Mid-Atlantic Crossroads uses Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 9500 for 100-Gbps network

Gigabit Point of Presence (GigaPoP) organization Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) announced April 17 that it has deployed a 100-Gbps research and education network. The network uses coherent 100-Gbps technology on the FLASHWAVE 9500 platform from Fujitsu Network Communications.

MAX is a collaboration led by the University of Maryland, Georgetown University, and The George Washington University, to support the data transmission needs of 44 universities, federal agencies, government laboratories, and non-profit institutions in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The group expects its new capabilities will better support the study and understanding of such research topics as climate modeling, genetics, and visualization.

“Networks supporting research and educational institutions aspire to reach 100G performance. Today, MAX has become one of the first networks in the country to reach that goal,” said Tripti Sinha, deputy CIO of networks and communication technologies in the Division of Information Technology at the University of Maryland.

“The organizations that rely on MAX connectivity depend on the highest performance and lowest latency even when transporting enormous amounts of data. Most importantly, this accomplishment allows our member organizations to participate at the highest levels of discovery,” said Dr. Abdella Battou, MAX’s executive director.

MAX began designing the network upgrade about two years ago. MAX and Fujitsu have been working together for more than five years, and MAX is Fujitsu’s first announced customer for 100-Gbps technology.