This project upgrades the computer network infrastructure for science at Wayne State University. It has two major components. The first builds a dedicated high speed connection from the main generators of science network traffic, physicists who collaborate on international projects in particle, nuclear, and astrophysics, computer scientists working on high speed networking, and biomedical researchers sequencing genes, to the campus computing center where existing high speed links to national science networks terminate. Second the local network infrastructure in the Wayne State Physics Building is upgraded to modern standards as already in place in Computer Science and the Wayne State School of Medicine.
The project eases current and enables future national and international scientific collaboration that increasingly require sharing of large amounts of data and secure network communication. For example, Wayne State plans to build a LHC Tier-3 farm to process and analyze LHC data at Wayne State, connect Wayne State Computer Science to the National GENI network using Openflow, and complete a joint venture between the Wayne State Applied Genomics Technology Center and a European firm to do gene sequencing of commercial interest in return for research use of the generated data. A dedicated Wayne State Science Network will also enable more effective use on campus of modern desktop based videoconferencing and data sharing tools.
The goals of this project were to upgrade the computing network in the Wayne State physics building and to separate network traffic related to science activities at Wayne State Physics, Computer Science, and Medical School from general campus network traffic. Both of these goals were in support of improving science activities at Wayne State. The first goal was met very successfully with a modern network replacing an antiquated one based on old phone wires in Wayne State Physics. Network speeds to researcher's desk top machines improved by over a factor of 20. Researchers noted marked improvments in download times, network conferencing experience, and connectivity with their international collaborators. Research activity as measured by peer reviewed papers authored by the Wayne State physics researchers and the number of post-graduate degrees granted by the physics research groups both improved by a factor of 2 from before to after the network upgrade in physics. During that time the number of senior researchers remained fixed and they attributed the increased activity by their research groups to less time being wasted on devising solutions to computer network problems thus freeing up more time for physics research. The second goal was also met very successfully. There is now a dedicated to science network, a Science DMZ, that connects Wayne State Physics, Computer Science and Medical School the Wayne State Data Center where fast network links to the rest of world used to terminate. The faster, dedicated connection has enabled secure storage of large data sets generated by gene sequencing machines in the Medical School, the serving of the data from a large constellation of wireless sensors to researchers all over the world, and improved the time for the transfer of large science data files to and from local Wayne State users from months to days. Our Wayne State network engineers learned a great deal about the implementation of a Science DMZ, in fact we made a significant change in our proposed design of the Science DMZ, and we are working now to extend this network to other locations on the Wayne State campus where science activities can be improved by an improved network connection to the Wayne State Data Center and the rest of the world.
