Other AMPATH News Items

Up (News home)

FIU Hosts AMPATH Applications Workshop

Brazil connects to SC2001

Arecibo Observatory on Abilene

RETINA Connects to AMPATH

AMPATH Connects REUNA to Internet2

19-June-2001

The activation of the AMPATH PoP in Miami, Florida, marks a milestone in the AMPATH project that has been planned for over a year. The AMPATH network is now connected to Internet2's Abilene network. REUNA, the National Research Network of Chile and the first participant in the AMPATH project, is connected to AMPATH and peering with Abilene.  Services going through AMPATH to REUNA include unicast and multicast peering.

On October 16, 2000 REUNA and Florida International University (FIU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to connect Chile to the AmericasPATH (AMPATH) project.  AMPATH is a collaborative project between FIU and Global Crossing. Using Global Crossing's terrestrial and submarine optical-fiber network, AMPATH will interconnect the Research and Education (R&E) networks in South and Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico (the Service Area) to US and non-US R&E networks via Internet2's Abilene network and the STAR TAP.

Chile has a small, but very active scientific community that has placed a priority on integrating into the worldwide scientific community by electronic means, according to REUNA (Red Universitaria Nacional) executive director Florencio Utreras. REUNA  is a private non-profit corporation formed by nineteen universities and the National Commission of Scientific and Technological Investigation (CONICYT). Florida International University welcomes REUNA to the AMPATH project. 

The AMPATH PoP will move to its home in Terremark's NAP of the Americas later this year.  Terremark is the owner and operator of the NAP of the Americas, the 5th tier-one NAP in the United States, located in downtown Miami.  The move will be done in coordination with Global Crossing, the carrier that donated 10 DS3s (45 Mbps) of bandwidth on their submarine and terrestrial network to enable the AMPATH project.  One of those DS3s is being used by REUNA.

The AMPATH PoP currently consists of a GSR 12012 router donated by Cisco Systems, a CBX-500 ATM switch donated by Lucent Technologies, and a Juniper Networks M10 router. The Global NOC at Indiana University provides network monitoring and back-up engineering services in coordination with FIU's network engineering staff.