@ SC18 Everything’s Bigger in Texas – This Year, SCinet Diamond Level Contributors’ Generosity is No Small Feat

SC Insider
Thu, 08 Nov 2018 17:18:32 +0000
SC18, Century Link Government, CISCO, ESnet, Innovation, Jason Zurawski, JUNIPER, networking, SCinet

In just a few days, a group of 225 volunteers will have completed the execution of SCinet, the world’s fastest temporary network that supports the SC Conference which is taking place in Dallas from November 11 to 16, 2018.

SCinet is a collaborative effort by volunteer experts from 85 organizations than span industry, academia, and government that takes one year to plan, one month to build, one week to operate, and less than 24 hours to tear down. It offers an unprecedented amount of bandwidth — anticipated 4.02 terabits per second for SC18 — within the conference exhibit hall and connects the convention center to the broader internet.

What makes SCinet possible? SCinet contributors donate millions of dollars in equipment, software, and services that are needed to build and support the network each year for the SC Conference.

At this year’s conference in Dallas, it’s estimated that contributions from 40 organizations will total $52 million. Three companies individually topped the highest level of contributions with donations of resources worth $5 million each: CenturyLink, Cisco, and Juniper.

“SCinet can only flourish due to the incredible generosity of our contributing partners,” said Jason Zurawski, SCinet chair and science engagement engineer at the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet). “CenturyLink, Cisco, and Juniper have all gone above and beyond to ensure the success of SCinet this year through the donation of hardware, software, services, and the most important of resources: time.”

CenturyLink has been instrumental in supporting the demonstrations that push the envelope on cutting edge research. Their assistance has enabled 19 wide area network connections to cities that include Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Washington, D.C.

Cisco remains a steadfast partner in the operation and design of SCinet as part of their organizational commitment in supporting research and education through advancements in networking, data center, security, automation and programmability focused on improving and accelerating innovation. Their contributions of hardware span many different use cases, from metropolitan networking to core routers and switches, as well as hundreds of access points that SCinet will use to provide wireless internet capabilities across 1 million square feet in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Dallas.

Juniper Networks continues to lead the way in delivering cutting edge network hardware for use in SCinet. By offering to support SCinet with prototype devices, SCinet volunteers and users are exposed to the next generation in transport capabilities at 400-gigabits.

With SCinet contributors’ support, members of the HPC community participating at the SC Conference are able to demonstrate the advanced computing resources of their home institutions and showcase the revolutionary applications and experiments that are a hallmark of SC.