ADVA Optical Networking’s FSP 3000RE supports enhanced services to University of Illinois

Launch of network accommodates expanded research and education demands

July 16, 2007. Mahwah, New Jersey, USA and Martinsried/Munich, Germany, ADVA Optical Networking announced today that the University of Illinois has launched the ADVA Fiber Service Platform (FSP) 3000RE to expand both its intercampus data network and the networks of its three main campuses in Chicago, Springfield and Urbana-Champaign.

Using the ADVA FSP 3000RE, the University of Illinois migrated from a dedicated point-to-point OC-3 circuit that connected the Urbana and Chicago campuses with a maximum capacity of 155Mbit/s to a dedicated Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) backbone with the capacity to transport up to 3.2Tbit/s, achieved with 10Gbit/s per channel today and 40Gbit/s per channel in the future. Throughout the three campuses, the network extends a total distance of almost 1,000km.

The University of Illinois is widely recognized as one of the most technologically innovative institutions of higher learning in the world. Serving nearly 70,000 students across its family of three distinct campuses, the University recognized that its everexpanding bandwidth requirements would eventually exceed the boundaries of its available wide area network.

“In order to maintain our position as a top-tier research university and stay competitive with our peers, we knew we would have to augment our network to accommodate the demands of our growing campus population, most of whom use bandwidth-hungry applications on a regular basis,” said Stan Yagi, assistant CIO, Information Technologies, at the University’s Urbana campus.

The benefits of the increased bandwidth for the University of Illinois are numerous, including:

* Closer integration of campuses via high-speed network infrastructure;
* Improved networking for education and course management supporting higherbandwidth applications;
* Enhanced support of internal as well as external research projects relying on access to large amounts of data and/or computational processing facilities; and
* Reliable high-speed connectivity to the national and internal research & education community via academic networks including Internet2 and National LambdaRail.

The ADVA FSP 3000RE DWDM system accommodates the simple, cost-effective addition of new services or more bandwidth as required by university researchers and other network users. The ADVA FSP 3000RE provides a versatile and compact platform for high-capacity applications in use by innovative universities today. With the ability to selectively configure any wavelength at any node, the University of Illinois can now expand its network without the physical installation and cost related to adding additional optical fiber.

“We have deep and growing experience in the research and education community,” said Brian McCann, chief marketing and strategy officer of ADVA Optical Networking. “Our customers trust us to understand their need to build networks on a flexible, scalable platform that enables high-capacity now, but even higher capacity later when their projects expand. We look forward to continued work with the University of Illinois in the future.”