Chiaro Networks chosen by California Technology Institute to provide revolutionary routing platform for OptIPuter

Fiber Optics Weekly Update, Nov 22, 2002

The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal-(IT)2) and Chiaro Networks, a provider of high-end routing platforms, announced a partnership supporting development of the "OptIPuter," a next-generation optical networking Grid. Chiaro will supply the high-end platform, Enstara, to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) OptIPuter testbed and become a Cal-(IT)2 industry partner. It joins other institute partners, including IBM, Telcordia Technologies and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), on the OptIPuter initiative.

The OptIPuter is named for optical networking, Internet Protocol, and computer storage and processing. The powerful distributed cyberinfrastructure project is designed to support data-intensive scientific research and collaboration, especially in earth and biomedical sciences. The convergence of two technologies--Grid middleware, and multiple wavelengths of light on single optical fibers--is leading to the creation of LambdaGrids, which essentially eliminate bandwidth as a barrier to interactive exploration of large remote databases. The project is led by Cal-(1T)2 researchers at UCSD, the University of California, Irvine, San Diego State University, and University of Southern California, and researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago with its partner Northwestern University. Major funding for the project comes from a recently announced $13.5 million award from the National Science Foundation.