APPLICATIONS

Cornell University is the focal point of a new organization that will enable educational institutions in New York state and New England to connect to and support a new, high-bandwidth computer network. With the formation of Northeast LambdaRail (NeLR), participating institutions will be able to connect to the nationwide National LambdaRail (NLR) networking infrastructure that provides scientists and scholars unprecedented capabilities, flexibility and control. The new NeLR network initially will allow member institutions to connect to one another and to the national network at speeds of 10 Gbps (gigabits per second), ultimately scalable to terabit speeds. Such speeds will allow network members, for example, remote operation of Cornell's supercomputers or the exchange of massive amounts of data resulting from particle accelerator experiments or sky surveys by the Arecibo radiotelescope. NLR is a consortium of leading U.S. research universities and private-sector technology companies deploying a nationwide networking infrastructure to support research in science, engineering, health care, and education. It is also designed to provide a research platform for new networking technologies. Cornell joined the consortium in June of 2004, pledging $1 million a year over five years to help support the development of the network, always with the intention that NLR services would be made available to other institutions in the region and that those institutions would take over part of the cost. Members of NeLR will each contribute $50,000 to Cornell for fiscal 2005-06, with future fees to be determined, and will become members of an advisory board. Cornell in turn will represent NeLR on NLR's board. Charter members of NeLR are: New York University, Columbia University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, the State University of New York campuses at Albany and Buffalo, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Tufts University. NYSERNet, the New York State Education and Research Network, provides technical implementation of the network and also holds a seat on the NeLR board. NLR is not only about speed but also about control. It owns its "dark fiber" and owns and operates the hardware that "lights" the optical fiber with signals, rather than simply buying bandwidth on commercial networks. Owning the fiber not only provides increased bandwidth at lower cost, but also allows researchers to set up dedicated connections for research, including research aimed at improving network hardware and software. The network also will enable "grid computing," in which a problem is parallel-processed on high-performance computers in several locations. The name "LambdaRail" derives from the fact that scientists generally use the Greek letter lambda to represent the wavelength of light.