The Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON) Upgrade

University Corporation For Atmospheric Res, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This project will renovate the Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON), a high-speed optical network comprised of fiber optic links that serves a collaboration of research and educational institutions in Colorado and Wyoming. BiSON links these institutions together and provides transport links to national networks such as Internet2, National LambdaRail and TeraGrid. Participants using the BiSON Network Services include Colorado State University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Boulder, the University of Colorado-Boulder, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and the University of Wyoming. The project will upgrade BiSON from a single 2Gbps ring to a dense wave-division multiplexing solution capable of supporting multiple lambdas. This will enable researchers to transport efficiently enormous amounts of data intra-BiSON and over the national wide-area network. This will facilitate access to high-end computational and data resources used by researchers at the institutions connected to BiSON, such as those at Department of Energy labs, TeraGrid, and NASA, as well as at the future NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center. The upgrade will also provide scientists the flexibility to obtain dedicated bandwidth for specific research applications. Examples of research projects that will benefit from the regional networking renovation include: climate and atmospheric research with a particular focus on the role of clouds in climate change using very high-resolution global atmospheric modeling; high-energy physics research using the Compact Muon Solenoid at the Large Hadron Collider; Earth science such as extreme weather, boundary layer modeling, cloud physics, global ocean simulation, coastal oceanography, salt water turbulence, sunspots and solar flux eruptions, Sun-Earth interactions, computational science, computer science, data assimilation, and turbulence; research on wind energy resources. In addition to providing infrastructure for research, the renovated network will be a resource that facilitates distance education and collaboration.