Volume 1, Issue 2
September 23, 2005

The Western Hemisphere Research and Education Networks (WHREN)-Links Interconnecting Latin America (LILA) Report summarizes activities from participating networks. The WHREN-LILA Report is published under National Science Foundation (NSF) Award # 0441095 and Academic Network at São Paulo (ANSP) award Projeto Fapesp no. 04/14414-2.

September 2005 Issue:

• From the Desk of Julio Ibarra
• FIU-AMPATH Activities
• CENIC Activities
• Pacific Wave Activities
• AtlanticWave Activities
• CLARA Activities

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

From the Desk of Julio Ibarra

It’s been an extremely busy summer for the WHREN-LILA project team. Just ninety days after a great kickoff meeting in Veracruz, both parts of Phase 1 are operational. Phase 1 involves establishing the LILA links from (1) San Diego to Tijuana, and (2) Miami to Sao Paulo.

The west coast LILA dark fiber link between San Diego and Tijuana was successfully installed. A single Gigabit Ethernet wave is now in service that connects redCLARA and CUDI to California’s CalREN network. Effective July, CUDI and CLARA are successfully peering with Internet2’s Abilene network.

The east coast LILA link was initially provisioned as an STM-4 circuit between Miami and Sao Paulo. This is an interim solution that was made available by ANSP with the use of their equipment. This will be in place until the project’s permanent equipment is located in the Sao Paulo open exchange. We are very grateful to ANSP for the generous use of their equipment. Also effective in July, ANSP is peering with Abilene via the AMPATH International exchange in Miami. Work is underway to connect RedCLARA and RNP to the Sao Paulo open exchange where they will be able to use the LILA link to peer with the wide array of research and education networks already present at the AMPATH exchange point. The AMPATH exchange fabric will be extended even further in the coming months as the AtlanticWave, a distributed peering fabric from Miami to New York. This benefit will be immediately available to peers at the Sao Paulo open exchange.

FIU-AMPATH Activities

Nothing new to report.

CENIC Activities

The new fiber-based link between Tijuana and CENIC’s CalREN network hub site in San Diego became operational in early July. Supporting one Gbps connectivity initially, the installation was a cooperative effort of participants from CUDI, CLARA and CENIC. The link uses fiber acquired from Global Crossing and CENIC optical and ethernet switch equipment.

The link was inaugurated in a ceremony that occurred on Thursday, July 14, at the Border Governor’s meeting at Torreon in the Mexican State of Coahuila. Jim Dolgonas, President of CENIC, participated in the event as did Dr. Eric Frost from San Diego State University. Dr. Frost is a participant in the University of California’s CalIT2 research institute. Participation occurred via the network, using H.323 IP-based video teleconferencing, from San Diego State and CENIC’s Cypress offices respectively, and using the just installed fiber network connection. Among the participants in Torreon was California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

An example of this new connection’s benefit will be realized through the University of California’s College Preparation (UCCP) program. UCCP has developed a collection of online high school and advanced placement courses that utilize streaming video and interactive simulations to help students succeed in difficult subjects like Algebra and Calculus. The University of California system has agreed to share the online math courses with Mexico, and Mexican educational institutions will translate the courses into Spanish and will make the translations available to students in California.

More information on CENIC can be found at www.cenic.org.

Pacific Wave Activities

Pacific Wave is a project of the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), with participation from the University of Southern California and the University of Washington. Designed to enhance efficiency of IP traffic, Pacific Wave peering services offer excellent opportunities to pass IP traffic directly with other major national and international networks; reduce costs associated with IP traffic that would otherwise transit commercial carrier circuits; and increase efficiency by directing traffic as quickly as possible to the target network/organization, reducing the number of 'hops' required to complete for the data to get to its destination.

Pacifc Wave consists of six node sites: one in Seattle, Washington, three in Los Angeles, California and most recently one in Sunnyvale, California. Another site in Palo Alto is due to become active some time in 2005. New participants during this period are: ESnet in Sunnyvale, MIMOS Berhad in Los Angeles, SingAREN in Los Angeles and Pacific Interface (CINEGRID), also in Los Angeles.

In conjunction with the GLORIAD network implementation, KREONet2 has upgraded its trans-Pacific circuit to OC-192 and its connection to Pacific Wave in Seattle to 10GbE.

The Pacific Wave facility is gearing up for the forthcoming iGrid 2005 event Sept. 26-30th at CalIT2 at the University of California at San Diego. iGrid 2005 is a coordinated effort to accelerate the use of existing multi-10 Gbps international and national networks, to advance scientific research, and to educate decision makers, academicians and industry researchers on the benefits of these hybrid networks. R&E networks from Europe, Pacific Rim, Australia, and North America (and South America) will be making use of the Pacific Wave facility in support of high-bandwidth applications and demonstrations for this event.

For more information visit the Pacific Wave website at http://www.pacificwave.net/. The site is undergoing a reconstruction so check back in September and October for a new look.

Atlantic Wave Activities

Nothing new to report.

CLARA Activities

The first direct connection between RedCLARA and the academic networks of the United States of America was established. The new link, with a capacity of 1Gbps, connects Tijuana (Mexico) with San Diego (California, USA), allowing direct access between the Latin American network and CALREN, California’s academic network.

The traffic exchange agreement between RedCLARA and the main backbone of Internet2, Abilene, has been confirmed. This will make the process of networking between Latin America and the USA easier.

The connection of RedCLARA to USA was done under the WHREN/LILA project. WHREN/LILA will create another connection between CLARA and Internet2, between São Paulo (Brazil) to Miami (USA). This last connection will be shared between CLARA, RNP and the academic network of São Paulo, ANSP.

For more information on RedCLARA, visit http://www.redclara.net/.

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

The WHREN-LILA newsletter is intended to provide useful, up-to-date information about WHREN-LILA through short articles with web links and email addresses. Newsletters will be posted on the WHREN-LILA website (www.ciara.fiu.edu/whren). If you have colleagues who would like to subscribe to this monthly newsletter, send them to: http://www.ampath.net/mailman/listinfo/whren-today.

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