NETWORKS

Ciena today announced that MAGPI (Mid-Atlantic Gigapop for Internet2), an Information Systems and Computing organization at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, has implemented a network based on the CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform to support high performance network connectivity among multiple research labs located at Princeton University’s Forrestal Campus and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Sciences Network 4 (ESnet4), which operates over Internet2’s nationwide infrastructure. ESnet4 provides the DOE with a dynamic and reliable communications infrastructure and leading-edge network services to foster greater scientific collaboration to support the agency’s research projects and goals.

Supporting new high-capacity 10 GbE connectivity to replace a previous 155 Mbps service, Ciena’s CN 4200 has increased network capacity and collaborative research capabilities for the labs, including the DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Princeton’s High Energy Physics Group. Now directly connected to hundreds of educational and research institutions worldwide through ESnet4, the labs can further their efforts in advanced, bandwidth-intensive alternative energy and climate simulation research. The network deployment is being coordinated and managed by MAGPI, as part of a collaborative effort between the DOE/ESnet, NOAA and MAGPI.

“We were searching for a cost-effective, scalable solution that met the data transfer and real-time collaboration needs of users across the multiple research institutions,” said Greg Palmer, IT director at MAGPI. “With Ciena’s CN 4200, we were able to implement an adaptive, flexible 10 GbE network infrastructure that meets our existing high-performance computing needs – with the ability to efficiently and cost-effectively scale to meet future service demands – all from a compact platform that also addresses requirements for minimal space and power consumption.”

Supporting an automated, fully redundant network that minimizes cost and complexity, Ciena’s CN 4200 employs a flexible architecture that provides granular bandwidth for 10 GbE and 40 GbE connectivity today with the ability to scale for future growth through rapid adaptation to emerging standards, such as 100G. The platform enables high-performance optical transport with rapid provisioning, no packet loss and low, deterministic latency, making it ideal for computing-intensive research between geographically disparate locations, including research and education (R&E) applications such as cluster processing and transfers of data sets of one or many terabytes.

“As the resource-sharing demands of the R&E community continue to grow and evolve to favor scientific computing applications, network infrastructures must be robust enough to accommodate intense spikes in bandwidth-intensive computing activities as well as routine bandwidth demands,” said David Peed, vice president and managing director of Ciena Government Solutions, Inc. “Ciena’s deployment with MAGPI and leading research institutions at Princeton’s Forrestal Campus is further evidence of the CN 4200’s unique ability to provide the flexible network architecture required to meet the high-performance needs of today’s global research and education institutions.”

For additional information on Ciena’s government solutions and collaboration with the R&E community, please visit http://www.ciena.com/researchandeducation.