International Science Grid This Week points out how American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money to ESnet is boosting computing resources for US science laboratories. ESnet is a high-speed network directly connecting more than 40 major Department of Energy sites; it provides all of Fermilab's off-site network connectivity. ESnet also develops network technologies, which are used at Fermilab on a daily basis.
ESnet, which is based at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, described their plans for the network in an announcement on the 10 August. Dubbed the Advanced Networking Initiative, it will serve as a pilot for 100 gigabit per second ethernet technology.
"We're moving to 100 gigabits because the standard today is 10 gigabits, and we already have individual streams of data that are bumping against that limit," said Steve Cotter, ESnet department head, in a recent interview. "We'd like to have a system out there that can handle more."
The Initiative will build 100 gigabit connections between the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. A fourth as of yet undetermined location in New York City will serve as a peering point - a sort of gateway - to international collaborators in Europe and Asia.
