BCNETwork News

April 2007

BC’s Big Science Projects get on Board to Use New Supercharged ROADM Network

The largest bandwidth breakthrough to hit Canada since CA*net 4, the ROADM network is bringing unfettered network capacity to high profile international science projects involving British Columbia’s researchers. The network is being driven by a voracious demand among BC’s science and higher education communities along with their international partners for high-bandwidth, dedicated network connections. Ventures such as the ATLAS Experiment and the NEPTUNE project will be tapping into the supercharged power of the new Western ROADM network.

From Quebec to Seattle: A Super High-speed Advanced Network Highway

CANARIE is leading the ROADM (reconfigurable, optical add-drop multiplexor) Project , the super high-speed advanced network highway that will stretch across parts of Eastern and Western Canada from Quebec down to Seattle. The western portion of the project is a three-way venture between CANARIE, BCNET and Netera, which will acquire, operate and maintain a shared optical network across British Columbia and Alberta, connecting Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle.

The new network, scheduled for completion by May 2007, will greatly enhance CANARIE's existing Western Canadian network with greater scalability and unequaled bandwidth capability. With 72, 10 gigabits per second optical wavelengths, the network will be capable of provisioning enough capacity to accommodate big science users for the next decade. The unparalleled network capacity of the Western ROADM network will ensure that BC’s researchers have the necessary bandwidth to be significant players in global scale scientific research.

One such internatonal research project, known as ATLAS, is the largest collaborative science experiment on Earth. Joining forces with 2000 researchers around the world, physicists will be attempting to discover some fundamental questions about the forces that shape our universe. And the super high bandwidth connections provided from the Western ROADM project will enable the infrastructure that is necessary for British Columbia to be an important participant in the global ATLAS Experiment.

Huge Data Needs Huge Bandwidth

It is hard to imagine the sheer volume of data that will be generated by the ATLAS experiment—in one year an estimated petabyte of data will be produced—equivalent to 200 million four-drawer filing cabinets full of text. Because of the size of the experiment and massive volumes of data, a single research lab cannot handle this experiment on its own. As a result, data storage and analysis is being shared by various computing sites around the world. One of these locations is Vancouver based, TRIUMF, a world-class subatomic physics research laboratory. Selected as a Tier One site for the ATLAS Experiment, TRIUMF will be a key contributor to the global experiment and will make use of the ROADM network—an essential link to the success of this project.

As a Tier One Site, TRIUMF has been designated as a large data storage facility for raw and processed data from the ATLAS Experiment and will be continually transferring massive quantities of data between TRIUMF and CERN, the world’s largest particle physics centre located in Switzerland. The national ROADM network will provision TRIUMF with a dedicated 10-gigabit per second link to the CERN laboratory in Geneva. Furthermore, TRIUMF will make use of the ROADM network for transferring data to a number of Canadian Tier Two university sites such as McGill, SFU and U of A.

"Canada is making a significant contribution to the computing resources for the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. This would not be possible without the world-class networks provided by CANARIE and BCNET," said Randy Sobie, Research Scientist from the Institute of Particle Physics Canada and Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria.

A Global Window into BC’s Oceanic Activity

In addition to the global ATLAS Experiment, another innovative project led by BC's top oceanographic researchers will be stirring up massive amounts of data from the ocean's floor. Off the west coast of British Columbia, NEPTUNE Canada is building the world’s largest underwater fibre optic network, a seafloor observatory, which is designed to relay data and images from the ocean floor to scientists, schools, libraries and museums around the world.

The Western ROADM network linking Calgary-Vancouver-Victoria-Seattle, will ensure the super-broadband capacity needed to transmit massive volumes of data between scientists at the University of Victoria’s NEPTUNE Canada data facility to the University of Washington, the potential data centre for NEPTUNE US. Additionally, NEPTUNE plans to connect underwater high-definition cameras to transmit high-quality images to the world over sustained one-gigabit connections.

“This shared optical network between Vancouver and Seattle will meet the immense demand for the cross-correlation of massive volumes of data between the University of Victoria and University of Washington’s data storage centres,” commented Benoît Pirenne, Associate Director, IT University of Victoria, NEPTUNE Canada Project. “The ROADM network will fulfill the high volume data demands as well as provide the interconnection for both sites as backup storage facilities.”

NEPTUNE Canada is scheduled to become operational by September 2008 and the University of Victoria is slated to be the central data collection facility for NEPTUNE Canada. The second phase of the project calls for the southern extension of the NEPTUNE US Project to be built by 2011.

Innovation for the Future

Today, global scale research such as NEPTUNE and ATLAS are providing BC with opportunities to be leaders in sciencific innovation. With the ROADM network's unlimited bandwidth, BC's researchers will be at the forefront of international research, shaping the economic landscape of British Columbia's future.