Mid-Atlantic Crossroads Announces 100G Network Supporting Advanced Research, Education & Scientific Discovery

Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX), a Gigabit Point of Presence organization (or GigaPoP) led by the University of Maryland, Georgetown University, and The George Washington University, announces the deployment of its 100G fiber optic network. The network is among the nation's first to be built on industry-standard 100G technologies. This milestone follows a successful test period by MAX, and the upgraded network meets the large scale data flow requirements of 44 universities, federal agencies, government laboratories, and non-profit institutions in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

By implementing this highly-developed network, MAX enables its member organizations to study and advance understanding in critical areas that include climate modeling, genetics, and visualization. The valuable research conducted is dependent upon MAX's high-performance data transfer capabilities and advanced network services.

"Networks supporting research and educational institutions aspire to reach 100G performance. Today, MAX has become one of the first networks in the country to reach that goal," said Tripti Sinha, Deputy CIO of Networks and Communication Technologies in the Division of Information Technology at the University of Maryland.

"The organizations that rely on MAX connectivity depend on the highest performance and lowest latency even when transporting enormous amounts of data. Most importantly, this accomplishment allows our member organizations to participate at the highest levels of discovery," said Dr. Abdella Battou, MAX's Executive Director.

Using Fujitsu technologies, MAX began designing the network upgrade about two years ago. Now, MAX is able to support increasingly bandwidth-intensive, packet-based applications without forfeiting the organization's investments in more traditional optical technologies. MAX and Fujitsu have been working together for more than five years.

April 18, 2012

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