Faculty & Staff > Research Computing
The National Supercomputing Center for Energy and the Environment (NSCEE) provides primary support for research computing
at UNLV.
The Office of Information Technology (OIT)
supports research through UNLV's membership
in Internet2. OIT also maintains licenses and purchase agreements
for software that
is useful in research and data analysis including SPSS, SAS, ArcView
and ArcGIS.
Below are details about Internet2 and Access Grids.
UNLV and Internet2 ®
Internet2 is a consortium led by over
200 universities working in partnership with industry and government
to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies,
accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 is recreating
the partnership among academia, industry and government that fostered
today’s Internet in its infancy. The primary goals of Internet2
are to:
- Create a leading edge network capability
for the national research community
- Enable revolutionary Internet applications
- Ensure the rapid transfer new network services
and applications to the broader Internet community.
Internet2 Network Backbone
Often when people say that they want to use
Internet2, they mean that they want to use one of the high-speed nation-wide
networks connecting Internet2 member sites.
UNLV connects to other Internet2 sites automatically
via its links to the CalREN and Abilene networks. (Access to high
bandwidth is provided whenever a user at one Internet2 site addresses
a resource at another Internet2 site.) CalREN-2 is a research-level
network that supports connection speeds up to 622Mbps with other
CalREN-2 or Internet2 sites. Similarly, Abilene is an advanced backbone
network operated by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet
Development (UCAID) to support Internet2 member institutions.
To see the difference between the route between
UNLV and Indiana University (Internet2) and UNLV and the Bloomington
Chamber of Commerce (as of 9/7/2006), click here. For a map of the
Abilene backbone showing current traffic, see http://weathermap.grnoc.iu.edu/abilene_jpg.html
UNLV is participating in Internet2 to allow
our high-speed connectivity between our campus and other Internet2
sites to facilitate research and collaborative work that would not
be possible at the transmission rates allowed by the commodities
Internet. We also want to participate in the development of the next
generation of Internet technology.
What do I need to do to use the high-speed Internet2
network?
You have been using the high-speed network
whenever you connect to any of the over 200 universities and additional
government agencies that are members of Internet2. Your use of these
high-speed networks is automatic. You don't need to do anything different
than you do to use the commodities Internet. In fact, you have no
influence over how your transmissions are routed.
There is a belief in some quarters that there
are places on the Internet that can only be reached via Internet2.
This belief is unfounded. Sites on the Internet are identified by
IP numbers or addresses. These sites can usually be reached by many
different routes. When you access Web or other resources at, say,
Indiana University from the UNLV campus you connect via the high-speed
Abilene backbone. When you connect to the same site through your
cable modem at home, you connect through the lower-speed commodities
network.
What about my campus connection to
the high-speed network?
Most places on campus provide 100Mb/s connections
to the router that connects to the CalREN network. Those of you in
buildings so configured should experience fast connections to I2
sites from your desktop computers. A few places on campus have only
10Mb/s connections. We are in the process of replacing network equipment
on campus to provide reliable high-speed access to Internet resources
from any point on campus.
A variety of utilities are available to test
your connection to Abilene or I2 sites. For those of you with some network knowledge, a Java-based Web utility
that will test your connection to a machine at the Argonne National
Laboratory is available at http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/
Note: The applet requires Java to be installed on your workstation. It may not display properly on some browsers.
In TBE, UNIX workstations connected to the
SCS router by an unconjested 100 Mb/s are available in the Supercomputing
Center for use by faculty, staff, and students with a NSCEE account.
See the NSCEE web pages to apply for an account or contact NSCEE
by phone at x4153.
What kinds of applications are being developed for use
on Internet2?
The Internet2 Web site contains an archive
of applications developed as Internet2 initiatives at:
http://apps.internet2.edu/.
Access Grid Node
The Access Grid (AG) will support large-scale
distributed meetings, collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures,
tutorials and training. It consists of multimedia display, presentation
and interactions environments, interfaces to grid middleware and
interfaces to visualization environments. The Access Grid Large-format
displays integrated with intelligent or active meeting rooms are
a central feature of the Access Grid nodes. Access Grid nodes are "designed
spaces" that contain the high-end audio and visual technology
needed to provide a high-quality compelling user experience of remote
events.
UNLV has two nodes on the access grid, one
located in the Lied Library the other at NSCEE. Call
895-4153 for scheduling.
Lied Library Node
An Access grid node is located in the Eureka room of the Lied Library. This node makes use of three digital projectors, four video cameras, and eight ceiling-mounted microphones with echo-canceling electronics, all controlled by a single computer running software supplied by inSORS.
The Access Grid is designed to allow UNLV faculty, staff, and students to videoconference with colleagues and researchers around the world. The Access Grid node, may be scheduled for use by UNLV faculty members. Conferences should fall between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays when the Lied Library building is closed (some exceptions may be made when resources allow). Limited assistance with the Access Grid set up and use is provided by the Libraries' staff with support from other campus computing units.
The following Microsoft software is available for use in videoconferencing: PowerPoint, Word, Excel. The PC running the Access Grid software has a CD drive and a floppy drive. For the best access to files, however, faculty should save items to their campus network space.
Lied Library Node Scheduling
To schedule a conference, please call Diane VanderPol at 895-2126. Please be prepared to supply the following information:
- Date, start time, and end time of the conference
- Name and contact information of technical support person at remote site
- As much understanding as possible about the nature of the video conference, for example, it would be helpful to know the following:
- Will there be more than two sites participating?
- Does the remote site have inSORS software, if so, what is the name of the "room" which conference participants will meet in? If not, what is the IP address of the remote site?
- Will the conference be encrypted? If yes, what is the "key" or password?
- What sort of functionality will conference participants at UNLV need? Simple audio- visual connection or the ability to chat or to "push" web pages or power point pages?
Who can I contact at UNLV for more information on Internet2?
If you have a research or education application
requiring the use of a high-performance network connection, please
contact Justine Clarkin, Research Project Manager, ext 895-4153, clarkin@nscee.edu
to find out more about the opportunities for using Internet2 networks.
What grant opportunities are available
for Internet2-related projects?
Some grant resources:
Related Resources:
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