100-Gigabit Connectivity to Pacific Wave International Peering Exchange for ESnet

Pacific Wave announced the completion of a 100-Gigabit connection for the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), the high-speed computer network serving US Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and scientific facilities.  With the completion of this new connection in Sunnyvale, CA, ESnet has upgraded its peering capabilities to research networks in 40 countries throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond.

"International exchange points such as Pacific Wave serve a critical role in the architecture of the Internet, and they are especially important in supporting large-scale scientific collaboration," stated ESnet Division Director Greg Bell. "This new 100-Gigabit connection will improve data mobility for scientists at the cutting edge of discovery in high-energy physics, fusion energy research, climate science, and many other fields."

ESnet provides the high-bandwidth, reliable connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions, enabling them to collaborate on some of the world's most important scientific challenges including energy, climate science, and the origins of the universe. Funded by the DOE Office of Science, and managed and operated by the ESnet team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ESnet provides scientists with access to unique DOE research facilities and computing resources.

"The international advanced network infrastructure that first emerged as an aspiration in the 1990s has become a vital part of 21st century collaborative research in a vast number of disciplines," said CENIC President and CEO Louis Fox. "Ensuring that the research labs and partners served by ESnet enjoy cutting-edge connectivity to colleagues around the world is an equally vital part of maintaining the pace of innovation, as well as the United States' continued position as a global leader in data-intensive research."

"Pacific Wave and ESnet are both cornerstones of international advanced networking," adds Amy Philipson, Executive Director of Pacific Northwest Gigapop. "The better the connectivity between our networks, the more value we bring to our participants and the bigger the positive impact we both have through supporting data-intensive collaborative research into topics of great global importance."

A joint project between the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) with support from the University of Southern California and the University of Washington, Pacific Wave is a state-of-the-art international peering exchange designed to serve research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond and features connection points at three US West Coast locations: the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

Over the ten years since its inception, the Pacific Wave international peering exchange has become a critical part of the international advanced network infrastructure and the dominant means by which all of the world's such networks cross the Pacific Ocean.