PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State University’s research community will enjoy the benefits of high-speed fiber optic bandwidth by the beginning of the new semester in 2009. The university’s Information Technology Services division finalized a contract with 360 Network Inc. of Seattle to lease fiber optic cable access with 40 gigabytes per second capacity.
The currently unused fiber optic cable, known in the computer industry as “dark fiber,” will give faculty and researchers the ability to rapidly conduct massive data computations and transfers, and to network efficiently with other universities and researchers nationwide and worldwide.
This high-speed access will cost the university $5 million over the next seven years and will be available at WSU in Pullman, Spokane and Tri-Cities. WSU is also looking for a feasible solution for the Vancouver campus.
Viji Murali, WSU’s vice president for information services and chief information officer, said that access to the fiber optic network will be restricted at WSU to specific academic activities, such as research, transferring huge amounts of data, certain networking activities, as well as instructional activities such as videostreaming. It will not be used by faculty, staff or students for regular daily internet use. Two reasons for this limitation are that the vendor contract restricts usage to only research and instructional activities, and because the technology is better suited for high-performance computing and solving complex research problems.
“This is not the traditional business level of bandwidth,” said Brent Stacey, president of the Idaho Regional Optical Network (IRON) in a recent news release. “To put that in perspective, some very common analogies would be you could download three full-length CDs in under three seconds, or the Library of Congress could be downloaded in 14 minutes.”
WSU recently upgraded the bandwitdh for its regular Internet traffic, handled through its K20 network, from 620 to 920 megabytes per second capacity. The black or optic fiber network, once activated, will trip at speeds 40 times that fast.
“You might picture it as two different types of highways, with two different purposes,” said Murali. “The optic fiber is like a superhighway, providing phenomenal speeds and no red lights. The K20 network is more like a business route highway, giving users the ability to travel efficiently, and yet to make stops, take detours.
“Although we cannot accurately predict future needs and technology beyond two years, we think this service will satisfy our connectivity needs for about five years. However, we also included an option in the contract to purchase another 10 gigabytes of capacity, if we need it.”
The 360 Network fiber will connect the WSU Pullman campus to Spokane, Seattle and the University of Washington, then via the Pacific Northwest Gigapop system, https://www.pnw-gigapop.net/, to research and education institutions on the Pacific Rim. It also will provide a link to Boise and the IRON, which connects to similar optical networks throughout the continental United States.
The IRON was connected to the nationwide fiber optic computer network that links the country’s research community Oct. 9. “Now we must connect our faculty to this high speed fiber. We envision this process to take a couple of months,” said Murali.
