The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) says it has switched on three new 100-Gbps links between the California Research and Education Network (CalREN) and Internet2, as well as created two others with the ability to scale to that level. The 100G connections include two in Los Angeles and one in Sunnyvale that will also connect to Internet2’s Advanced Layer 2 Services. Two other connections between CalREN and Internet2’s TR-CPS national peering infrastructure will be upgraded to 20 Gbps with the ability to scale to 100 Gbps.

CENIC designs, implements, and operates the CalREN research and education network, which supports California’s K-20 communities. CalREN consists of a 3800-mile fiber-optic network backbone that serves all 58 of the state’s counties. Nearly 11 million Californians use CalREN daily, CENIC estimates.

“Networks all over the world are seeing enormous growth in recent traffic as new scientific instruments come online, cloud computing hits its stride, and collaborative research and education begins to assume a level of bandwidth that would have been unthinkable only a few short years ago,” said Louis Fox, president and CEO of CENIC. “Some projections point to a saturation of existing networks in less than a decade, and not as an outlying possibility. 100G connections like these between the CENIC and Internet2 backbones are absolutely vital to ensure that the pace of global innovation continues to accelerate in California, the U.S., and the world as well.”

The new high-speed fiber cable pipes will support a variety of data-intensive research projects. “Evaluating climate change over the complex ocean/air/land domain of the California region often requires remote calculations that involve a high volume of input and output,” states Dan Cayan, Scripps Institution of Oceanography climate researcher based at UC San Diego, by way of example. “The development of this high-speed data connection between CENIC and Internet2 allows us to think about tackling a much higher level of regional modeling problems than we have before. More clarity on how climate change will unfold is vital to the needs of many stakeholders whose decisions affect developed and natural systems.”

“California is home to dozens of campus-based centers of innovation that lead the world in genomics, physics, climate, information technology, the arts and other areas,” said H. David Lambert, president and CEO of Internet2. “Increasing their capacity for cutting-edge research and education that enhances innovation and unleashes new discoveries is a top priority for Internet2. This joint Internet2 and CENIC investment will benefit research and could impact many lives throughout the world for years to come. It’s exciting to think about the possibilities.”

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