December 2003


Workshops emphasize urgency in adapting to new networking technology

A series of ORION-CA*net 4 Advanced Networking workshops, held throughout Ontario in the last few weeks, emphasized the urgency of adapting to new networking and collaborative technology in the field of advanced research and education.

Presented by ORION and CANARIE and their host institutions, the workshops are part of a series that took presenters to five locations in Sudbury, Hamilton, London and Toronto (York and the U of T). Well over 250 researchers and senior educators from a wide spectrum of institutions and organizations gathered to hear experts from ORION and CANARIE, as well as scientists and senior researchers from their institutions in several fields describe the benefits of advanced networking over high-speed networks.

While the workshops presented a comprehensive snap-shot of some of the most advanced research activities in Canada, presenters also made the case for a greater use of advanced networking technology and applications.

"Ontario has a distinct competitive advantage right now," said ORION President and CEO Phil Baker. "Ontario has at least an 18-month head start over other jurisdictions in North America with a network of this scale and capacity, but others are moving to establish similar networks," he said. "Ontario colleges, universities, teaching hospitals and research labs have a wonderful R&E network infrastructure that is second to none in the world right now. Our challenge is to adapt quickly to this new technology and take advantage of it as soon as possible."

"Enhanced networking technology is a crucial element of increased collaboration between U of T researchers and their colleagues around the world," said Dr. John Challis, Vice-President, Research and Associate Provost for the U of T, where $2 million worth of research is conducted every day.

"High bandwidth networking creates limitless possibilities for university research – not just in science and engineering but across the disciplines," he said.

ORION Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships Randy Neals sees these events as ideal outreach opportunities for potential users of the new network. "We are giving people basic information about research and education networks, and how these networks inter-connect here in Ontario, in Canada and throughout the world."

CANARIE, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, gave participants a broad overview of the evolution of R&E networking in Canada and outlined many of the successful projects that have been enabled over the CA*net networks over recent years. CANARIE presenters, which included President and CEO Andrew Bjerring, also discussed "Third Wave" applications and technologies which will re-design business processes and relationships across organizational boundaries, part of a longer-term convergence of networks and IT, which will lead to an entirely new form of shared “infrastructure”.

CANARIE also outlined details of its new $4 million Advanced Applications funding program, which is supporting new applications in the areas of network research, video conferencing & collaborative technologies, university portals and grids & distributed computing.

Workshop presentations ranged from advancements in new collaborative technologies, to the latest news on university research activities. Among the highlights were illustrations of the use of networks to develop new learning environments in 3-D space, geospatial information systems, and bioinformatics and computational biology, and grid computing in high-energy particle physics.

At York University, a live demo illustrated immersive environments with the use of three-dimensional graphics, avatars and collaborative virtual reality tools.

Workshop participants also learned about advanced networking and the arts and the Ontario Digital Library and Scholars Portal.

At both the York and University of Toronto sessions, participants learned about GTAnet, the new consortium of institutions that is collaborating with ORION to bring the new network to universities, colleges and teaching hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area. York, the UofT and Ryerson University, which also participated in the presentations, are part of the consortium, which is receiving ORION local loop and connectivity funding.

ORION expects to stage more workshops in the next several months. Details are being finalized for events at the University of Waterloo and Queen's University in Kingston. Events will also be scheduled at a number of colleges, including Confederation College in Thunder Bay.

Over 40 of the presentations given at the workshops are now available for download at the ORION - CA*net 4 web site at http://www.orion.on.ca/orioncanet4days.html.


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