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The University of Arizona has joined the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California known as CENIC. CENIC is a consortium-based organization that manages the networking infrastructure for the state of California, including access to national networks such as the commercial Internet, Internet2 and the National Lambda Rail (NLR).
The primary driver for becoming a member was to gain access to The National Lambda Rail (NLR), a newly formed national network geared toward providing high-speed capabilities to research oriented institutions and organizations. CENIC was the "founding" network to NLR and all members of CENIC have access to both NLR and Internet2. The University of Arizona’s interest is to utilize this valuable resource for our research community as well.
There are several points worth noting in what CENIC has to offer. They have 3 primary levels of a network: a high performance research network (10 Gig) for high capacity research initiatives, a digital network (2.5 Gig) for production oriented connectivity like communications and web access, and an experimental development network (variable) as a “manipulatable” resource for researchers. They have dual connections to Internet2 at OC48 for primary and OC12 for backup. They are pursuing establishing a connection with the Northwest Pacific Wave consortium for access to satellites in Hawaii and Chile and they are building connections to Mexico.
Overall, our membership allows us to join NLR & combine Internet2 at a more economical level, strengthen our collaborations with our sister schools in California, and buildup our connectivity between Tucson and Phoenix.
