MBC has partnered with the Mid-Atlantic Research Infrastructure Alliance (MARIA), which has co-invested in upgrading the network to support 100-gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) Internet2 connections and collaborations with research and development institutions. MARIA is a non-profit corporation that brings together Virginia's leading research universities to facilitate access to shared technology infrastructure for research, also known as cyber-infrastructure. MARIA members include the College of William and Mary, George Mason University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia Tech. Internet2 is currently the largest and fastest globally connected education and research network in the United States.
The design of the Infinera DTN-X platform enables MBC's core transport network backbone to grow tenfold, meeting the rapidly advancing needs of high-performance, data-intensive research and collaboration for biotechnology and Big Data applications now and in the future. This network upgrade positions MBC, in southern Virginia, among the best-connected regions in the nation.
Infinera's DTN-X platform enables MBC to deliver coherent transmission capacity of 100 Gb/s over 500 Gb/s super channels, with a forward-scalable design to support terabit super channels in the future. These high-capacity super channels are enabled by 500 Gb/s photonic integrated circuits (PICs), developed and manufactured by Infinera—the only vendor currently offering 500 Gb/s transmission capacity from a single line card. The PICs allow the DTN-X platform to integrate DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) super channel transmission with the potential to expand to up to 12 Tb/s of non-blocking optical transport network switching, providing seamless expansion to accommodate future traffic growth.
"Infinera's innovative optical transport solutions have been the foundation of MBC's open access transport network since our inception," said Tad Deriso, MBC President and CEO. "MBC's enhanced network remains operationally simple and will deliver an initial capacity of four terabits per second while greatly enhancing our nonprofit mission to promote economic development and bridge the digital divide."
"We are very pleased that Infinera's Intelligent Transport Network will continue to be the foundation of MBC's unique open access network," said Scott Smith, Vice President of Sales at Infinera. "Infinera is committed to continuing to provide MBC with a solution that automates, converges, and simplifies its optical transport network to reliably deliver advanced services to its customers."
