First in NY: Stony Brook’s New 100 Gigabit Per Second Connection Enables Better Research Through Faster Data Transfer

Newswise — Stony Brook – March 14, 2017 - Stony Brook University became the first higher education institution in New York State to offer a 100 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) connection to the NYSERNet Research and Engineering network through which it also connects to Internet2, revolutionizing the quality, quantity and speed of digital research. “This connection supports Stony Brook’s regional leadership position in high-performance computing, while advancing our goal as a top public research university to educate and train future generations of scientists,” said University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. “I’m looking forward to the many new possibilities this connection will offer for interdisciplinary collaboration, an essential element behind the expansion of our expertise and our success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics as well as in the social sciences and humanities.”

The 100 Gbps connection is so fast that Stony Brook researchers can now transfer a complete copy of a human genome file to a lab for testing in just 90 seconds, send 300,000 X-ray images in one minute, or download one e-book for every Stony Brook student (6,250 e-books a second to roughly 26,000 students) in only four seconds. While the faster transfer rate helps expedite Stony Brook’s scientific, engineering and medical research efforts, the 100 Gbps connection will also enable research that could not be done without such a high-speed connection. “It’s very important for Stony Brook research to have our infrastructure match our aspirations,” said Robert Harrison, director of the Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS). “Data’s big and messy, and if you’re going to share it or use it, you have to be able to move it — that’s why this connection is essential for us to continue to play our lead role.” Other areas of research that will benefit from the 100 Gbps connection immediately include computational astrophysics, in which scientists simulate the explosion of stars, which produces very large quantities of data, and biomolecular imaging, which uses very data-intensive experiments across several areas on campus, including biochemistry, pharmacological science and neurobiology. The new high speed connection, which is currently accessible to students, faculty and staff who conduct research using either the SeaWulf or LI-red high-performance computational clusters operated by the IACS, builds the necessary foundation to link additional research locations on campus at high speed in the future, including the Research & Development Park. Several teams worked together to make this possible, including the New York State Education and Research Network (NYSERNet), Internet2, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, the IACS and the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). For more information see: Stony Brook offers researchers high-capacity, high-speed connections to the Internet as a member of NYSERNet and Internet2. About Stony Brook UniversityStony Brook University is going beyond the expectations of what today’s public universities can accomplish. Since its founding in 1957, this young university has grown to become one of only four University Center campuses in the State University of New York (SUNY) system with more than 25,700 students, 2,500 faculty members, and 18 NCAA Division I athletic programs. Our faculty have earned numerous prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Indianapolis Prize for animal conservation, Abel Prize and the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. The University offers students an elite education with an outstanding return on investment: U.S.News & World Report ranks Stony Brook among the top 40 public universities in the nation. Its membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU) places Stony Brook among the top 62 research institutions in North America. As part of the management team of Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University joins a prestigious group of universities that have a role in running federal R&D labs. Stony Brook University is a driving force in the region’s economy, generating nearly 60,000 jobs and an annual economic impact of $4.65 billion. Our state, country and world demand ambitious ideas, imaginative solutions and exceptional leadership to forge a better future for all. The students, alumni, researchers and faculty of Stony Brook University are prepared to meet this challenge.