Several faculty at Swarthmore are currently using National Science Foundation Supercomputer Centers as essential components in their research programs, in student projects, and in courses teaching computational methods. In order to achieve faster and more reliable access to these advanced facilities, Swarthmore proposes to acquire a high speed link (1.5 million bits per second) between the college and the PREPnet mid level network along with associated communication equipment. The PREPnet system is connected to NSFNET, the national research network's backbone network which connects mid level networks to the 6 Supercomputer Centers supported by NSF. This project will also provide access for Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges as soon as their campus networks are integrated with Swarthmore's. Once the connection to PREPnet and consequently to NSFNET is established, researchers and faculty using computers can exchange data with any other NSFNET site with great ease. The connection also significantly facilitates data transfer between the mainframes at the colleges and it provides remote log.in capabilities from Swarthmore College computers to supercomputer centers and allows for quick tranfer of results to local computers for analysis. //
