|
|
November 2004
ORION and RISQ sign MOU
ORION and le Réseau d'informations scientifiques du Quebec (RISQ) Inc. have signed an agreement, which sees the two largest provincial R&E networks in Canada physically interconnecting through Ottawa and exchanging traffic. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed this week, also promotes and facilitates collaborative partnerships in the development of next-generation network and application services in research and education. THE MOU also calls on ORION and RISQ promote and encourage the interconnection of advanced networks and the deployment of next-generation Internet technology and applications within Canada, the Northeast United States and around the world. A formal announcement is expected sometime in the New Year.
NYSERNet on fast track
UNYSERNet, New York State’s R&E network has acquired 825km of dark fiber and equipment and begun upgrading its statewide infrastructure. When deployment is complete in February, member institutions will control a statewide transport infrastructure, with 32 DWDM lambdas available across the entire fiber footprint. Each lambda is capable of carrying up to 10 Gbps, and will be available at every point in the network thanks to a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) in each PoP. The initial Points of Presence (PoPs) will be in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and at the NYSERNet co-location facility in Manhattan at 32 Avenue of the Americas. Member institutions are now building and acquiring dark fiber to enable their connections to both the IP and DWDM networks. “All of New York will soon be optically present in our co-location site at 32AofA, and the new infrastructure will keep its westward looking connection to Abilene and anticipates peering with ORION in Buffalo,” says Tim Lance, President of NYSERNet. Learn more at www.nysernet.org.
Changes at SHARCNET
Dr. Alan Wildeman, Vice-President Research, University of Guelph, is the new Chair SHARCNET Board of Directors, replacing Dr. Nils Petersen, who has moved on from the University of Western Ontario to take a position with the new Nanotechnology Institute in Edmonton. The Board also approved a new model for the organization that placed leadership of the organization with the Scientific Director. Dr. Hugh Couchman, following the departure of Carmen Gicante. Learn more at www.sharcnet.ca.
10th Advanced Networks Conference
CANARIE’s 10th annual Advanced Networks Workshop: ”Intelligent Infrastructure -Serving Research, Industry and Education” wrapped up in Halifax last week. The Nov. 22 to 25 event featured a full program of innovative projects and the participation of researchers and representatives of the advanced networking community from across Canada and around the world. Some participated via high-speed videoconference. The workshop presentations are now posted on the CANARIE website. www.canarie.ca.
Six earn 2004 IWAY Awards
Canada’s advanced networking community honoured six distinguished individuals at the annual IWAY (Information Highway) Awards, held in Halifax Nov. 23. The leaders were recognised for their outstanding contribution to the advancement of Canada's information society. The awards were handed out by CANARIE at the organisation's 9th annual awards, held during CANARIE’s annual Advanced Networks conference. The 2004 IWAY Award winners, recognized for outstanding achievements in five areas: The award in Adaptive Technology recognized Pierre Dumouchel, Scientific President, CRIM (Montreal, Quebec). The Application of Technology award went to Adam Froman, President, Delvinia Interactive Inc. (Toronto). Karen Keppler, Executive Director, Smart Partners of Manitoba (Winnipeg), won the Community Service award. The IWAY for New Technology Development was shared by André Charbonneau, Grid Computing & Applications, and Gabriel Mateescu, High Performance Systems & Applications, National Research Council) (Ottawa). The Public Leadership award went to Brian Unger, President, iCore (Calgary). Learn more at www.canarie.ca/iway/winners.html.
Three finalists for top prize
There are three finalists for this year’s Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, the country’s most prestigious science award. David Dolphin of the University of British Columbia pioneered the study of a class of light-activated compounds called porphyrins. André Salama of the University of Toronto has made major contributions to microchip design and to fostering a collaborative relationship among Canadian universities and industry. John Smol of Queen’s University, Kingston, has transformed paleolimnology and the study of ancient lake sediments into one of the hottest fields in modern ecology. The Gold Medal will be awarded on December 6 at a ceremony at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Learn more about the finalists at www.nserc.gc.ca.
NASA tops supercomputers
Silicon Graphics with NASA confirmed that NASA's new Intel Itanium 2 processor-based Columbia supercomputer is the most powerful computer in the world. Only days after NASA completed installation of Columbia and using just 16 of Columbia's 20 installed systems the new supercomputer achieved sustained performance of 42.7 trillion calculations per second (teraflops), eclipsing the performance of every supercomputer operating today. www.nasa.gov
Romoff heads new OCE
Mark Romoff, former executive Director of Industry Canada’s Ontario Region, has joined Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Inc. as its new President and CEO. Romoff is expected to guide the newly merged, not-for-profit agency as it builds collaborations between Ontario's post-secondary academic research institutions, innovative companies and the investment community. OCE Inc. was formed April 1 when the Ontario Centres of Excellence were merged into one entity. The agency also recently announced new members to its Board of Directors. www.oce-ontario.org.
DNA Cluster project goes ahead
The City of Peterborough is going ahead with a $2 million contribution to the $25.6 million Peterborough DNA Cluster project to establish four buildings on the Trent University campus. Trent, recently named “Research University of the Year” is leading the 'PATHFINDER' initiative (Peterborough and Trent Headquarters for an Innovation Network in DNA Education and Research), in collaboration with the Greater Peterborough Region DNA Cluster, Fleming College and public and private sector partners. The Ontario government this month announced $1.3 million in funding to support the project, which will develop the infrastructure required to advance the commercialization of technologies related to DNA profiling, forensics, robotics, geomatics, bioinformatics, natural resources management and environmental sciences. Meanwhile, a national survey ranking Canada's innovation leaders has named Trent University Research University of the Year for 2004, ranking Trent number one in comparison with other primarily undergraduate universities nationwide. Learn more at www.trentu.ca and www.dnapeterborough.ca.
Battle for speed
For the second consecutive year, Caltech’s "High Energy Physics" team of physicists, computer scientists and network engineers won the Supercomputing Bandwidth Challenge with a sustained data transfer of 101 gigabits per second (Gbps) between Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. The experiment took place at the Supercomputing 2004 research exhibition in Pittsburgh earlier this month. This is more than four times faster than last year's record of 23.2 gigabits per second, which was set by the same team. Another experiment, this one involving Canada’s CA*net 4 network, completed the world's longest 10 Gigabit per second circuit ever recorded for the transmission of Internet data. The experiment connected computers at the University of Tokyo's SC2004 Exhibition to computers at CERN in Switzerland, connecting through the US, Japan, Canada, and the Netherlands. The circuit was passed from Tokyo to Seattle, across a dedicated lambda on the CA*net 4 network to Chicago, then on to Europe to reach Geneva. A transfer rate of 7.21 Gbps was sustained for over 15 minutes using a single TCP stream and standard 1500-byte Ethernet frames over the 31,248km link. The new world record of 225,298 terabit kilometers per second is 80% greater than the previous Internet2 Land Speed Record of 124,935 terabit kilometers per second. At this transfer rate and distance, a full-length DVD can be transferred anywhere on the earth in less than five seconds. The experiments are expected to lead to new breakthroughs in collaborative physics and experiments between research institutions worldwide.
Call for Papers – HPCS2005
SHARCNET has issued a Call for Papers for the International Symposium on High Performance Computing Systems and Applications – HPCS 2005, to the held at the University of Guelph May 15-18, 2005. Deadline is Dec. 15, 2004. The event is a multi-disciplinary meeting to discuss new and exciting scientific and technical work involving High Performance Computing. Researchers from all disciplines in the sciences, engineering, mathematics and applied human sciences are invited to participate. All papers will be refereed. Oral presentations and posters sessions will be available. Students are particularly encouraged to submit papers. The 3rd annual OSCAR (Open Source Cluster Application Resources) Symposium will be held in conjunction with HPCS 2005. Learn more at www.sharcnet.ca/events/hpcs2005.
Leading Learning 2005 Conference
York University and several school boards and partners are inviting educators to the Leading Learning 2005 Conference, in Toronto February 14 and 15, 2005. The event is designed connect teachers and students through technology. A call for presenters invites instructional technology leaders to participate. Visit the event website to learn more. www.leadinglearning.org.
Back to Headlines
|
| |
|
