The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville now has the fastest-known Internet connection in the state thanks to an upgraded link to the national higher-education broadband network.
The point of the upgrade is to better connect the university to a nationwide supercomputing network, said Steven Fulkerson, director of the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network.
"The reason why it's so important for Fayetteville is that it allows them to get in the next level of supercomputing," Fulkerson said. "We want to provide the level of connectivity to compete on the national stage."
The Fayetteville campus had a 1̶0̶-̶g̶i̶g̶a̶b̶y̶t̶e̶-̶p̶e̶r̶-̶s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ 10-gigabit-per-second* connection. New network equipment upgraded the connection to 100 GB per second.
The upgraded network connection, which is 10 times faster, can transfer the data contained in the entire collection of books at the Library of Congress in under three minutes or 300,000 X-rays in one minute, Fulkerson said.
The $500,000 equipment that makes the speed possible sends pulses of light from Fayetteville to Tulsa over existing fiber-optic cable. It was paid for by the National Science Foundation.
In the near term, the speed will be used for faster data transfers to and from the Fayetteville campus.
"The role of high-performance computing -- and we're talking about tens of thousands of desktop computers all strung together and working as one -- means that we can allow researchers to run a model over a long period of time and watch, for example, how a material forms," said Jack Cothren, executive director of the Arkansas Research Computing Collaborative.
Watching how materials change at the molecular level -- like other pursuits -- generates lots of data.
"Often they're working with researchers on other campuses, and the only way they can look at the same material at the same time is by moving it around on the network," Cothren said.
Speeding up the network "speeds up our ability to collaborate," he said.
The National Science Foundation runs a supercomputer network called XSEDE, or Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment. It connects supercomputers across the nation to provide computing power beyond what one campus can provide.
"The idea is that every single university in the U.S. ought not to have to field a very high-end system," according to the supercomputer network's website.
The upgraded Internet speed means "that we can tie directly into the XSEDE network and more effectively move those big data files up to the supercomputing centers," Cothren said.
In the long term, the University of Arkansas hopes to connect its supercomputers to the network. It currently has two main supercomputers, Trestles and Razor. Trestles came from the University of California, San Diego and at one time was connected to the XSEDE network.
Cothren said he expects the university to receive a third supercomputer thanks to money from the National Science Foundation and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
He said he would like to make all of the campus's resources available through the XSEDE network within five years.
"One of the requirements for doing that -- the first domino -- is that 100-gig connection," he said. "We have to have that. Otherwise we don't have enough bandwidth to do what we need to do."
Besides aiding researchers, the new connection will carry Internet traffic from students and everyone else on the Fayetteville campus to the wider world.
Fulkerson said he would like every college and university on the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network to have access to the faster connection.
The network itself is connected to Internet2, the national higher-education and research network, through the 100GB-per-second connection. However, state campuses other than Fayetteville are not connected to the wider network with that connection speed.
Fulkerson said those campuses are not yet at the limits of their bandwidth, and he's not sure how much those upgrades would cost, but the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is one institution that could benefit from increased speed.
Internet medicine
UAMS started lending its medical expertise across the state via the Internet in the 1990s. When a radiologist left the Northwest Medical Center-Willow Creek, UAMS started reviewing its images.
"We started fooling around with it, and that's when it evolved," said Tina Benton, oversight director for the UAMS Center for Distance Health and ANGELS. "We felt like if we could do it with this one site, why couldn't we do this kind of thing across Arkansas?"
ANGELS, or Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines, Education and Learning System, at UAMS has linked doctors at Arkansas hospitals and clinics since 2003 with the goal of reducing premature births. The program started as a call center.
Today, the program enables live ultrasounds, video and more to be seen by doctors with necessary expertise that may not be available in many communities.
"We're looking at the images live while the patient might be 200 miles away," Benton said.
Likewise, hand surgeons are connected across Arkansas, so they can look at the possibility of reattachment without transporting patients. X-rays can also be sent from place to place, making duplicate work unnecessary and cutting down on radiation exposure.
The measures save money and allow for better care, Benton said.
The Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network serves as the backbone for e-Link, which connects telemedicine sites in Arkansas, said Roy Kitchen, network director.
About 450 sites are connected through e-Link, but Kitchen said the network is being opened up to another 350 sites.
"There's tons of gigabytes of data that has to be analyzed, deciphered and moved back across the network," he said. "If the pipe is not big enough, then it's slow and bogged down."
Benton said the data transmitted will continue to increase.
"Being able to transmit things for other subspecialists to look at -- that's going to be the future," she said. "Technology is going to help assist physicians and other allied health professionals reach patients where they live."
SundayMonday on 09/06/2016
*CORRECTION: The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has upgraded its Internet connection speed to 100-gigabits-per-second. Previously the campus’s connection speed was 10-gigabits-per-second. Those figures were incorrect in this story.