CC*DNI Networking Infrastructure: Enabling Frictionless Scientific Data Transfers in the Texas Medical Center

Baylor College Of Medicine, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The Texas Medical Center (TMC) in Houston, Texas, is home to a 15-year networking association called the Collaborative Healthcare Alliance for Technology (CHAT), comprised of 11 research and clinically focused organizations and over 70,000 researchers, educators, students and staff. CHAT is led and operated by the founding member, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), in support of the community's explosive research-centric, network-intensive needs. This project replaces aging infrastructure with state-of-the-art equipment, while simplifying the design, and simultaneously enabling  frictionless, high-speed data transfers by creating a first-ever Science DMZ, directly benefiting research labs such as: - Baylor's Human Genome Sequencing Center, led by Dr. Richard Gibbs, which has transferred hundreds of terabytes of genomic data in the past year, most notably as a part of the CHARGE project; - the Center for Genome Architecture producing and sharing some 50 Tbytes of new sequenced data each year; and - the Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research engaged in the production and collaborative processing of tens of terabytes of microbial genomic data. While updating the underlying infrastructure, the project also upgrades the connection between CHAT and its nearest upstream provider, the Southeast Texas GigaPoP (SETG), from 10 to 100 Gbps, matching the recently upgraded 100Gbps connection between SETG and LEARN, the Texas-wide research and education network backbone that ties the R&E community to Internet2. By streamlining research data transfers, the investigators will empower researchers at BCM and other CHAT partners to hasten the eradication of today's greatest health challenges.