Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network rolled out

5 October 2006

KAREN, the high performance research and education network for the research and education sectors in New Zealand launched a proof of concept at the end of August.

The Network, which has 16 points of presence across New Zealand, has a national capacity of 10Gb/s. There are also international connections to Sydney (at 155Mb/s) and to Seattle (at 650Mb/s).

KAREN will provide researchers and educators the capacity to share large amounts of data very quickly, making it the ideal platform for activities like distributed computing. For example, researchers at other tertiary and research institutes will be able to use the University of Canterbury Supercomputer, the most powerful scientific research computer in New Zealand.

Designed to support engineering, physical science, social science and health research, the 128 processor Supercomputer can quickly do large scale, complex tasks that would take standard computers days or weeks to complete. Researchers have remote access to the supercomputer through advanced networks and can conduct research from the comfort of their own laboratories.

Users of the Advanced Network are recognised as Members, Associates or Partners. KAREN will initially be used by researchers and academics at 18 member institutions, including universities, Crown Research Institutes and the National Library. Any member can connect through KAREN to any other member or to collaborators on other advanced networks internationally.

The Research and Education Advanced Network of New Zealand or REANNZ is the crown entity set up to operate KAREN. This means signing up members, associates and partners to the network and building up communities around it to share information about its benefits and how it is most effectively used.

KAREN is expected to go live at the end of November, 2006.