February 2004


Chomping at the gigabit - GTAnet about to connect

Twelve research and education (R&E) institutions in Toronto will soon have access to a world of new opportunities. As members of GTAnet, Ontario's newest, and largest regional advanced network with gigabit connectivity, they will be able to connect to ORION to conduct research and education networking with unprecedented speed, volume and ease - not just between members of the network but across Ontario, Canada and around the world.

"This is a very exciting time for a number of us in the research and education community in Toronto," said Lan Nguyen, Vice President, Innovation and IT Partnerships at Centennial College.

"For the first time we will have the capacity to conduct and share projects across different sectors in a much more effective way," she said. "GTAnet moves us in the right direction toward greater collaboration, innovative ways of thinking about how we approach specific research initiatives and the sharing of resources and intellectual capital."

In addition to Centennial, the twelve founding members of GTAnet include Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, George Brown College, the Hospital for Sick Children, The Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Ryerson University, Seneca College, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, the University Health Network, the University of Toronto, the Ontario College of Arts and Design, and York University.

With $2.5 million in funding from the Optical Regional Advanced Network of Ontario (ORANO) toward acquisition of the necessary dark fibre and equipment for the network, the 12 institutions will be linked to Ontario's advanced, high-speed R&E network through the ORION network infrastructure and to the rest of Canada and the world through the CA*net 4 national backbone.

"Any researcher who is doing work that already uses large data files will see the benefit of broadband connection quite quickly," says Eugene Siciunas, Director Computing and Network Systems for the University of Toronto. "Right now there are institutions involved in collaborative research, like Baycrest and Sunnybrook, that have had to resort to using couriers to get large data files on tape from one location to the other."

GTAnet gives most of its members the ability to communicate large volumes of information at over 100 times faster than before. That means, for example, the ability to become full participants in cutting-edge multi-media distance learning applications. It means being able to take part in global collaborations in high energy particle physics experiments for some researchers and access, for others, to the full research potential of the Canada's largest genomics supercomputer located at the Hospital for Sick Children. For some, it also means access to global networking.

"We still have to continually build awareness within all of our institutions as to the potential for broadband networking which allows researchers and educators to work in a different kind of way," says CIO of York University and Chair of GTAnet, Bob Gagne. "Many organizations already have projects in place that can leverage the advantages of broadband networking. As awareness of the potential for broadband networking grows within institution we're going to see further research projects coming into play."

"The value of any network increases with the number of participants: the more participants in the network, the more valuable the network is for participants," he said. "Right now we have 12 members. We'll certainly be talking about the value of our network to other institutions right across Toronto."

Work on the GTAnet infrastructure is expected to begin shortly. "By the end of February we should have signed agreements with ORION and our dark fibre partner. Those are the big moments for us. We have all of our members on board. Now it's really a matter of getting the network built," said Gagne, who noted that the build is an eight-month process that begins in March.

The GTAnet project is quite significant, in terms of size. It features 180 kilometres of fibre for the actual segment runs. When measured by multiple strands of fibre on some routes, the network involves some 640 kilometres of fibre. The GTAnet network will connect its members using dark fibre acquired from the project fibre vendor, Group Telecom/360 Networks, to one of two network points of presence (PoPs) - one at the University of Toronto in the south and one at York University in the north.

One of the new possibilities that GTAnet CIOs are already talking about is a new approach to business continuity planning that is very different from what currently exists. "For example," says Terry Verity, Chief Information Officer at Seneca College, "we can have a back-up server that, instead of being just for one institution, can serve a number of institutions. That kind of infrastructure opens up a huge range of possibilities that provides an environment that is very stable for all of our computing administrative needs with cost savings and greater efficiencies."


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