US-Japan Continues Its Formal Collaboration in Advanced Scientific Visualization and Networking

Continuing a formal collaboration that began in 2006, the University of Illinois and Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NiCT) renewed a Memorandum Of Understanding to exchange information and cooperate in organizing and administering networking experiments to further research of mutual interest.

More specifically, for many years NICT has been working with the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) on advanced network infrastructure and technologies that utilize this infrastructure. The new Memorandum Of Understanding continues and expands on these collaborative efforts.

NICT funds JGN-X, an advanced network research testbed that connects Japan to the US. EVL is well connected to StarLight, an international communications exchange in downtown Chicago, from which it can access advanced networks worldwide, including JGN-X. Interest in high-performance networking is what initially motivated EVL to develop SAGE, the Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment, to share ultra-high-resolution images, animations and video-teleconferencing among collaborators. NICT is a strong supporter and user of SAGE.

In addition, NICT supports Japan’s New Generation Network (NxGN) project, which is similar in scope to the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) program. EVL receives NSF GENI funding for “iGENI,” or international GENI, along with the International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern University and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at University of California, San Diego.

Japan’s renewal of its Memorandum Of Understanding underscores its confidence in both the technology and the research being conducted by UIC and its partners, as we explore mutual ways to better develop new applications and middleware tools and techniques for optical networks. UIC looks forward to working with its colleagues at NICT for many years to come.

PHOTO: On June 10, 2010, in Japan, a major event in Osaka to promote it as the Knowledge Capital of Japan featured SAGE Visualcasting demonstrations. Participants included NICT, Osaka University’s VisLab, the National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) and National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT) in Taiwan, University of Queensland in Australia, and Calit2 in the US. EVL remotely operated the SAGE Wall at Calit2.