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April 20, 2011
1:50 PM EDT

by  Bo Gowan

Internet2 shows what 8.8Tbps looks like

Last month when Internet2 announced that it was using Ciena's 100G coherent optical solution to built out its national network backbone that would connect more than 200,000 community anchor institutions, there was one number that caught everyone's attention.

8.8Tbps -- as in Terabits.

Bandwidth that huge is usually only seen in "hero experiments" and vendor product announcements talking about theoretical max capacity, but not in actual production network plans.  So when Internet2 said that its network backbone capacity would go from 100G to 8.8Tbps with the planned upgrade, people took notice.

This week in Arlington, Virginia, Internet2 is hosting its 2011 Spring Member Meeting and giving attendees a look at what 8.8Tbps actually looks like.  To do this, they are building out a POP right in the middle of the event floor, and even diverting real Internet2 network traffic through the POP.  Now to be clear, they aren't running a full 8.8Tbps of traffic through the Crystal Gateway Marriott hotel, but they are showing the equipment that will make it happen across their national backbone.

Documenting the event and the build-out of the demo POP is Chris Robb, Director of Operations and Engineering at Internet2.  "We wanted to provide attendees of the 2011 Spring Internet2 Member Meeting with a glimpse of what we’re getting ready to install at over 300 locations across the country," said Chris on the Internet2 blog earlier this week.

Chris has also posted an album of some great pictures from the set-up of the demo on the Internet2 Facebook page.

Leading up to the event, we were able to talk to Rob Vietzke, Executive Director of Network Services at Internet2  In the below video, Rob talks about the new 8.8Tbps network and what it means for Internet2 members.

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