Volume 4, Issue 3
July 31, 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.

July 2008 Issue:

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

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

WHREN-LILA Activities

 In our efforts to raise awareness of the WHREN-LILA project and network infrastructure in the western hemisphere for research and education, FIU in collaboration with the University of Kansas organized a Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute (PASI) program on the theme Cyberinfrastructure for International Collaborative Biodiversity and Ecological Informatics (http://www.ciara.fiu.edu/eco/index.htm). This PASI Institute program was held at the Office of Tropical Studies (OTS) La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, on May 31 through June 12, 2008.

The Institute emphasized the application of cyberinfrastructure tools for environmental research collaboration. The intensive daily PASI curriculum served advanced graduate students and early faculty from North, South and Central America by teaching the application of software tools and services to biodiversity and ecological research problems through lectures, demonstrations and hands-on lab tasks and rain forest data collection exercises. A principle theme of the PASI was environmental sensor networks. Students and early faculty were exposed to the concepts and projects using research and education networks to enable international collaborative science research and education. This PASI was made possible through NSF OISE grant award # 0617469.

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

FIU-CIARA Activities

A Global Cyberbridges Hurricane Mitigation project highlight was sent to the NSF and received positive feedback. The project is a collaborative research project that involves 15 students and 5 faculty members from three academic departments at Florida International University (FIU), with collaboration from the Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China along with several other US and international universities and IBM Research.

Researchers have been investigating a layered approach to provide accurate and timely forecast of hurricane landfall. The system would be accessed from a web-based portal. A prototype of the system will be available for a demonstration in October 2008.

Upcoming events:

October 13th, 2008 the Caribbean Emerging R&E Networks Special
Interest Group will meet in the afternoon at the I2 Members Meeting.

October 20-22nd Chinese American Networking Symposium hosted by
Indiana University.

Heidi is on the program committee. Sessions will cover diverse networking subjects from NOC services, Security, Monitoring, IPv6, and Global e-Science Applications including
Hurricane Mitigation (Global CyberBridges Project), Weather Monitoring, Lake Ecosystems and Epidemiology, and e-VLBI radio astronomy, as well as optical astronomy.

December 1-2nd Interworking 2008 (http://interworking2008.org/) hosted by FIU / CIARA in conjunction with the UltraLight / PLaNetS Networking and Data Management Tutorial

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

AMPATH Activities

On July 24, 2008, Heidi Alvarez presented on the Internet2 evolution and AMPATH – the high performance exchange point in Florida which is facilitating peering and network research between education and research institutions. The presentation was part of the 4th Caribbean Internet Governance Forum Implementing the Caribbean Internet Governance Agenda, hosted by Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) in association with the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC).

Heidi presented on National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), the AMPATH exchange point, projects at FIU served by AMPATH. The presentation slides can be found at: https://wiki.internet2.edu/confluence/pages/viewpageattachments.action?pageId=1758

For more information about AMPATH, please visit: http://www.ampath.net/

AtlanticWave Activities

Since our last newsetter, AtlanticWave has facilitated two new peerings between redCLARA to CAnet4 and to Internet2. These peerings are provided through the AtlanticWave International Transit Service (http://www.atlanticwave.net/connect.html). Peering between RedCLARA and CAnet4 utilizes both the WHREN-LILA link and the AtlanticWave to enable the RedCLARA router in Sao Paulo to peer with the CAnet4 router at MANLAN. The RedCLARA and Internet2 peering enables the RedCLARA router in Miami to peer with the Internet2 router at MANLAN in NYC. This is the second peering between RedCLARA and Internet2 over AtlanticWave. The first one is between the RedCLARA router in Sao Paulo and the Internet2 router at NGIX-East, College Park, Maryland, utilizing the WHREN-LILA link and the AtlanticWave. Measurement graphs of these peerings and others utilizing AtlanticWave can now be found at the AtlanticWave web site at http://www.atlanticwave.net/network.html

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

CENIC and PacificWave Activities

A first-time collaboration between Australian, Chinese and Japanese scientists has allowed new high-resolution images of black holes to be produced by linking together radio telescopes.

The collaboration involved a 25-metre radio telescope of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, the 34-metre telescope of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Kashima, Japan, and the 64-metre CSIRO radio telescope near Parkes in NSW, and a dedicated fibre optic link supplied by Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet) and its international partners.

Normally, such data is shipped using tapes or other media, taking weeks or months to process. However, the 512Mbps fibre link allowed the images to be processed and viewed in real time, with the data collected from the experiment sent back via the link to a supercomputer in Parkes, NSW owned by Swinburne University.

"This is the first time Australia has collaborated directly with research institutions in Asia," said Chris Hancock, CEO of AARNet. In order to complete the link-up, the data traveled across five different networks: Japan's JGM2, China's CSTNet to the Pacific Northwest, Gigapop in Seattle, CENIC in California and finally AARNet's SXTRansPORT to Australia.

Read full article at http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Aussie-link-up-eyes-off-supermassive-black-holes/0,130061791,339289933,00.htm

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

Pacific Wave Activities

John Silvester, Celeste Anderson and David Reese attended the ESNet/Internet2 Joint Techs workshops in Lincoln, Nebraska July 20-23, 2008. Alan Whinery of the University of Hawaii led a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session on troubleshooting the SX Transport used in the Translight/Pacific Wave project. The slides can be viewed at
http://www.internet2.edu/presentations/jt2008jul/20080721-whinery.pdf.

Pacific Wave engineers and Supercomputing 2008 (SC08) conference organizers are investigating a potential connection between the conference site in Austin, Texas and Pacific Wave.

For more information, see the Pacific Wave website at www.pacificwave.net

CUDI Activities

On June 10, 2008, the Independent University of Zacatecas (UAZ) and CUDI celebrated the inauguration of the Internet2 network in the UAZ, with the firm intention to spread the advances of CUDI in the development of Internet2 in the scope of the education and the investigation. In addition, another goal is to promote the development of collaborative projects with national and foreign universities for the Scientific and Educative Development of Zacatecas.

Participants at the event included 128 educational investigators of the UAZ, 15 educational ones of CETIS, technical personnel of the Services of Health of Zacatecas, technological educational personnel of the Zacatecas regions such as the Secretary of Education and the Culture and schools of Bachelors.

Read full article at http://www.cudi.edu.mx/boletin/2008/06_boletin_junio_08.html

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

CLARA Activities

The Regional Fund for Digital Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean – FRIDA – announces the opening of its 2008 Summons and invites regional research organizations to present projects seeking to be financed through the fund.

The form and framework for project proposals are available at the FRIDA website under “Types of support/ 2008 call”. Those organizations interested in applying to receive support from FRIDA must email their proposal to convocatoria2008@programafrida.net by August 15, 2008 before 19:00 UTC. FRIDA will start notifying the chosen proposals on November 14 2008.

FRIDA is a regional initiative made up by the contributions of CEA/ IDRC (Connectivity and Equity in the Americas/ International Development Research Center), the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA), the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) which is also the manager of the Program.

FRIDA operates as fund of competitive projects providing financial support to projects developed by regional research teams through small grants. Projects are selected in an annual summons.

For more information about FRIDA, visit http://apc-clara.reuna.cl/canal1.shtml?http://apc-clara.reuna.cl/nuevoeng.shtml?AA_SL_Session=bcfe653e2e911bb67295601b08ff28d1&x=12642

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

RNP Activities

During the first semester of 2008, the Center of Engineering and Operations of RNP (CEO) performed a series of updates to the Ipê net. Beyond the advances and adjustments in the presence points (PoPs) and using institutions on the network, the CEO promoted other important improvements, such as the increase of the capacity of exchange of traffic with the commercial Internet from the PoP-RIO DE JANEIRO (of 650 Mbps for 1 Gbps), the substitution of switches of the PoP-SP (for where they pass important connections) and the improvement of peering points with the Embratel in the PoPs SP, DF and RIO DE JANEIRO.

Read full article at http://www.rnp.br/noticias/2008/not-080703.html

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

ANSP/NARA Activities

UNESP ( São Paulo State University) has begun to set up the largest computational cluster in Latin America on seven different sites in the State of São Paulo. GridUNESP (Computational Capacity Integration at UNESP), powered by Sun Microsystems’ technology, will allow research groups at the university to have access to the highest levels of data processing and storage capacity for particle physics, genetics, meteorology, medicine, and other areas of scientific investigation.

The central system, which will be installed at the new UNESP campus in Barra Funda, São Paulo, will have 2,048 processing cores and a performance capacity of about 23.2 teraflops (trillions of calculations per second) for the whole cluster (a system with various linked processing nodes, which operate as if they were one single computer). The complex formed by the central cluster and another seven clusters will eventually reach 33.3 teraflops.

The cost of the project, at about $ 3.1 million, has been supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, through the Study and Project Finance Office (FINEP). Computational infrastructure, including Intel processors which comprise a central cluster and another seven secondary clusters, will be set up at the campuses at Araraquara, Bauru, Botucatu, Ilha Solteira, Rio Claro, São José do Rio Preto and São Paulo.

GridUNESP will be connected at high speed to the United States' Internet2 through the MetroSampa network -- which connects educational, cultural and research institutions in the metropolitan region of São Paulo – and the ANSP/RNP/Florida International University connection between São Paulo and Miami. The connection between the clusters in São Paulo will be made through KyaTera -- the Optic Platform for Research into the Development of the Advanced Internet at FAPESP (the São Paulo State Research Assistance Foundation).

Read full article at http://www.gridtoday.com/grid/2385900.html

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

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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