USA Today
By USA Today Staff
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Technology experts are visiting Baton Rouge to look at ways for Louisiana to participate in the new National LambdaRail, an exclusive high-speed network of supercomputers around the country.
The state Board of Regents now hopes to build a $25 million fiber-optics network linking super computer clusters among seven Louisiana universities that would join the LambdaRail node in Baton Rouge, which was designated as the Southeast region's access point between Houston and Jacksonville, Fla.
Experts from Cisco Systems, Intel, IBM and AT&T, along with federal officials and university researchers are participating in the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative Forum this week to discuss different projects proposed using the network and new sources of grant money.
Dan Henderson, director of information technology at the state Department of Economic Development, said the forum and the LambdaRail will "attract new dollars to the state and more smart people. It's an engine that will drive the state in every respect."
Researchers for years have used LSU's supercomputer, called Super Mike, to model coastal erosion effects, for disaster management during hurricane season and to discover new findings in the petrochemical industry.
With an upgrade to Super Mike under way and access to the LambdaRail, state researchers will have unprecedented access to a virtual grid of the country's supercomputers — allowing them immediate results to complex computing models.
AT&T, which donated 8,000 miles of fiber-optic strands, will activate LambdaRail's southern loop Friday, spokesman Eugene Regan said.
State officials hope to start building the state network in September and have the system operational by April 15, with super computer clusters at Louisiana Tech, Southern University, LSU Health Sciences Center, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of New Orleans and Tulane, said Charlie McMahon, director of LSU Telecommunications.
Publish Date:
09-02-2004
