capabilities for researchers and providing new opportunities for collaboration, which could in turn lead to new discoveries in science and medicine.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis will be the first school to connect directly to Monon100. The link will be a resource available to all Indiana GigaPoP members, including Purdue, Notre Dame and IU.

"The IU-led Indiana GigaPoP drives down the costs and increases the connection speeds for research and education in Indiana, and the unprecedented new capacity of the Monon100 link means we can do even more," said Brad Wheeler, IU vice president for information technology and chief information officer. "The Indiana GigaPoP has been an outstanding value in joint purchasing among Indiana's colleges and universities via the I-Light network."

"A network as fast as Monon100 dramatically improves researchers' ability to handle very large data sets," said David Jent, IU associate vice president of networks. "It's not uncommon for scientific instruments used to study things like human genes and climate change to produce data sets of one petabyte or greater. To move a data set this large on our current network connection takes 10 or 11 days. On Monon100 it will take just over 24 hours."