This project provides a significant upgrade to the campus Local and Wide Area Networks at Colorado State University to support large data flows for research. Specifically, a research infrastructure component is added to the campus network, encompassing 40 gigabit per second connections to research projects on campus with large data transport needs. Dynamic routing is implemented over the Internet2 network to allow network capacity to be reserved for specific large data flows. Additional network capacity is provided to the Front Range GigaPoP where Internet2, National Lambda Rail, and commodity internet access are provided, to accommodate the dynamic traffic as well as all other research traffic requiring large data transport.
Specific projects with large data transport needs that benefit from the project are: 1) innovative engineering and scientific design of Extreme Ultraviolet Lasers at nanoscale (huge data sets, frequently produced and shared with external collaborators), 2) world-class ultra-high resolution, multi-physics climate modeling (huge data sets, transported regularly to and from HPC centers), 3) innovative data collection and dissemination of Internet traffic exhibiting malware patterns (huge, shared data sets, shared internationally), 4) two complementary next-generation climate modeling projects involving comprehensive, regional ecosystem analysis (huge, multi-faceted data sets, shared regionally and worldwide), and 5) state-of-the-art genomic analysis for pre-clinical drug design (huge and numerous data sets). However, the entire community of users benefits from added network capacity for dynamic and other research traffic that frees up capacity on the generic network.
