Volume 4, Issue 2
May 30, 2008

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.

May 2008 Issue:

• WHREN-LILA and AtlanticWave Activities
• FIU-CIARA Activities
• CENIC Activities
• Pacific Wave Activities
• CUDI Activities
• CLARA Activities
• RNP Activities
• ANSP/NARA Activities

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

WHREN-LILA Activities

For the first time ever on May 22, 2008, members of the EXPReS project (Express Production Real-time e-VLBI Service) simultaneously linked telescopes in Africa, Europe, North America and South America to the central data correlator in the Netherlands, simulating a telescope almost 11,000 kilometers in diameter.

Telescopes in Chile, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Africa and Sweden simultaneously observed quasar 3C454.3 and additional targets and streamed data to the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE). There the data was correlated in real-time, and results were transmitted to Bruges, Belgium, as part of a live demonstration at the TERENA Networking Conference 2008.

Arpad Szomoru, head of technical operations and R&D at JIVE, said, "Connecting telescopes across such large distances across many different domains poses some unique challenges. Transport via TCP/IP is not suitable, but the use of UDP can cause serious disturbances in connectivity for other users. For this demo we have applied a number of methods, like the use of 1 Gbps lightpaths with guaranteed bandwidth, VLANs and plain IP-routed connections. The success of this test demonstrates that global e-VLBI has become an operational reality."

Data from all seven telescopes was routed across numerous networks and international exchange points, including: AtlanticWave, AMPATH, Centennial, DFN, GÉANT2 (operated by EXPReS project member DANTE), Internet2, Netherlight (operated by EXPReS project member SURFnet), NGIX, RedCLARA, Reuna, SANReN, StarLight and TENET.

Using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI); astronomers use multiple radio telescopes to simultaneously observe the same region of sky. The data collected by each telescope is sampled, synchronized and correlated for every possible pair of telescopes. Using very widely distributed telescopes sampling data at very high rates, this technique can generate images of cosmic radio sources with up to one hundred times better resolution than images from the best optical telescopes.

JIVE director Huib Jan van Langevelde noted the global reach of this observation and e-VLBI's contribution to science. "It is very significant that we have shown that we can connect telescopes distributed over all continents. Real-time connectivity between telescopes at such distances is literally going to resolve the most energetic radio sources

Read the full article at: http://www.expres-eu.org/TERENA08_networking.html

For more information about WHREN-LILA, visit http://www.ciara.fiu.edu/whren

For more information about AtlanticWave, visit http://www.atlanticwave.net

FIU-CIARA Activities

Global CyberBridges is now at its midway point for 2008. There are four projects with team members across different geographical locations and different disciplines. The different projects and the collaborators of each are as follows:

1. SAGE: This project involves enhancing the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) as a collaborative platform.
   Collaborators: FIU, USA; Computer Network Information Center, China; Catholic University of Santos, Brazil; University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2. Hurricane Modeling: This project deals with developing an innovative grid-enabled multiple scale hurricane modeling system.
   Collaborators: FIU, USA
3. Finding Repeat Structures in Genomic Sequences: To create complex and time consuming Bioinformatics experiments in a Parallel Computing environment.
   Collaborators: FIU, USA; Computer Network Information Center, China
4. Multimedia Data Management over Grid: To design and develop an efficient multimedia data management framework over Grid with a capability to support popular multimedia retrieval strategies like Content-Based Information Retrieval (CBIR).
   Collaborators: FIU, USA; Computer Network Information Center, China; University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

For more information on Global CyberBridges, please visit http://www.cyberbridges.net

For more information on CIARA, visit their website at http://ciara.fiu.edu/

CENIC Activities

CENIC has entered into a new five-year, $50 million contract with AT&T.

This business agreement extends a relationship between AT&T and CENIC that spans more than 10 years.

The contract aims at increasing broadband connectivity for CalREN and will serve every segment of the state's public education system and the 9.5 million Californians who use CalREN every day.

For more information about CENIC, visit http://www.cenic.org

Pacific Wave Activities

Pacific Wave upgraded SINET's public exchange port from one gigabit to ten gigabit and installed a new 10 gigabit port for JGN2Plus for layer two connections. Start dates for both new connections was April 1, 2008.

Pacific Wave has also assisted JGN and AARnet to set up a private VLAN to connect some observatories in Japan, Australia and China. The Japan-Australia link is ready, but the connection to China is not yet operational. The experiments are scheduled to start sometime in June.

Pacific Wave engineers are working with Internet2 to connect up its Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN) to Pacific Wave infrastructure in Seattle and Los Angeles.

For more information about Pacific Wave, visit http://www.pacificwave.net.

CUDI Activities

CUDI holds several Virtual Days throughout the year. On May 22, 2008, the Health Community of CUDI presented on “Studies of Medical Imaging”, in which experts in medical imagery spoke to attendees of its applications for the medical diagnosis.

At present, medical imaging is fundamental for medical applications. Furthering the technological innovations and human resources is essential for patients of the future. The fast advance of the technologies of the information has promoted the necessity of doctors to know and use virtual diagnosis more frequently.

Five different speakers presented about the research they are doing and practical uses of medical imaging.

View the presentations at: http://www.cudi.edu.mx/aplicaciones/dias_cudi/08_05_22/index.html

For more information about the meeting, and other CUDI activities, visit http://www.cudi.edu.mx/

CLARA Activities

Funded by the 7th Framework Programme - Capacities of the European Commission, the EELA-2 Project (E-science grid facility for Europe and Latin America) aims to build a high capacity, production-quality, scalable Grid Facility providing round-the-clock worldwide access to distributed computing, storage and network resources needed by the wide spectrum of applications from European - Latin American scientific collaborations, with a special focus on providing a complete set of versatile services fulfilling application requirements and ensuring the long-term sustainability of e-Infrastructure beyond the term of the project.

The EELA-2 vision is two-fold:

• Consolidate and expand the current EELA e-Infrastructure built on the research networks GÉANT2/European NRENs (National research and Education Networks) and RedCLARA/LA NRENs, to become an e-Infrastructure Facility, providing a full set of enhanced services to all types of applications from multiple scientific areas of European and Latin American scientific communities
• Ascertain the conditions of the durability of the e-Infrastructure, beyond the project duration.

In two years, the very skilled and highly motivated researchers from Europe and Latin-America that are working in EELA-2 will be devoted to the following objectives: expand the current EELA e-Infrastructure, collaborate with related projects, support current and new grid applications, collaborate with RedCLARA and Latin America NRENs, support e-Science and/or National Grid initiatives (NGIs), and build the required support for the e-Infrastructure.

Read full article at: http://apc-clara.reuna.cl/nuevoeng.shtml?x=12399

For more information about CLARA, visit http://www.redclara.net

RNP Activities

The National Net of Education and Pesquisa (RNP) is a finalist in the 11 th annual CONIP Prize of Excellence in Innovation in the Public administration. The CONIP (Institute Knowledge, Innovation and Practical of YOU in the Public administration) awards the best projects that use Information Technology for the development of public services. The RNP was recognized in the Health and Education category with its project Communitarian Nets of Education and Research (Redecomep).

The CONIP prize received 129 entrants - 42 projects and 87 initiatives. Of the initiatives, 19 entries, one of which is the Redecomep, have been selected and they will be defended, on June 2, before a board of examiners. The winners will be announced on June 5.

The Redecomep project is an initiative of the Ministry of Science and Tecnologia (MCT), financed for the Financier of Studies and Projects (FINEP) and coordinated by the RNP. Its objective is to implant high speed networks in metropolitan regions of Brazil to establish connections betweens institutions of research and higher education. Six metropolitan networks are already in operation in Brazil: Belém, Manaus, Victory, Florianópolis, District Federal and Christmas.

Currently, the Redecomep initiative also includes a phase of expansion of the RNP backbone for the middle of the Brazil. The objective is to connect ten other metropolitan regions in the interior of some states, where they are situated Federal Universities and Federal Centers of Technological Education (Cefets), by 2010.

Read the full article at: http://www.rnp.br/noticias/2008/not-080520.html

For more information on RNP, visit their website at http://www.rnp.br/en/index.php

ANSP/NARA Activities

In April, the National Net of Education and Pesquisa (RNP), the Academic Net of São Paulo (ANSP), the Center of Research and Development in Telecommunications (CPqD) and the KyaTera project formed a partnership with Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) for sharing traffic of optic networks for research through exclusive circuits. These are the first institutions from Latin America to integrate to the international collaboration of research networks.

The point of interconnection to the GLIF in Brazil is located in São Paulo and connects it this net through the point of interconnection in Miami.
 
The involvement of the Brazilian networks makes new initiatives possible for institutions located in 23 cities of the Federal District and the states of São Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande Do Sul, Minas Gerais, Ceará, Bahia and Pernambuco, and for the KyaTera net (supported by the Foundation of Support to the Research of the State of São Paulo - FAPESP).

Read the full article at: http://www.nara.org.br/central-de-noticias/rnp-ansp-cpqd-projeto-kyatera-e-glif-firmam-parceria

For more information about ANSP/NARA activities, visit http://www.nara.org.br/

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