IU upgrades international Web hookup

The high-speed Internet connection at IU that links scientists throughout the U.S. with those in Japan, Korea and Singapore, has just become eight times faster. This international Internet hookup, called TransPAC, makes it possible for researchers separated by thousands of miles of water to share data in real time. \nThe monumental increase in bandwidth was announced last week. Vice President of Information Technology Michael McRobbie said the improvements will make long-distance collaboration even more successful. \n"It will provide a very significant enhancement of the global digital infrastructure that underpins e-science collaboration between the United States and the Asia Pacific," McRobbie said.\nThe TransPAC Internet connection was founded in 1998 with a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation. This is the first significant speed increase in its brief existence.\n"This has brought IU great international visibility," said Dennis Gannon, chair of the department of computer science. "For the students, it has given them a chance to get to work with their counterparts in Asia. TransPAC has put Indiana on the Pacific rim."\nThe upgrade created two 622 megabytes-per-second connections to replace the single 155 Mbps pipe, an eightfold improvement.\n"This is a tremendous increase in capacity and resiliency because there are now two separate links," said Steven Wallace, director of the IU advanced network management lab. "The ability to do science over great distances has vastly improved." \nThe operation of TransPAC at IU has removed geographic barriers that once slowed scientific research. Scientists in San Diego and Japan can now simultaneously control and view images from remote electron microscopes via the Internet. Researchers in Seattle can jointly analyze nucleic acids with those in Japan or share data on matter and antimatter. \nThis digital science revolution, known as e-science, is being spearheaded in part by technology at IU. \n"IU is the lead institution for this particular program," Wallace said. "It provides network operation services, designs links and operates it in conjunction with the network operation center in Tokyo."\nThe faster lines will not be more costly to the University.\n"Technology is rather fluid, so as time goes on, you get more for less," Vice President of Telecommunications Brian Voss said. "This year we discovered that it was the right moment to get a significant amount of increase in capacity without spending any more money."\nVoss explained that the heavy use of the link and specifically 3-D graphics and video were congesting the TransPAC connections and beginning to impede the exchange of information. \nThis upgrade should alleviate that problem, Voss said. \n"As you widen these pipes, you make it possible for more advanced research to take place and more researchers to work simultaneously," Voss said.