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November 2006
ORION institutions win at CIPA
Four ORION institutions were recognized with Silver Awards of Excellence at the Canadian Information Productivity Awards (CIPA) banquet Nov. 1. The Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network (SHARCNET) was recognized along with ORION as a project partner. UOIT and Durham College were recognized for the University and College Mobile Learning Program. The Toronto District School Board won a Silver award for the Transformation and Automation of Desktop Management Services. The SIMS partnership, involving the University Health Network won for the Emergency Room Notification initiative. The award recognizes innovative application of information and communications technologies. Visit www.cipa.ca.
Megaconference 8 Nov. 2
A number of Ontario schools are participating in Megaconference VIII, on Thursday, Nov. 2. Lakehead, Waterloo and York Universities are scheduled to participate in the annual event, the world's largest video conference, which links thousands of students and faculty from throughout the world over advanced networks, including Internet2, CAnet 4 and ORION in Ontario. Activities range from a Cell phone video tour of a chateau in Switzerland, to a visit to the Paleozoological Museum of China. The conference starts at 7:30 am EST. Visitors can log on by visiting www.megaconference.org.
Call for Papers - HPCS 2007
Students in particular are urged to participate in next year's High Performance Computing Symposium. The conference is Canada's annual forum for HPC initiatives and is attended by Canadian and international experts natural, health and social sciences, engineering, mathematics and computer science. The theme for HPCS 2007 is "Transforming the Face of Research". The conference will be at the University of Saskatchewan, May 13-16, 2007. The deadline for papers is December 15. Visit www.westgrid.ca/hpcs2007.
$22.4 million for super computing
The Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI) has announced $22.4 million to support Ontario's top super and distributed computing projects. An $11.5 million investment has been announced for Queen's University's High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL), to support up to 1,600 researchers over the next five years. This brings total Ontario investment in HPCVL - a network of seven Ontario research institutions - to $39.2 million. MRI also announced $10.9 million for the Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network (SHARCNET) to support 1,200 researchers across the province. Led by the University of Western Ontario, the network is made up of 16 research institutions, including its latest members, the Perimeter Institute and the Ontario College of Art & Design. Both projects make use of ORION for advanced connectivity and in the case of SHARCNET, to enable ultra-high speed distributed computing.
Call for papers - "Immersive Worlds"
Brock University has issued a Call for Papers for its Interacting with Immersive Worlds conference, June 5 and 6, 2007. Presented by the Brock's Interactive Arts and Science Program, the international conference will explore the growing cultural importance of interactive media. All scholarship on digital interactive media (such as computer games, mixed realities and interactive fiction) as well as users will be considered in one of four broad conference streams. Visit www.brocku.ca/iasc/immersiveworlds.
Polanyi prize winners
The five winners of this year's Polanyi Prize have been announced. Each year, the Government of Ontario awards prizes to outstanding researchers in the early stages of their career who plan to continue post-doctoral studies at an Ontario university. The 2006 winners are: Dr. James Allard, Brock University, for Literature; Dr. Maria DeRosa, Carleton University, for Chemistry; Dr. Roman Rafikov, University of Toronto, for Physics; Dr. Peter Cadieux, University of Western Ontario, for Physiology/Medicine; and Dr. Elizabeth Gillies, University of Western Ontario, for Chemistry. To mark the 20th anniversary of the award, the prize value was increased from $15,000 to $20,000. Learn more at www.gov.on.ca. The prize honours Dr. John Charles Polanyi, professor and researcher at the University of Toronto who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1986.
ORION traffic grows 250%
Data traffic between ORION-connected institutions has more than doubled over the last year and ORION engineers expect the daily average to reach a full gigabyte of data, per second, by January. Daily average peaked at about 250 megabytes of data per second in October, 2005. It's now grown to over 650 megabytes, says ORION Systems Administrator Tyson Vickers. The figure illustrates growing collaboration among ORION institutions and the sharing of data, including e-mail or IP-based collaborations. The data does not represent Internet traffic, nor does it represent special projects such as SHARCNET. View live traffic maps at http://tech.orion.on.ca.
Good grades for ORION
With responses from 65 per cent of connected institutions, ORION is receiving very good grades in its annual User Satisfaction Survey. Assessment of network performance still remains very high, with nearly 100% rating it excellent to good. Virtually 100% say they intend to maintain their connection to ORION. Almost half are reporting increased use of the network within their institution for specific research and education activities. The survey also shows that 70% of institutions expect to introduce new applications or activities that will require ORION connectivity. Half also say they will require additional services from ORION, such as VLANs.
Staff News
Saqib Chughtai has joined ORION as an IP Engineer, with responsibilities related to the management and operations of ORION's IP layer. He joins ORION from IBM Global Services where he was a Technical Support Specialist providing support to IBM's internal network. Emmanuel Lebel has also joined ORION as Network Operations Engineer. Emmanuel is familiar with the R&E sector through his work as a Network Engineer at the University of Buckingham in Great Britain and at AURIF in France. He is a Computer Science graduate of the University of Montpellier in France. Emmanuel will manage the transport layer including the optical equipment and PoP sites and help the team with other network management tasks such as the IP layer and member support and network monitoring. Tamara Stoll joins ORION as its new Communications Officer Nov. 13. A graduate of Humber College and the University of Toronto, Tamara joins us from Brill Communications where she served as an account executive.
People News
VP of Operations Paul Marchant becomes President and CEO of Hydro One Telecom Inc., effective Nov. 24. He replaces John MacDonald, who moves on as President and CEO of Consumers' Water Heater Income Fund. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine has a new Director of Information Technology. Pasi Pinta replaces Kevin Pashuk, who left NOSM earlier this year. NOSM also announced Dr. David Topps as its new Director of e-Learning.
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