NETWORKING INFRASTRUCTURE
SCINET'96
SC '96 will build on networking activities of previous conferences, providing many venues and opportunities for attendees to participate and view communications technology "at work" on many platforms and applications. This year, the networking infrastructure will be a fully integrated network, including the following components: a Global Wide Area Applications Testbed (GWAAT); SCinet High Speed Network-FDDI, ATM and HiPPI infrastructure, available throughout the duration of the conference; SCinet Commodity Network-ethernet connectivity available to all research and exhibit booths the day they move into the building.
By providing an integrated network enviroment, we encourage researchers, exhibitors and attendees to test, display, demonstrate and access a wide range of local and wide area applications, services and information in presentation, research booths, exhibitor booths and conference-provided display devices.
G-WAAT: Global Wide Area Applications Testbed
The Global Wide Area Applications Testbed (G-WAAT) at SUPERCOMPUTING '96 offers a unique combination of high-end resources available to national and international Grand Challenge application teams. The emphasis for this GII testbed will be on application demonstrations and performance.
The SUPERCOMPUTING conferences have traditionally showcased very high speed wide-area network connectivity to the convention center, and state-of-the art visualization facilities on the show floor. This trend continues at SC'96, where we expect a connection to the NSF-sponsored vBNS, with expectations of operating at 155 Mbps and selected portions operating at 622 Mbps and other high speed networking testbeds. We plan to expand the range of applications supported and demonstrated to include International Grand-Challenge applications by providing high-speed connectivity to networks throughout the other G7 countries (Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Canada). This will be an exciting opportunity for collaboration among scientists and technologists spanning multiple continents.
While SC'96 plans to provide a shared visualization device, similar to last year's I-WAY display devices, we are encouraging participants to also utilize this infrastructure for demonstrations and exhibits on the show floor. In order to facilitate access to the network resources, we are requesting that exhibitors and researchers planning to use this infrastructure send e-mail by September 15, 1996 to: scinet reqs@pgh.supercomp.org
SCinet High Speed Network
SCinet's High Speed Network infrastructure, utilizing FDDI, ATM and HiPPI technologies, will give researchers, exhibitors and attendees high speed network access to other computers, network services and information serives on the show floor, at their home institutions and across the Global Internet. This infrastructure will be tied into both experimental and commodity wide area networks providing connectivity for a range of applications and services, including: High Performance Computing Challenge, G-WAAT applications, exhibitor and research booth demonstrations. The network infrastructure will use leading edge networking equipment supplied by a range of vendors. As in previous years, researchers and exhibitors must provide network connection requests to SCinet in order to receive show network connections.
Scinet Commodity Network
For the first year, we plan to offer a commodity ethernet connection to every booth on the show floor. This infrastructure will use off-the-shelf ethernet equipment and will be connected to at least one Commodity Wide Area Network Service provider. We are currently planning for this connection to be available to exhibitors and researchers alike as they move into their booths. We hope to manage this network as a production network, providing near 24 by 7 availability. Booths will still need to provide network connection requests and information to the SCinet committee.
For more information on available network resources and deadlines click here.