Gloriad

GLORIAD’s history begins over 10 years ago. The seeds of GLORIAD were planted when the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Russian Ministry of Science agreed to jointly fund the first advanced US-Russia network, which launched as MIRnet with 6 mbps of ATM service in 1998. The next version of the network was known as FASTnet, which in 2001 operated with 45 mbps service. By 2002, the network had evolved into NaukaNet, with 155 mbps service between Russia and the U.S. Ongoing expansion of the network topology by organizers and sponsors led to a 2004 launch of the U.S-China-Russia “Little GLORIAD” network, completing the first ring of light for science and education around the earth. A new trans-Pacific segment connecting the U.S, Korea and China at 10 Gbps (60x original capacity) was realized in 2005; in 2006, the U.S-China portion of GLORIAD was upgraded by a factor of 16, from 155 Mbps to 2.5 Gbps; and in 2007 the U.S-Russia upgrade to nearly 4 Gbps via cooperation with the University of Illinois at Chicago-based TransLight project and with Tata Communications. GLORIAD in Canada provides equipment, high speed circuits and expertise to provide GLORIAD transit across North America. GLORIAD in the Netherlands contributes more than 20 Gbps to connect the U.S. and Europe, and NORDUnet has provided connectivity across Northern Europe and Russia since 2007. Today, GLORIAD is based in the U.S. at the University of Tennessee. In January 2005, a $4.2 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, along with an international package of funding provided via GLORIAD international partners and Tata Communications, provided five more years of funding for GLORIAD’s network operations and support of advanced applications development. Total U.S. NSF funding for GLORIAD and its MIRnet/NaukaNet predecessors is now $10.1 million. Non-U.S. GLORIAD partner financial contributions are estimated to be approximately 10 times this amount.