Internet2

Internet2. It is a non-profit consortium led by the United States research and education community to develop and deploy advanced network technologies and applications. The primary goal is to create a high-performance backbone network that facilitates groundbreaking collaboration and innovation beyond the capabilities of the commercial internet. Its community includes over 300 institutions such as leading universities, corporations, government research laboratories, and regional educational networks.

Overview

The consortium provides a national cyberinfrastructure specifically engineered to meet the demanding requirements of large-scale scientific research, scholarship, and education. This environment supports data-intensive projects in fields like high-energy physics, astronomy, genomics, and the arts and humanities. By operating a separate, high-capacity network, it enables experiments with next-generation Internet protocols, advanced network management, and quality of service technologies. Membership is structured to foster collaboration between academia, industry, and the public sector to accelerate the development of the global internet.

History

The initiative was founded in 1996 by 34 research universities in partnership with the United States government and technology leaders, responding to the increasing commercialization of the early internet which was seen as limiting innovation. Key early participants included the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its first backbone network, called Abilene Network, was launched in 1999. In 2007, the consortium completed a major network upgrade to a nationwide 100-gigabit infrastructure, significantly expanding capacity. A pivotal merger occurred in 2013 with the National LambdaRail, another major research network, consolidating resources and strengthening the national infrastructure.

Network infrastructure

The physical backbone consists of thousands of miles of dedicated fiber-optic cable across the United States, interconnected with international research and education networks like GÉANT in Europe and APAN in the Asia-Pacific. It utilizes advanced optical networking equipment from partners such as Ciena Corporation and Juniper Networks. Core network services include the Internet2 Network, the Cloud Connect service for direct access to cloud computing providers, and the Science DMZ architecture for optimizing data transfer. The network also supports software-defined networking and perfSONAR tools for performance monitoring.

Applications and projects

It hosts and enables numerous pioneering applications that leverage its high bandwidth and low latency. A flagship project is the Global Network Advancement Group which focuses on international network development. The consortium supports the Open Science Grid for distributed computing and the LIGO project for detecting gravitational waves. In healthcare, it enables the National Institutes of Health All of Us research program and high-resolution medical image sharing. Arts and education initiatives include high-definition videoconferencing for remote learning and global collaborations like the Library of Congress digital preservation efforts.

Governance and membership

Governance is provided by a Board of Trustees composed of leaders from member institutions, including representatives from Indiana University, the University of Michigan, and Internet2 corporate members. The consortium's operations are managed by the Internet2 staff headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Membership categories include Research and education membership for universities and colleges, Affiliate membership for non-profits and government agencies, and Corporate membership for technology firms such as AT&T, Microsoft, and IBM. Key working groups and committees, like the Network Planning and Policy Committee, guide technical and strategic direction.

Category:Computer network organizations Category:Research organizations in the United States Category:Internet in the United States