Géant, the high-speed research and education network managed and operated by Dante in Cambridge, UK, is providing data links to the International Fusion Energy Research Centre (IFERC) in Japan.
IFERC hosts the Helios supercomputer, a system with a compute power exceeding one petaflop and attached to a storage capacity of 50PB. The Helios supercomputer is provided and operated by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and is a Fusion for Energy (F4E) resource.
Helios is producing vast amounts of data, which need to be shared with scientists all over the world. Via SINET, a Japanese National Research and Education Network (NREN), IFERC is connected to the pan-European Géant network and to European NRENs, like RENATER, DFN, SWITCH, JANET and many others, supporting the research activities for fusion in Europe.
The Géant-provided link is a 10Gbps connection between Geneva and Washington, matching the 10Gbps link between Japan and Washington provided by SINET. It will enable researchers in Europe to access this dedicated supercomputer in Japan, and may eventually be used to complement the network resources allocated to other large scale projects, such as the CERN LHC experiment.
Géant business solutions consultant Roberto Sabatino said: 'The combination of major new scientific projects like IFERC and the use of supercomputers like Helios is creating an explosion of data for which we need to be ready.
'The provision of a 10Gbps link is a first and crucial step to support the data networking needs in the global search for cleaner, sustainable energy and to assist scientists in their ground-breaking work.'
