Nikhef was recently involved in a successful test for high-speed scientific data transport from Amsterdam to Finland over a distance of 3,500 kilometers. This was announced by ICT collaboration SURF and Nokia.
The test achieved a data transfer rate of 1.2 terabits per second between Amsterdam and the CSC data center in Kajaani, Finland, via a quantum-secure fiber optic connection. According to the collaborating parties, the test demonstrates the possibilities of ultra-fast, cross-border connectivity for research data.
“The considerable geographical distance is no obstacle to data traffic,” concludes Jani Myyry, senior network specialist at CSC, from the tests.
Artificial data
Artificial data from Nikhef was used for the test, along with the hardware in the server center of the research institute in Amsterdam Science Park. Without this effort, the test would not have been possible, according to SURF.
A unique opportunity, says network architect Tristan Suerink of Nikhef. “For us, this is a unique opportunity to be involved in groundbreaking innovation. We need this kind of technology to realize our scientific data-intensive ambitions together with SURF in the coming years. By contributing our knowledge and expertise in stress testing infrastructures to this collaboration, we have been able to do our part.”
Tests were carried out over various routes, including the longest route of 4,700 km via Norway, with a capacity of 1 Tbit/s. To put this into perspective: 1 Tbit/s is enough to stream 200,000 full HD movies simultaneously.
Supercomputers
These results are particularly promising as the research world prepares for the arrival of supercomputers and AI factories online – where reliable, scalable and secure connections will be crucial to supporting some of the world’s largest datasets and most demanding workloads.
The test used a combination of real research data and synthetic data, which was transferred directly from disk to disk – from SURF’s facility in Amsterdam to CSC’s data center in Kajaani – via five existing research and education networks: SURF (Netherlands), NORDUnet (Nordic backbone), Sunet (Sweden), SIKT (Norway), and Funet (CSC’s network in Finland).
