Image above shows the National Lambda Rail stretching across the United States.
Cypress, Calif. – August 10, 2009 – National LambdaRail (NLR), the cutting-edge network for advanced research and innovation owned by the U.S. research and education community, in collaboration with AARNet, Australia’s Academic and Research Network, and Cisco, arranged for the first, international Cisco TelePresence sessions over a research and education network between multiple physical locations.
NLR’s TelePresence Exchange hosted real-time, multi-point meetings on July 8 and 9 with the life-size, highest-resolution video-conferencing application from Cisco. Three locations in the U.S. participated — the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) in North Carolina, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and Indiana University in Indianapolis — along with two at the QUESTnet technology conference in Gold Coast, Australia.
Traffic for all of the sessions ran over NLR’s routed IP, PacketNET service in the U.S. and peered at PacificWave in Seattle with AARNet.
Craig Warren, Operational Service Provision Manager, Information Technology Services Division at Deakin University said, “The TelePresence session at the QUESTnet 2009 conference performed flawlessly between Queensland with the 3 end-points spread across the United States. The presentation of the NLR Network Operations Center capability included a PowerPoint presentation with voice-activated switching between the end-points in Illinois and Pennsylvania with no noticeable lag. The TelePresence solution allowed the recipients to fully understand the capabilities being described by the NLR staff whilst very easily allowing quality interaction.”
“AARNet and its partners have demonstrated the capability of high-speed networks by delivering a bleeding edge outcome through international collaboration. AARNet’s goal is to lead and participate with customers and vendors on new innovative applications such as TelePresence so that it can become mainstream for our customers and their customers,” said James Sankar, AARNet’s Applications and Services Director.
“National LambdaRail, AARNet and QUESTnet are leading the way by breaking down distance and geographic barriers in creating for researchers life-like collaboration experiences over the network with Cisco TelePresence. With this pioneering approach, these organizations are setting an example of what’s possible for international research and education networks,” said Ken Boal, Director of Public Sector for Cisco Australia and New Zealand.
“Thanks to a terrific team effort with AARNet, QUESTnet and Cisco, we’ve been able to demonstrate how Cisco TelePresence can provide an accessible, straightforward platform for high-quality collaboration among the global research community,” said Tom West, NLR CEO.
NLR is the only non-commercial network in the world to offer its own Cisco TelePresence Exchange, which enables both point-to-point and multi-point Cisco TelePresence sessions between as many as 12 different physical locations and with as many as 48 simultaneous high-definition screens. And in April NLR hosted the first, international point-to-point Cisco TelePresence call over research and education networks between the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, in cooperation with the research and education network of the United Arab Emirates, ANKABUT.
About National LambdaRail (NLR)
Owned by the U.S. research and education community, NLR is the most technically advanced, flexible and cost-effective network dedicated to the needs of researchers and research organizations. For more information, please visit www.nlr.net.
