High Performance Networking (HPN) and other components of advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) are key enabling technologies vital to a college's ability to prosper in a rapidly evolving scientific and technical environment. All components of CI, especially advanced network infrastructure, are swiftly changing, making it challenging to maintain currency, agility, and competitiveness. Smaller institutions are at a severe disadvantage, lacking in capital and personnel who know how to deploy, optimize, maintain, and sustain such technologies.
Colorado State University, the Idaho Regional Optical Network, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Utah have partnered proactively to train and mentor faculty and staff from smaller institutions in the region to enhance their use of advanced technologies, emphasize their advantages, and highlight their critical role as campus, regional, and national scientific infrastructure. This project educates in an effort to drive adoption and expansion of advanced networking and CI technologies to smaller colleges and universities in Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. The project conducts four regional workshops, as well as site visits to smaller institutions to support network engineering activities and sharing knowledge and best practices in deploying and applying network-based cyberinfrastructure.
