Sand Point, Seattle, Washington – March 5, 2012 – The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), one of several regional data transfer centers around the country that efficiently moves large volumes of data between regional, national, and other networks, announced today their partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in supporting a major milestone for the ongoing growth and development of the NOAA N-Wave Research Network. This partnership significantly enhances the current capabilities of N-Wave and the ability to interconnect NOAA researchers to NOAA’s national research resources.

“We’ve created for the very first time, a network platform for NOAA researchers that underpins much of the high-performance computing, data storage, archival, and data retrieval that is necessary for scientific research,” said Jerry Janssen, who works in the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory and manages NOAA’s N-Wave Research Network.

PNWGP will provide the necessary collocation and connectivity requirements to establish N-Wave’s fifth network backbone Core site expanding N-Wave to NOAA research offices in Seattle, Washington. Furthermore, the new Seattle Core Site will be the gateway connection point for other NOAA sites in the Pacific region with the first being the NOAA Pacific Regional Center in Hawaii.

Janssen stated, “This expanded and renewed partnership between NOAA and PNWGP is crucial to the ongoing success of NOAA’s science and environmental stewardship mission on the West Coast of the US, and in the greater Pacific region.”

The N-Wave network is built on a 10-Gigabit per second dedicated wave backbone via the national research and education network Internet2.  The network waves will be used to provide dedicated, high-speed, and high-capacity connection between climate and weather researchers and NOAA’s key-high performance computing sites across the nation.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP)
The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) is a nonprofit corporation serving research and education organizations throughout the Pacific Rim. They provide cost-effective, robust, reliable, high-bandwidth, and high-capacity networking to support the missions of these organizations and the needs of researchers, faculty, students, and staff. PNWGP designs, implements, and manages a multi-state high-bandwidth and high-capacity network specifically designed to meet unique requirements of research and education communities.  For more information, visit http://www.pnw-gigapop.net/

About NOAA
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources. For more information, visit http://www.noaa.gov/

Contacts:
PNWGP
Amy Philipson
206-310-0097
amy.pnwgp@gmail.com

Todd Sedmak
Internet2
PR and Media Relations Manager
202-331-5373 (w), 804-497-0282 (c) or Todd@Internet2.edu

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