INTERCONNECTS

Internet2, the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium, and BBN Technologies (BBN) announced today that Internet2 will donate dedicated bandwidth on its national backbone to support the GENI Project Office (GPO), located at BBN, and its subcontractors as they build and test prototypes of the GENI system. GENI is envisioned as a national data communications laboratory, supporting experiments on a wide variety of advanced research in communications, networking, distributed systems, cyber-security, networked services and applications. It is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Through support from its Board of Trustees, Internet2 will contribute a 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) dedicated circuit throughout its entire nationwide network. GENI subcontractors and developers will be able to access the circuit at every connection point on the network to enable nationwide collaboration on GENI prototypes. BBN is currently negotiating with potential subcontractors who responded to the GPO's solicitation earlier this year and expects to announce the subcontracts shortly. Last year, Internet2 completed a major overhaul of its network capabilities as well as increased its capacity by tenfold to 100 Gbps. This advanced infrastructure is now capable of providing production network services as well as dedicated circuits that equip researchers, like those participating in GENI, with the breakable facilities they need to test their new networking ideas and concepts. Douglas Van Houweling, president and CEO, Internet2, said, "Our community is committed to supporting network research efforts. We believe GENI will play an absolutely critical role in pioneering future generations of the Internet and we are delighted that our network will be a key component in enabling this most important work. Our contribution to GENI reflects our strategic goal of leveraging our new infrastructure to support the most cutting edge research done by many of our members, both in creating the GENI platform now and using GENI for research in the future." Chip Elliott, project director, GENI Project Office, observed, "Internet2 connects over 300 major research institutions, many of whom are contributing to the engineering of GENI and nearly all of whom will, we expect, be using GENI once it is constructed. Internet2's significant contribution to the GENI engineering effort ensures that its members can contribute their best to GENI, and we're most grateful to Internet2 for its generosity and foresight."