STORAGE

An Internet superhighway is being built across the country that will allow users to transmit enormous amounts of data about 100 times faster than is currently possible. It is called the National LambdaRail, and Hampton Roads hopes to get on it. If Hampton Roads can build the infrastructure to support this grid, the region would be a magnet for research, defense and commercial dollars. But many questions remain about how the grid will work, how much it will cost and who will be allowed to use it. The first test will happen this summer, when Old Dominion University and its Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center plan to connect with Joint Forces Command in a grid of their own. The grid has two main features: It uses ultra-high-speed fiber-optic lines, and it connects computers at different locations to create a virtual supercomputer, which can, for example, run large-scale battle simulations. If successful, this grid will serve as Hampton Roads' gateway to the National LambdaRail. "It's been bandied about for two or three years, but now the technology is at a point where it's low-risk, high-gain, and the investment doesn't have to be that big," said Mark Phillips, senior research scientist at VMASC and director of its Battle Lab. Grids are becoming more common because they allow users to share computer power and storage capacity to conduct large experiments more cheaply than a supercomputer, which can cost millions of dollars. Phillips kept the cost of the local grid down, between $3 million and $5 million, by using off-the-shelf technology, he said. Phillips said the local grid alone would be attractive to defense contractors and high-tech companies, even before it's tied into the national grid. In the meantime, there is a flurry of behind-the-scenes maneuvering and negotiating by officials with telecommunications companies and possible partners that would help Hampton Roads get on the national grid at a cost they can afford. They say that enough momentum is building that Hampton Roads could be on the grid by the end of the year. National LambdaRail, a nonprofit organization that oversees the grid, would admit institutions from Hampton Roads if they have valid research needs and can afford to support the grid with their own infrastructure. Local officials say they are ready, and believe there will be an immediate return on their investment in terms of jobs. "It will provide another selling point for Hampton Roads," said Tom Gordy, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Edward Schrock, R-2nd District. The national grid was born two years ago, in the wake of the dot-com bust. Prior to 2000, telecommunications companies laid fiber-optic cable in anticipation of booming Internet businesses. But with the high-tech crash, demand for the cable failed to meet expectations. Today, about three quarters of the cable remains "unlit." National LambdaRail has a 20-year lease for 15,000 miles of cable owned by Level 3 Communications Inc. of Broomfield, Colo. The $83 million rail is a Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing network that transmits more than 40 light waves, or lambdas, that are each capable of transmitting 10 gigabits of data per second. Ten gigabits a second is 100 times faster than the speed that office computer networks move data. Members of the grid would be able to perform large-scale experiments at the same time by being on the same network as some of the biggest supercomputers in the world, including the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Urbana, Illinois. Members also can use and send data much more cheaply than they could on their own lines, at less than 10 cents per megabyte per second compared to $70 per megabyte per second, said Jeff Crowder, director of strategic initiatives at Virginia Tech and a member of the National LambdaRail oversight committee. So far, only a small piece of the grid, between Chicago and Pittsburgh, is "lit" or active. According to the schedule, the grid between Washington, D.C., Raleigh, N.C., and Atlanta the piece that Hampton Roads would likely connect to should be built by early summer. From there, the grid will run through Jacksonville, Fla., Dallas, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Chicago and New York City, and various points in between. The National LambdaRail is being pioneered by a consortium of academic institutions and Cisco Systems Inc. Several Virginia colleges have signed on, raising money to build a node of the grid in Washington, D.C., which would allow access by institutions in this state. The schools make up the Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership, led by Virginia Tech, which together have committed $10 million over the next five years to have the grid come through Virginia, Crowder said. "We can't compete for high-tech entities unless we have this infrastructure," he said. "They will go where this infrastructure exists." He said Virginia needs to get the telecommunications companies and vendors on board to make the financial stake in the grid that is necessary. He hesitated to guess how much it would take. Old Dominion University, which also is a member of the Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership, plans to spend "millions of dollars" to integrate the school's various departments on the national grid, said Robert Ash, interim vice president for research at ODU. The school's costs will decline as more institutions join the grid, because it is a cost-share system. ODU and the other schools in the partnership will pay $100,000 each year over five years to hook up to the grid. "It will have a significant impact on our research," he said. VMASC has already realized the value of large-scale computing, and hopes to revolutionize training methods for Joint Forces Command, which is the center for modeling and simulation for joint training among all branches of the military. The center has developed software for the military that simulates battlefield conditions and allows all branches of the military to train together. With this local grid, the military would have enough computer power to conduct these exercises worldwide. Ultimately, this type of grid would allow doctors at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center to securely send and receive X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging scans between here and the battlefield, Phillips said. There are commercial applications as well, he said. Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, the military would not have shared data so readily, Phillips said. But the government realized after the terrorist attacks that it need ed to begin sharing information across departments so that decision-makers and troops would know what's happening around the world in real-time. Still, when it comes to grid computing, security and privacy are issues for the military and businesses alike, said Marty Humphrey, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Virginia and a member of the Global Grid Forum, which promotes grid computing. "The security mechanism is in many ways solid," Humphrey said. "But you have to understand that we are trying to do things people haven't done before." Some large companies have their own grids, Humphrey said. Pharmaceutical firms use such networks to allow various research locations to work together in designing drugs. The hub of Lockheed Martin's grid will be in Suffolk at its Global Vision Integration Center, which is under construction. Local officials hope defense, telecom and high-tech companies would want to bring jobs and infrastructure here in order to be near the network. But even proponents acknowledge that they will have to convince participants that their data is safe and secure. "It boils down to contractual agreements," Gordy said. The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va. To see more of the The Virginian-Pilot, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pilotonline.com