At the University of California, Riverside (UCR), scientists are using a high-speed network known as a "science demilitarized zone" or DMZ to keep their massive science data flowing between collaborators on and off campus. Funded by the NSF, the UCR-DMZ is a ?private? high-bandwidth network that enables (i) new ways of collaborating; (ii) collection of data at much higher resolution; (iii) entirely new data-intensive projects; (iv) a much larger number of Big Data projects, including student research. The UCR-DMZ uses Air Blown Fiber (ABF) optical fiber -- high-bandwidth strands literally blown through conduits -- that allow low-cost addition of future capacity. The network prepares UCR?s Cyberinfrastructure for an anticipated 40% growth in faculty in the next five years, along with growth in data-per-faculty-member. The UCR-DMZ supports data-intensive research that includes underground cameras to monitor soil biological activity in real time, insect identification based on wing-beat data, dissemination of gravitational models of the Universe, video bioinformatics, next generation DNA sequencing, Internet performance prediction, and sustainable energy projects. Research data is being archived by UCR?s libraries.
Terabyte datasets are increasingly routine for many UCR labs. UCR-DMZ offers a 1) a "friction free" network path devoted to research, not competing with day-to-day business and enterprise computing; 2) high-performance Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs) with instrumentation, hardware and operating system optimized end-to-end for data transfer; and 3) performance monitoring using measurement/test nodes in a PERFormance Service Oriented Network monitoring Architecture (perfSONAR).
