SYDNEY, Australia, February 23, 2006 - Australia's ability to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of e-Research and to deliver a broader range of network services to the tertiary education sector has been given a boost after successful testing of the Sydney to Brisbane leg of the new AARNet national fibre network. The testing comes after AARNet Pty. Ltd (APL) selected Cisco Systems® optical networking technology to deliver innovation to its regional customers.
Under a five year agreement, Cisco® will provide its ONS 15454 platform to the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet), a not-for-profit company that serves more than 1,000,000 end users within the Australian higher education and research sector. It will use Cisco's advanced optical products to expand capacity and performance on its national backbone, a move which will immediately benefit regional universities in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland by providing them with enhanced network services including Ethernet connections capable of speeds up to 10 gigabits per second. AARNet will also connect the South Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing to its peer supercomputing centres on the eastern seaboard. This regional optical program is funded in part by the federal Department of Education Science and Training (DEST) through its Australian Research and Education Network (AREN) initiative.
Chris Hancock, AARNet's Chief Executive Officer, said; "This is a major milestone for the advancement of internet technology in Australia. It will enable APL to provide multiple 10 gigabit wavelengths, extending the bandwidth and reach of our network into regional Australia for research such as astronomy and high-energy physics. At the same time it will provide cost-effective advanced network services for educational uses. We can also leverage it to provide dedicated, user-controlled light paths to researchers requiring high bandwidth access to specialised facilities across Australia and the globe."
The Cisco ONS 15454 SONET/SDH multiservice provisioning platforms are industry leaders with more than 1,000 customers and 40,000 systems deployed worldwide. The Cisco ONS 15454 integrates the functions of many traditional SONET/SDH network elements in a single platform, including advanced SONET/SDH transport at transmission rates up to OC-192/STM-64, integrated dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) and multiservice interfaces. Cisco will supply and install the Cisco ONS 15454 platform and manage a 24x7 operations centre for the optical network as an integrated part of AARNet's overall network support services.
Cisco Australia and New Zealand managing director, Ross Fowler, said "Cisco has a long association with the leaders of Australia's higher education and research sector, as a provider of world class networking capabilities to research and development and scientific organisations. We are particularly proud of our involvement with AARNet. The optical network allows AARNet to continue to provide world-class network services to the Australian research and education community."
