Pacific Wave, Northern Wave Peering to Benefit Researchers

Pacific Wave and Northern Wave have inked an agreement to enable their participants to peer with each other. Northern Wave will connect Pacific Wave in Seattle to the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange Facility in Chicago.

StarLight is an advanced communications exchange facility providing networking services and technologies suitable for high-performance, large-scale metro, regional, national and global applications.

“Connecting Northern Wave and Pacific Wave puts into place a new piece of the cyber infrastructure necessary for complex interdisciplinary work on the cutting edge of science and technology,” said Amy Philipson, Executive Director, PNWGP.

“Together with the other advances that Pacific Wave offers its participants, such as 100G networking along the US west coast, dynamic circuits, support for Science DMZ-model research networks, and software-defined networking, we’re delighted help facilitate the arrival of true 21st century networking,” Philipson added.

It is expected that this peering arrangement will offer unique opportunities for participants using international research and education networks to communicate at multi-Gigabit rates between the Pacific Rim, the US, and Europe.

The Pacific Wave exchange facility brings together research, scientific, and education institutions and networks located in the Pacific Rim region and the world. This helps boost network efficiency and throughput at the same time reducing latency and costs. The Pacific Wave is a joint project between the Corporation for Education and Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP (PNWGP).

The Northern Wave serves research and education institutions and is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the North Dakota State University (NDSU) and PNWGP. It offers a shared 10Gbps optical network connection between Seattle and Chicago.

“Northern Wave brings a significant new capacity to research and education networks through improved international communication facilities as well as the easy exchange of data for initiating collaborations with other institutions,” said Kalpana Katti, North Dakota State University Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering.

In June 2012, North Dakota State University (NDSU) and Pacific Northwest Gigapop announced the activation of the Northern Wave optical data connection between Seattle and Chicago.

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