Denver, CO — Beginning Saturday, November 17, the Colorado Convention Center will be home to the fastest computer network anywhere in the world. Called SCinet, the network is built each year to support SC, the international conference for high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis.
Over 100 engineers representing industry, academia and government institutions have volunteered their time over the past year to plan and build SCinet using over $20 million in donated equipment and over 90 miles of newly installed fiber optic cable lines in the Convention Center. The network will serve as the primary backbone supporting all 10,000+ SC conference attendees as they unveil their latest innovations in high performance computing applications.
“SCinet is the primary platform for SC exhibitors to demonstrate the most cutting-edge high-performance computing applications and collaborations. We support their requirements by building a sophisticated on-site network that links the exhibit floor to the largest and fastest research networks around the world,” said Trey Breckenridge, Director of High Performance Computing at Mississippi State University and chair of the SC13 SCinet committee. “As science continues to demand more data-intensive and distributed computing — networks play an important role. SCinet allows the networking community to work closely with scientists to show researchers at SC first-hand how advanced network technologies can help accelerate science.”
As it does each year, SCinet will be provisioning an unprecedented amount of bandwidth into the Conference’s host Convention Center. In 2013, SCinet will connect multiple 100 Gigabit per second (Gbps) circuits in collaboration with leading national and international research networks, resulting in total bandwidth of nearly 1 Terabit per second.
Breckenridge added, “Unlike typical Internet traffic, scientific workflows tend to demand high-capacity network links for long duration large data flows. The SCinet infrastructure was architected to meet these demanding requirements.”
In addition to the massive external capacity SCinet will bring to the Convention Center, the network is also providing an experimental testbed called the Network Research Exhibition, which provides a unique opportunity for network researchers to showcase new network research using emerging protocols like OpenFlow and other disruptive innovations. Several projects have been selected as part of the NRE program, all of which will provide a presentation as part of the SC13 Conference program and will be demonstrating their research in several exhibition booths during the Conference.
As always, SCinet will provide attendees with wireless connectivity throughout the conference areas. SCinet is building its own SC13 wireless network using more than 200 wireless access points. The wireless network will include support for Eduroam (education roaming) service, which allows users (researchers, teachers, students, and staff) from participating institutions to securely access the protected wireless network using their home organization’s login credentials.
SCinet is the result of the hard work and significant contributions of many government, research, education and corporate collaborators who have volunteered time, equipment and expertise to ensure SC13’s success.
Top SCinet contributors include: Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena Corporation, Cisco, The Department of Energy’s ESnet, Internet2, Juniper, Level 3 Communications and Zayo.
Additional key service contributors include: Arista, Brocade, Extreme Networks, Fujitsu, Gigamon, Infinera, InMon, Ixia, National LambdaRail, Reservoir Labs, Schneider Electric, Spirent, Splunk and YarcData.
Volunteers from the following organizations supporting the development and deployment of SCinet: Argonne National Laboratory, Army Research Laboratory, Clemson University, Indiana University, DoD HPC Modernization Program, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Mississippi State University, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, National Energy Scientific Computing Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University, Sandia National Laboratories, University of Oklahoma, CA Technologies, University of Wisconsin, University of Colorado Boulder, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory DoD Supercomputing Resource Center, California Institute of Technology, Corporation For Education Network Initiatives In California, Computer Sciences Corporation, ETH Zürich, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Florida LambdaRail, GÉANT, HEAnet, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lonestar Education and Research Network, Leverage, Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, Metaflows, Inc., National Center For Atmospheric Research, National Institute for Computational Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, Rice University, San Diego Supercomputing Center, StarLight Networks, University of San Diego, University of Amsterdam, University of Florida, University of Texas System, Utah Education Network, and the University of Utah.
About SC13
SC13, sponsored by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and the IEEE Computer Society, offers a complete technical program, programs for students and educators in HPC, and an exhibition that together showcase the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. This premier international conference includes a globally attended technical program, workshops, tutorials, a world-class exhibit area, demonstrations and opportunities for hands-on learning.
