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Connection to NSF’s vBNS network:
A Proposal submitted by the University of Puerto Rico Research Institutions and
the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center
Submitted to the National Science Foundation
Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering
January 31, 1999
PI:
Dr. Guy Cormier, University of Puerto Rico – Central Administration
Co-PI: Dr. Ricardo González, University of Puerto Rico – Medical Sciences
Prof. Belinda Junquera, University of Puerto Rico – Central Administration
Dr. Angel López, University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez
Dr. Oscar Moreno, University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras
Dr. Arun Venkataraman, National Astronomy and Ionospheric Center
Dr. Brad Weiner, PR-EPSCoR
Executive Summary:
This proposal presents the first comprehensive plan for a high speed research network link between the Island of
Puerto Rico and U.S. Mainland. This network will connect the three major research campuses of the University of
Puerto Rico and the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center with the existing vBNS infrastructure in the United
States. Given the recent advances made by the University of Puerto Rico in developing its research infrastructure, it
is critical that this network be put on the fast track to avoid losing the critical ground gained over the past ten years,
and to support the numerous nationally competitive research applications in Puerto Rico that have come to depend
on high performance computing and communication. Due to the unique political and geographical situation of
Puerto Rico, the implementation of this research network is neither straightforward nor facile. In order to maximize
the potential and minimize the duplication of efforts, a consortium, the Puerto Rico Internet2 Services Association
(PRISA), has been formed among the three research campuses and the NAIC to: 1) manage the networking
resources; 2) coordinate scientific initiatives between the island and mainland institutions; and 3) promote
increased use of communication technologies for research and education. We propose here a minimal high
bandwidth (DS-3) research network (PRISAnet) that will allow UPR and NAIC to continue their development as
research institutions and facilities. This research network will provide the basic requirements for the existing
meritorious applications, and will allow for the further expansion and development of High Performance Computing
and Communication in Puerto Rico as needs and technology dictate.
C
Project Description
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C.1.
C.1.1
Introduction
About Puerto Rico
The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a 3,450 sq. mile island, bordered to the north by the Atlantic Ocean and to the
south by the Caribbean Sea, and is situated approximately 1000 miles southeast of Miami, FL. The population of the
island numbers 3.9 million Hispanic Americans. With a population density of over 1000 people per square mile, the
island can be considered an extended metropolitan area. The island’s economy has been transformed drastically
during the past four decades, as agricultural-based production has given way to high tech industries, mostly
comprised by pharmaceutical and electronics/computer companies. Government has played a central role in this
transformation, mainly through what is known as Operation Bootstrap. Today, government is renewing collaborative
efforts with industry to carry out a transformation from this manufacturing economy dependent on tax exemption
incentives toward an increasingly diversified economy centered on high-tech industry based on strong Science and
Technology (S&T) infrastructure and a sustainable local Research and Development (R&D) capability.
In 1996, the Puerto Rico Government, through the Governor’s Council for Science and Technology, developed a
Science and Technology Policy. This Policy constitutes a major component of the New Economic Development
Model for the Island and provides an overall blueprint and support plan for the long-term development of R&D in
Puerto Rico. The six major objectives of the PR S&T Policy are:
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


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Establish and strengthen the S&T infrastructure (academic and industrial);
Improve the capabilities of business enterprises in developing, adopting and adapting new technologies;
Strengthen society’s technological capabilities and public understanding of science and technology;
Strengthen and further develop the scientific community;
Integrate activities in S&T with economic development and competitiveness capabilities;
Establish a working relationship with the Governor’s Information System Committee in the planning and
implementation of information system technology in the government resulting from the R&D process.
Five areas are presently the focus of Puerto Rico’s Science and Technology program namely, Manufacturing,
Pharmaceuticals, Communications and Information Technology, Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Health Care.
C.1.2
Regional Connectivity
The island is presently connected to the Continental United States (CONUS) by a series of undersea cables which
serve various parts of the Caribbean region. In all there are presently 17 different projects in the Caribbean region.
Those which impact Puerto Rico are listed in the following table:
Project
Columbus II
Columbus
III
Tanio-Carib
TCS-1
Florico-2
Americas I
Antillas I
C-1
Linked Countries and Territories
Spain – Portugal – Italy – St. Thomas – West Palm Beach – Mexico
Florida – St. Croix – Lisbon, Portugal – Conil, Spain – Mazara, Italy
Bandwidth
2,500 Mbps
10,000 Mbps
Puerto Rico – St. Thomas - Tortola
Florida – Dominican Republic – Puerto Rico – Jamaica – Columbia
Florida – Puerto Rico – Colombia
Florida – St.Thomas – Trinidad – Venezuela - Brazil
Dominican Republic – Puerto Rico
Megans Bay, St-Thomas – Old Mill, St-Croix
3,360 Mbps
140 Mbps
280 Mbps
2,500 Mbps
3732 Mbps
60,000 Mbps
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Furthermore, the following projects are expected to be providing services to the region by the end of 1999.
Project
Americas II
MAC
PAC
ARCOS-1
C.1.3
Linked Countries and Territories
Florida to U.S. Virgin Islands.
U.S. Virgin Islands to Brazil, French Guyana,
Martinique, Trinidad, Venezuela, Curaçao.
West ring:
U.S. Virgin Islands to Puerto Rico.
Long Island, NY – Bermuda – St. Croix – Florida - NY
Grover Beach, CA – Mexico – Panama – St. Croix
Florida-Bahamas-Turks & Caicos-Dominican Republic-Puerto RicoCuracao-Venezuela-Colombia-Panama-Costa Rica-Nicaragua-HondurasGuatemala-Belize-Mexico-Florida
Bandwidth
North ring:
South ring:
40,000 Mbps
20,000 Mbps
20,000 Mbps
About the University of Puerto Rico
The University of Puerto Rico (UPR) is a State-funded, public higher education system entrusted by law to serve the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The University was founded in 1903 as the Island’s first higher education institution,
shortly after Puerto Rico became part of the United States. It is one of the rare U.S. institutions holding Land, Sea
and Space grants. The UPR is organized as a system of 11 autonomous academic units, each governed by a
Chancellor and an Academic Senate, with control over independent budgets as well as curricula. The UPR system is
overseen by a Central Administration which houses the Office of the President, the Board of Trustees, Offices of
Finance and Planning as well as the Office of the Vice President for Research and Academic Affairs. The UPR
system is two-tiered with three of the academic units being Ph.D. granting research institutions, while the remaining
eight academic units are state colleges. The three UPR institutions targeted in the present proposal are the graduate
research units, namely UPR-Río Piedras, UPR-Medical Sciences and UPR-Mayagüez. The first two of these
institutions are situated within the San Juan metropolitan area, while the third is situated on the west coast of the
island in the city of Mayagüez. The UPR system presently enrolls over 72,000 students and employs approximately
4,200 faculty members. The three institutions targeted by this proposal have a total approximate enrollment of
29,000 undergraduate students and 7,500 graduate students.
Central to the development of this proposal is the UPR Resource Center for Science and Engineering(UPR-RCSE)
which is the administrative home of the Puerto Rico Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (PREPSCoR), and has taken a lead role in the advancement of R&D in Puerto Rico.
Since its creation in 1980, the Resource Center for Science and Engineering (RCSE) of the UPR has been highly
successful in the establishment of a systemic strategy to strengthen the research infrastructure and promote human
resources development in Science, Engineering and Mathematics. Its principal mission is to develop a long-term
systemic strategy that brings together all major stakeholders in this enterprise, linking them with high quality
scientific and technological resources, and transforming all levels of the educational system through a coherent
effort. This vision was the basis for a planning process which resulted in the award of an NSF/EPSCoR grant in
1986, to strengthen the island’s research environment. Today, the EPSCoR endeavor is closely tied into the
Commonwealth’s S&T Policy.
C.1.4
About the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center – Arecibo Observatory
The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), a national research
center operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The Observatory operates on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day every day, providing observing time, electronics,
computer, travel and logistic support to scientists from all over the world.
As the site of the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, the Observatory is recognized as one of the most
important national centers for research in radio astronomy, planetary radar and terrestrial aeronomy. Use of the
Arecibo Observatory is available on an equal, competitive basis to all scientists from throughout the world.
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Observing time is granted on the basis of the most promising research as ascertained by a panel of independent
referees who review the proposals sent to the Observatory by interested scientists. Every year about 200 scientists
visit the Observatory facilities to pursue their research project, and numerous students perform observations that
lead to their master and doctoral dissertations.
The Observatory also maintains a Ionospheric Interactions Facility which consists of thirty-two log-periodic antennas
and transmitters capable of concentrating energy in the ionosphere. The waves from the facility energize electrons in
the ionosphere and produce a number of interactions that are studied using the 305 meter telescope, in effect
providing a unique capability as a "laboratory" for studies of plasma physics.
In addition an Optical Laboratory with a variety of instrumentation used for the passive study of terrestrial airglow is
located at the Observatory. A lidar (Light Detection And Ranging) together with a Fabry-Perot interferometer is
primarily used to measure neutral winds and temperatures of the middle atmosphere This capability complements
that of the incoherent scatter radar, and gives Arecibo a unique capability in the world in terms of aeronomic
research.
About 140 persons are employed by the Observatory providing everything from food to software in support of the
operation. A scientific staff of about 16 divide their time between scientific research and assistance to visiting
scientists. Engineers, computer experts, and technicians design and build new instrumentation and keep it in
operation. A large maintenance staff keeps the telescope and associated instrumentation as well as the site in optimal
condition. A staff of telescope operators support observing twenty –four hour per day.
C.1.5
Scope of the project
This proposal presents the first comprehensive plan for a high speed research network link between the Island of
Puerto Rico and U.S. Mainland. This network will connect the three major research campuses of the University of
Puerto Rico and the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center with the existing vBNS infrastructure in the United
States. Given the recent advances made by the University of Puerto Rico in developing its research infrastructure, it
is critical that this network be put on the fast track to avoid losing the critical ground gained over the past ten years,
and to support the numerous nationally competitive research applications in Puerto Rico that have come to depend
on high performance computing and communication. Due to the unique political and geographical situation of
Puerto Rico, the implementation of this research network is neither straightforward nor facile. In order to maximize
the potential and minimize the duplication of efforts, a consortium, the Puerto Rico Internet2 Services Association
(PRISA), has been formed among the three research campuses and the NAIC to: 1) manage the networking
resources; 2) coordinate scientific initiatives between the island and mainland institutions; and 3) promote
increased use of communication technologies for research and education. We propose here a minimal high
bandwidth (DS-3) research network (PRISAnet) that will allow UPR and NAIC to continue their development as
research institutions and facilities. This research network will provide the basic requirements for the existing
meritorious applications, and will allow for the further expansion and development of High Performance Computing
and Communication in Puerto Rico as needs and technology dictate. In the future, we anticipate the development of
a regional (Caribbean and Latin America) connection point for research institutions
C.2.
Selected Meritorious Applications Requiring vBNS Capability
In the present section, we outline 13 projects that would benefit through a connection to the vBNS. A summary of
network requirements is presented in the following table, based on the need for sustainable high bandwidth and/or
low latency.
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The immediate and potential needs for access to a high bandwidth research network cannot all be listed here. We
have thus decided to limit this section to a few applications from the four participating institutions in a way to
demonstrate the scope and diversity of projects.
Each of the meritorious application is evaluated against a set of characteristics related to Quality of Service (QoS)
performance. These are described by the following definitions:
Outbound
Significant outgoing traffic from a particular institution towards other high
performance site(s)
Quality of Service
Application needs significant and assured bandwidth.
Bandwidth can be provided with a reservation protocol such as RSVP
QoS Schedulable
Application needs significant and assured bandwidth on a schedulable basis.
QoS On Demand
Application cannot be scheduled.
Application needs significant and assured bandwidth on demand
Multicast
Application requires a robust multicasting routing protocol
Remote operation of the
Arecibo radio-telescope
Mayagüez High Energy
Physics Cluster
Smart Wireless Relay Mesh
Network (SwarmNet)
ERC for Subsurface
Sensing and Imaging
Systems
Tropical Center for Space
and Earth Studies
Magdalena Ridge
Observatory
Institution(s)
Inbound Traffic
Research Project
Arecibo Observatory,
UPR-Mayagüez &
UPR-Río Piedras
UPR-Mayagüez
10 Mbps
UPR-Mayaguez
UPR-Mayagüez
To be
determined
10 – 30 Mbps
UPR-Mayagüez
30 – 50 Mbps
UPR-Mayagüez
20 Mbps
100 Mbps
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Outbound Traffic
Peak
Bandwidth
(in Mbps)
multicast
Significant external traffic needing access to the particular institution
QoS On Demand
Inbound
QoS Schedulable
Minimum bandwidth needed for applications. Presented as peak bandwidth,
measured in Mbits/secs
Quality of Service (QoS)
Bandwidth Required
• • • •
•
•
•
• • • • •
•
• • • • •
•
•
• • • • •
• • •
Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Facility
Institute of Neurobiology
Collaboratory for
Advanced Life Support
Systems Training
Health Information
Gateway to the Caribbean
Simulation of SmallMolecule Catalysis on
Metal Cluster Surfaces
Ionic Channels in
Biological Membranes
Molecular Modeling Center
Multimedia Transmission
in Fiber Optic LANs
Luquillo Long Term
Ecological Research
Project
10 – 30 Mbps
UPR-Mayagüez
•
•
• • •
• • •
• • •
UPR-Medical Sciences
10 – 30 Mbps
UPR-Medical Sciences
10 - 30 Mbps
•
UPR-Medical Sciences
10 Mbps
UPR-Río Piedras
10 – 30 Mbps
•
•
• •
• • •
UPR-Río Piedras
10 – 30 Mbps
UPR-Río Piedras &
UPR-Mayagüez
UPR-Río Piedras
10 – 30 Mbps
•
•
• • •
• • •
UPR-Río Piedras &
International Institute
for Tropical Forestry
10 Mbps
•
• • • • •
N/A
might increase
Remote Operation of the Arecibo Observatory
Team Leaders:
Dr. Arun Venkataraman, Arecibo Observatory, NAIC
Dr. Mario Ierkic, Electrical and Computer Engineering, UPR-Mayagüez
Dr. Peter Hofner, Physics, UPR-Río Piedras
1. Quasi-remote observing capability
As a premier facility for radio/radar astronomy and atmospheric science, the Arecibo Observatory is a key
component of several large-scale research programs involving multiple instruments around the globe, including some
in space. The 305m telescope's unique sensitivity is needed for quick confirmation of new discoveries, precise
tracking of small solar system objects which may be "visible" for only a few days, and measurement of
ionospheric/atmospheric effects barely detectable elsewhere. The design of the instrument is shaped by multidisciplinary needs, and enables it to respond quickly and flexibly to "targets of opportunity". As many other
observatories have realized, a remote observing capability is a powerful enabler of flexible telescope scheduling.
There is a strong demand from the Observatory's user community for enhanced remote observing to better exploit the
improved sensitivity and frequency agility of the telescope. Coordinated observations with spaced instruments are a
class of experiments that are based on a remote observing capability.
While bandwidth requirements for remote observing can be accommodated by a fractional T1 channel, low and
predictable latency is the key engineering issue. An interactive remote observer will be frustrated by unpredictable
network delays, particularly if the facility includes a voice (audio) channel. Traffic is bursty and messages atomic.
The relevant QoS metric should be weighted toward real-time throughput.
2. Near-real-time turnaround of data reduction results
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The large data-gathering capability of the Arecibo telescope needs to be matched with a powerful computational
resource to make timely and effective use of the results. A few experiments use special hardware to perform realtime signal processing and parameter estimation on acquired data. Others rely on the quick dispatch of recorded
media containing raw data (e.g. 8mm tapes) to a participating supercomputer center for data reduction, a process that
could take days. Where the results are used to drive subsequent decisions "to observe or not to observe", usually at
the limits of the telescope sensitivity, the key data processing issue is raw bandwidth between the telescope and the
supercomputer. Traffic is sustained and real-time throughput (burst latency) is not a consideration. A good example
of the bandwidth requirements is provided by the searches for new pulsars, which are one of the most fertile fields of
astronomy. Typical datasets average several gigabytes. Sophisticated search algorithms have been developed for
supercomputers, but the bottleneck is most often the transporting of the raw data from the Observatory to a
supercomputer. A 10 -20 Mbytes/s data link will enable quick turnaround of search results, permitting the observer
to make most efficient use of valuable telescope time.
Mayagüez High Energy Physics Cluster
Team Leader:
Dr. Angel López, Physics, UPR-Mayagüez
Dr. Angel López, a high energy physicist from the Mayagüez campus is one of the leaders of a multi-university team
from leading U.S. and Italian universities working out of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. This team is
conducting large-scale multi-year experiments on the photo-production and decay of charmed particles using the
world's highest energy photon beam. During the last two years, the Mayagüez HEP cluster led by Dr. López, has
made significant contributions to the acquisition and analysis of data from experiment E831. This cluster is
comprized of three (3) faculty members, one (1) post-doctoral fellow and typically eight (8) to ten (10) graduate
students. The data run was highly successful surpassing the goals in amount and quality. E831’s data set (26,000Gb)
will be the basis for measurements of charm quark physics of unprecedented precision. The cluster completed
projects in the analysis of data for its detectors and continues to participate in the general analysis and data reduction.
In the last two years there has been an important development impacting on the cluster’s long-term future, namely the
commitment the cluster has made to the effort to carry out a B physics experiment (BTEV) at the Fermilab collider.
BTEV proposes to study the decay of particles containing bottom (and charm) quarks in the forward region and has
the ambitious goal of measuring CP violation in the B sector. Fermilab has approved a BTEV R&D project and has
built an experimental hall at a new collider intersection region. The Mayagüez cluster is a member of the BTEV
muon group which is designing and will be building that detector. The BTEV experiment is likely to be generating a
data set in the order of 100,000Gbytes, if not more. The primary analysis will be performed on-site at Fermilab, but
secondary analysis involving data reduction and detailed studies of specific phenomena, will be performed at the
different university sites, including the Mayagüez cluster.
The order of magnitude of data exchange which is being discussed for the BTEV experiment is in the range of 30
Terabytes/year. This corresponds to 1 Mbyte/s on average, continuously. The Mayagüez HEP cluster will need
instantaneous rates of 10 to 30MB/s in order to account for reasonable utilization percentages (even assuming 100%
reliability). We are therefore discussing a need for bandwidth to the vBNS in the order of 100 to 300 Mbps.
Smart Wireless Relay Mesh Network (SwarmNet)
Team Leaders:
Dr. Ram Ramanathan, BBN Technologies
Dr. Rafael Rodriguez-Solis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, UPR-Mayagüez
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The following project was submitted to the Extensible Networks and Next Generation Internet program of DARPA.
DARPA’s BAA number for this program is 99-06. If SwarmNet is funded then PRISA will offer all possible
network resources required by the project team.
Enabling data rates comparable to that of fiber-optic links in the wireless domain is fundamental to making the Next
Generation Internet (NGI) a truly global capability. However, the underlying physics of transmission and
propagation in the wireless domain make this a far more challenging task than in its wireline counterpart. For
example, frequencies capable of sustaining gigabit transmission rates have extremely poor propagation
characteristics, thereby limiting the operational range.
BBN Technologies and the University of Puerto Rico propose a revolutionary new approach to the problem of
enabling gigabit speeds to the mobile user. Our approach circumvents the physical limitations in link ranges and
speeds by using a NETWORK of short high-capacity wireless links to extend the reach of the NGI to the mobile
user. Specifically, we propose that the region between the mobile users and the fixed NGI be populated with a
number of small wireless RELAYS. Each relay includes the following:
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A high-speed transceiver with a digitally beamformed directional antenna based on adaptive phased arrays.
An embedded processor running sophisticated network control algorithms that:
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allow the relays to automatically discover other relays in the neighborhood, and self-organize into a
richly connected mesh network of short, high-capacity directional links.
establish channel access, multipoint routing, and capacity allocation regimes to provide for capacities
of the order of 1 Gbps by appropriately multiplexing over the significant number of multiple paths that
such a dense topology provides.
interface to the NGI for end-to-end communication between mobile users over the extended NGI.
The proposed work would be the first that marries self-organizing multihop wireless routing technology with the
emerging smart antenna technology and exploits the unique possibilities that this combination opens up. In
particular, it would result in the first all-terrestrial rapidly deployable wireless extension that provides on-demand,
as-desired gigabit capacity to mobile users.
We shall develop prototype relays, including the hardware and the software. We shall manifest the core innovation
outlined above in two different contexts for experimentation and technology transfer: OUTDOOR gigabit speed
mobile access to the NGI in the presence of terrain variations, buildings, foliage and environmental vagaries; and
INDOOR gigabit wireless LANs that enable ubiquitous mobility-transparent computing environments
We further propose to implement the protocol interfaces for seamlessly internetworking such wireless clusters in
different geographical regions. To facilitate this, we shall provide, at no cost to DARPA, a dedicated high-speed link
from GTE-I's Global Network Infrastructure (GNI). We shall bring together these capabilities by assembling a
testbed consisting of two wireless clusters at two sites - one indoor and one outdoor - connected by the high-speed
wired backbone. This testbed will be available to DARPA for running and demonstrating end-to-end gigabit
applications between mobile nodes. We shall also build a simulation system using realistic radio and propagation
models and evaluate its large-scale performance.
An Engineering Research Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS)
UPR Team Leader:
Dr. Luis Jimenez, Electrical and Computer Engineering, UPR-Mayagüez
Core Academic Partners:
Northeastern University, Boston University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
University of Puerto Rico–Mayaguez
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The following project was submitted to the NSF 98-146 Program Engineering Research Centers Partnerships with
Industry, Academe, and Government for Next-Generation Advances in Engineered Systems Research, Technology,
and Education If CenSSIS is funded then PRISA will offer all possible network resources required by the project.
The staggering advances in computation and communications of the past decades will reach their full potential in the
21st century only if they are matched by similar advances in our ability to extract and manage information from the
environment through sensing and imaging technology. Some of the most difficult and intractable problems in
sensing and imaging involve detecting, locating, and identifying objects that are obscured beneath a covering
medium. Mapping pollution plumes under the ground, detecting a tumor under the skin, and identifying
developmental defects in the interior of a multi-celled embryo all share the problem of deconvolution of the effect of
a dispersive, diffusive, and absorptive medium from the desired details of the subsurface structure and functionality.
The payoff to solving this problem is immense. The medical, environmental, security, and defense applications of
subsurface sensing and imaging comprise a world-wide market conservatively estimated to exceed $50 billion
annually.
The Engineering Research Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems long-range challenge is to create a
unified engineered system approach combined with the tools, products, and infrastructure, applicable to a wide
range of next generation sensing and imaging systems. Research thrusts are planned in: 1) Subsurface Sensing and
Modeling, 2) Physics Based Signal Processing, 3) Image and Recognition Processing. We will validate our
approach with system testbeds in the following two areas: a) Bio-Medical Sensing and Imaging, b) Environmental
Sensing and Imaging,. Finally, we will connect the research thrusts with an education program that brings
engineering and scientific faculty together with technology practitioners from the industrial and medical community
to create a new team-based, just-in-time learning environment for students, and we will develop connected
research/employment experiences for these students to apply their knowledge to become agents of effective
technology transfer.
Tropical Center for Space and Earth Studies (TCESS)
Team Leader:
Dr. Rafael Fernandez-Sein, Electrical and Computer Engineering, UPR-Mayagüez
The Tropical Center for Space and Earth Studies (TCESS) of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez is an
enhancement of the Laboratory for Applied Remote Sensing and Image Processing. TCESS is funded by NASA’s
University Research Centers Program. TCESS is divided into five components: (i) Space Information Laboratory,
(ii) Earth Systems Studies, (iii) Advanced Automated Image Analysis for Remotely Sensed Data, (iv) Sensor
Materials and Electronics for Space Applications and (v) Outreach and Education.
Important applications which presently are in need of significant bandwidth and Quality of Service are summarized
by the following list:


The Space Information Laboratory which operates a Synthetic Aperture Radar tracking station able to
receive telemetry from RADARSAT, ERS-1 and -2, LANDSAT-7 and other similar fine resolution optical
and radar imaging satellites and sensors. These are national facilities, open by invitation, to other NASA
and US universities’ researchers. The data rate for this system is 105 Mbps. Each pass can download up to
10Gb of data.
TCESS has been cooperating with the Johns Hopkins University as the Primary Ground Station for their Far
Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) project. Due to our tropical position, our site can acquire more
“time data” from the satellite because it is almost in a tropical orbit. The data rate is around 2Mbps. We
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presently have installed an ISDN connection to send the data to JHU. Internet was rejected because of the
lack of bandwidth and security. Furthermore, we are in negotiations to host Caltech's GALEX project.
This mission is similar to FUSE but the data rate will be 24Mbps.



In the Remote Sensing component, we are currently receiving HRPT Satellites NOAA 12, NOAA 14,
NOAA 15 and Orbview2. These satellites provide images with a resolution of 1.1km. The raw data file for
an average pass is 100Mb. We have been supplying them to researchers in CD media due to the lack of
bandwidth and loading of the Internet.
Earth System Studies (ESS) contains two research projects addressing NASA-MTEP objectives. One
important role for NASA as well as other federal research organizations is to provide continuous global
monitoring of key atmosphere, ocean, and earth-land-surface variables to aid in the assessment of natural
and anthropomorphic changes to the environment and to mitigate potentially catastrophic natural hazards.
These missions are addressed by the ESS component, with projects which exploit our tropical location to
provide unique and leveraging new data.
The Advanced Analysis Information Systems (AAIS) group associated with TCESS and part of the
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the Mayagüez campus, investigates new image
processing algorithms and techniques for storage, processing, and dissemination of remotely sensed data
using high-speed streams, with implications for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) processing.
Magdalena Ridge Observatory
Team Leaders:
Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, Physics, UPR-Mayagüez
The Magdalena Ridge Observatory (MRO) is an ambitious project to build the largest optical telescope in the world
on top of the Magdalena Mountains in central New Mexico. Computer-controlled adaptive optics as well as optical
interferometric techniques will allow this observatory to rival the Hubble Space Telescope in resolution. The
observatory will be used to track missile tests conducted at White Sands Missile Range during the day. At night,
astronomers will combine the power of the three telescopes at the facility to conduct high-resolution studies of
nearby planets and faraway stars. The University of Puerto Rico is one of the four partners to participate in this
project, together with the US Army, New Mexico Institute of Technology and the New Mexico State University.
The MRO is being designed as a remotely operable facility. It will open with two (2x) three telescope
interferometers that will occasionally be combined into a single array. Each of the telescopes will have an adaptive
optics system. The telescopes will also be capable of independent operation. In addition to the 6 telescopes and 6
adaptive optics systems there will be 5 delay lines and a combination table to combine the beams in a variety of
ways. In the interferometric mode, the telescopes must be phased to submicron precision. To achieve such
precision, laser metrology techniques will be needed. To achieve interference, the light must be overlapped in
closely parallel beams. The Wavefront sensors must then each sample the incoming signal to reconstruct the
wavefronts with 16x16 or 24x24 quad cell arrays sampled at 878 Hz, each quad cell being 8 bits deep. To monitor
the telescopes for alignment, each will have a wide- and narrow-field CCD cameras coupled to video monitors
running at roughly video rates. The table will have many controllable optics stages. In the independent mode, each
telescope can have the equivalent of a million pixel CCD camera in addition to the wide-field and narrow-field
monitors. The cameras will be typically sampled in tens of seconds, but will have deep wells. In the ideal case, the
remote operator should have real-time availability of the system diagnostics as well as the real-time ability to
manipulate all pertinent parameters. Very low-latency and high-bandwidth are required to successfully implement the
remote control facility. Outgoing traffic will be minimal, essentially control parameters for the telescopes. Inbound
traffic will be substantial, from accumulated data to real-time status feedback of the installation. Bandwidths required
will be up to 20Mbps either bursty or sustained.
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Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Modeling and Visualization Facility
Team Leaders:
Dr. Jorge E. Capella, Marine Sciences, UPR-Mayagüez
Prof. Aurelio Mercado, Marine Sciences, UPR-Mayagüez
Access to the vBNS will enhance and facilitate current research efforts in Caribbean-Tropical Atlantic and Indian
Ocean modeling studies, and in modeling of hurricane storm surges, the impact of tsunamis, and the effect of other
coastal hazards. The Department of Marine Sciences of the University of Puerto Rico wants to increase its role in the
field of physical oceanography, more specifically in the areas of island-coastal and Caribbean-wide modeling and
multidisciplinary studies.
Physical oceanographers at the Department are currently involved in modeling efforts requiring the use of
supercomputers at SDSC, ONR and Florida State University. At ONR POPS and SDSC we are running a high
resolution basin-scale model of the Atlantic which is designed for studies of Tropical Atlantic--Caribbean
circulation. This effort started during a postdoctoral stay of one of our faculty at FSU, under the direction of Dr.
James J. O'Brien. FSU's YMP supercomputer is being used in a modeling study of the Indian Ocean where the effect
of using simulated satellite scaterometer winds to force a model of the Indian Ocean is being investigated.
Modeling of hurricane storm surges, the impact of tsunamis, and the effect of other coastal hazards is also in
progress. More explicitly, we are currently involved with a two-dimensional spectral model for hindcasting of
hurricane-forced surface gravity waves which requires the use of a CRAY at the Coastal Engineering Research
Center at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vickburg, Miss. We are also involved in an international project to
study the possible effect on the Caribbean islands of the explosion of the active submarine volcano Kick'em Jenny,
which lies northwest of the island of Grenada. This involves the simulation of an explosively-generated tsunami, its
propagation across the Caribbean, and its runup on the islands. The tsunami research project, which involves
analyzing and comparing several different models of tsunami activity, is conducted with a multi-institution
collaboration named the Facility for the Analysis and Comparison of Tsunami Simulations (FACS). Collaborators
include the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, University of Southern California, Pacific Tsunami Warning
Center, University of Alaska, USGS and the Maui High Performance Computing Center.
For the analysis of massive model-generated output, our local computing environment is currently barely adequate
while the campus mainframe suffers from overuse and lack of software. The ability to process our output locally
through the UPR Visualization Laboratory to be situated at our campus and remotely at SDSC would eliminate the
need for frequent travel to other laboratories for the exclusive reason of generating data animations and plots.
Institute of Neurobiology
Team Leader:
Dr. Allen Selverston, Institute of Neurobiology, UPR-Medical Sciences
The Institute of Neurobiology is an interdisciplinary, interdepartmental research center of the Medical Sciences
campus of the University of Puerto Rico. It presently houses fifteen researchers of international caliber together with
state-of-the-art facilities for studies of the nervous system with an emphasis on comparative neurosciences.
A high-bandwidth connection would be extremely useful to the Institute of Neurobiology. There are four areas of
research that would be greatly enhanced:
1. Neuroanatomy - many of the anatomical techniques used here at the Institute of Neurobiology involve computer
assisted methods. Electron microscopic images we acquire here could be analyzed using new high speed graphics to
create three dimensional reconstructions. It might also be possible to look at neural tissue remotely in specialized
machines such as the intermediate range voltage electron microscope at the University of California, San Diego in
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conjunction with Mark Ellisman from the San Diego Super Computer Center. Bandwidth requirements for the
IVEM are approximately 20Mbps with extremely low latency and jitter.
2. Neural modeling - we would like to be able to collaborate with neural modelers in California for both large scale
and small ensemble neural modeling. In the latter case each neuron in ensembles of 10 to 30 cells is represented by
about 12 ordinary differential equations. By connecting to a supercomputer these small systems could be effectively
simulated. Large scale models also can be modeled with fast computer systems. We are collaborating with physicists
in California, specifically Henry Abarbanel, Director of the Institute for Nonlinear Science at UCSD, as well as
Misha Rabinowitz from Nizhney Novgorad, studying neural circuits with nonlinear techniques. These experiments
could be analyzed on line to great advantage and a fast link might enable this as well.
3. Molecular biology - we would use a high speed link for network-based data searching the sequence data bases
found at the National Library for Medecine in the National Institutes of Health. Network capacity is a limiting factor
in the ability of our researchers to fully use the genomic databases available on-line. These limitations will increase
as the genomic databases continue to grow.
4. Molecular modeling- studying the three dimensional structure of receptor and agonist molecules is a growing
field and a high speed link would enable some of our researchers to participate. In particular, interactive graphic
manipulation of the three dimensional structures using molecular modeling software will permit real-time discussion
of structure-activity relationships between the investigators involved in these collaborations.
Remote Education Collaboratory for Advanced Life Support Systems Training
Team Leaders:
Dr. Ricardo González-Mendez, UPR-Medical Sciences
This project is a collaboration between the Department of Emergency Medicine of the University of Michigan
Medical School in Ann Arbor, MI and the University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences Deanship for Academic
Affairs. It is an exploratory, highly innovative project to develop a distance-training program scheduled to start
sometime in late April 1999. We are exploring the use of computerized human patient simulators to train remotely
paramedical personnel, students, residents, faculty, etc., in Advanced Life Support Systems.
In present-day sessions, the training is typically done using human patient simulators which cannot be changed or
controlled in real time. A set of physiological conditions are given for the duration of the training session. With the
technology that has been acquired by both Universities, we can induce changes to the training scenario in real time,
e.g., constraining the trachea or changing a simulated physiological response in the middle of a Cardio-Pulmonary
Resuscitation effort. This creates new situations that simulate real life applications without risk to patients.
The current plan involves remote control of a unit set up in San Juan, PR from Ann Arbor, MI in real-time using
ISDN telecommunications technologies. Quality of Service is of essence for this project as real-time responses need
to be implemented. Bandwidth availability in the order of 10-30 Mbps, and low latency of response (≈100ms) are
crucial to make this project a realistic simulation. Again, as per our example, during a cardiac arrest there is a
window of 3-5 minutes for resuscitation before the onset of severe brain damage and/or brain death. Real-time
video, audio, and 6 telemetry bands are required to be able to implement such simulations in a realistic manner when
applied to remotely controlled distance education.
Health Information Gateway to the Caribbean - Real-Time Access to the Visible Human
Team Leaders:
Prof. Francisca Corrada del Río, Library Director, UPR-Medical Sciences
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The Health Information Gateway to the Caribbean (HIGC) is a National Library of Medicine (NLM) and
University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus Library (MSC-Lib) initiative to provide access to large health
information databases to enhance the quality of health sciences education in the Caribbean Region. Among the future
objectives of the HIGC and the MSC-Lib is to provide access to the Visible Human resource of the NLM for
educational purposes. Effective use of this resource as a virtual anatomic dissector requires over 60 GB of storage,
and data processing/image/volume rendering which is usually accomplished by some form of high-performance
computer.
By providing real-time access to the resource at the NLM, we can provide access to images, and dissections,
processed at the various national centers developing these applications, and develop educational programs for selfstudy which will provide wider access to the information. Currently, the trend in health sciences education is toward
decreased contact hours, and developing active learning programs for the students, who take charge of their basic
education in the health sciences under the tutelage of a group of professors. We have over 3,500 students who would
benefit from the development of this type of program through a vBNS connection at the UPR-Medical Sciences. The
UPR Medical School is implementing a curriculum that will reduce contact hours by more than 30% in the first two
years of Medical School, with a move to electronic educational resources and active learning to make up the
educational burden. The time saved would be employed by initiating student-patient contact earlier in the medical
education.
Direct Molecular Dynamics Simulation and Visualization
of Small-Molecule Catalysis on Metal Cluster Surfaces
Team Leader:
Dr. Yasuyuki Ishikawa, Chemistry, UPR-Río Piedras
With recent developments in the ab initio methodologies, numerical simulation on modern computers can provide
predictive capabilities for the study of the dynamics of many-body systems. The aim of the molecular modelling
effort currently funded by DoD EPSCoR is to develop the ability to model molecular activation, dissociative
chemisorptions and reaction pathways for small-molecule catalysis on supported and unsupported metal cluster
surfaces by means of correlated methods based on density functional theory and first-principles molecular dynamics.
In our laboratory, the mechanism for performing ab initio direct Molecular Dynamics calculations based on
gradient-corrected density-functionals has been implemented and tested in intracluster reactions of atmospheric
relevance. Hybrid density functional method in which the exchange functional is a linear combination of
Hartree-Fock exchange and a functional integral of density gradient is employed. We anticipate beginning molecular
dynamics (MD) simulations of reactions on the surfaces, beginning with CO + OH.
The study of a given reaction pathway typically calls for over 200 simulation runs, each generating 1 to 2 Gbyte files
of raw trajectory data. Visualization and analysis of contour plot for the HOMO, LUMO, and the time evolution of
the charge density along the reaction path will help explain the dynamics and provide insight into the reaction
mechanism.
We are presently using local resources to evaluate modeling conditions and develop analysis routines. In the very
near future, we will be applying for allocated cpu time from the NSF/NCSA to work on the SGI Power Challenge
Array. It is expected that the allocated time will be shared between MD runs as well as remote manipulation of 3-D
structure visualizations.
High-bandwidth, low latency network capabilities of the proposed UPR - vBNS link, will allow us to fully exploit
resources available at NCSA and its partnering institutions.
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Ionic Channels in Biological Membranes –
Computational Biology using Density Functional Theory
Team Leaders:
Dr. Lesser Blum, Physics, UPR-Río Piedras
Dr. Laura Frink, Materials Simulation Science Department, Sandia National Laboratories
Ionic channels are protein molecules found in cell membranes that conduct ions (e.g. Na +, K+, Ca++, Cl-) through a
narrow tunnel of fixed charge by the amino acid residues of the protein into the cell. The cell membrane is otherwise
quite impermeable to natural substances and so channels are gatekeepers for cells, responsible for signaling in the
nervous system, coordination of muscle contraction and transport in all tissues.
Three dimensional structures are known for only a few channels. The lack of structures is a serious limitation to
investigation, but enough is already known to make molecular investigation worthwhile. In the absence of detailed
channel structures, a 1-dimensional theory called PNP for Poisson-N-Planck, has been developed and applied to a
variety of channels. In this theory, the flux is calculated through a channel with known electrochemical driving forces
for many possible surface charge distributions. While the 1-dimensional theory has had considerable success in
reproducing current-voltage curves for channels, there are several fundamental assumptions that must be overcome if
the molecular mechanisms that control ion flow through the channels are to be elucidated.
We are presently investigating means to implement a complete 3D computational approach, based on Density
Functional Theory (DFT). The main goal of the project is to obtain a generalized theory capable of systematically
enhancing the underlying model of the electrolyte solution beyond the point charge, continuum solvent
approximation (Gouy-Chapman model) that has been applied in the 1-dimensional model. Implementing this
approach will provide new insight into the controlling mechanisms for ion channels that is firmly grounded in
statistical mechanics.
The massive calculations needed for the accomplishment of the main goal will be performed at Sandia National
Laboratories’ computational facilities. Analysis and visualization of the results will take place locally and remotely
with the other participants of this collaboration.
Molecular Modeling Center
Team Leaders:
Dr. Gustavo Lopez, Chemistry, UPR-Mayagüez
Dr. Belinda Pastrana, Chemistry, UPR-Mayagüez
Dr. Lesser Blum, Physics, UPR-Río Piedras
Dr. Yasuyuki Ishikawa, Chemistry, UPR Río-Piedras
This Center, distributed between the Río Piedras and Mayagüez research campuses, is engaged in several projects
centered on the use of molecular modeling techniques to investigate the structure, bonding, energetics and reactional
dynamics of significant atomic and molecular systems.
These projects need the high speed network access to the national supercomputing facilities available at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. All projects generate
extremely large data sets typically in the several hundreds of Megabytes to a few Gigabytes per simulation run,
which require back to the University of Puerto Rico for processing, analysis and visualization. The proposed
network connection to the vBNS will provide the necessary bandwidth (10 to 30 Mbps) and QoS required to
accomplish the projects.
The following presents descriptions of some of the on-going projects:
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Dr. Gustavo López
Our research interest centers around the theoretical description of the structure, stability and phase
transitions of atomic and molecular clusters and alloy clusters. Specifically, the study of molecular clusters is focused
in obtaining the lowest energy equilibrium structure of various weakly bound molecular clusters such as (CO)x,
(H2O)x, and (N2O)x (where X=2-20) using Monte Carlo simulated annealing techniques and realistic interparticle
potentials. The change in the Gibbs free energy of formation is computed using the so-called thermodynamics
integration. Other thermodynamics properties are obtained from standard thermodynamic expressions. After
characterizing the stability of the systems, the various phase transitions are identified by calculating the variation in
the heat capacity as a function of temperature.
Related to the study of alloy and alloy clusters, the main focus will center around identifying the various
differences between alloy in the bulk and finite systems. In particular, the electronic variation due to size effects will
be considered using well developed ab initio techniques. The dynamics of the systems will be considered using
classical Molecular dynamics techniques and hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm.
Dr. Belinda Pastrana
Our research focuses on the understanding of protein secondary structure/function relationship and its
dynamics which also includes protein interactions with other biomolecules. The research is divided in four phases:
(1) the use of biotechnology to over-express the protein of interest in E. coli; (2) the purification of the protein;
(3) the use of various spectroscopic techniques such as FT-IR and Circular dichroism to study the Biophysical
properties of these proteins and peptides (4) the data obtained is used to run Molecular Modeling and energy
minimization programs to visualize the molecular level information obtained. At the present time, we have been able
to grow crystals of a protein known as centrin, a member of the EF-hand superfamily, and have begun collaboration
with Purdue University to obtain its crystal structure. We have generated models of this protein using homology
programs from MSI and SGI workstations at the Mayo Clinic Foundation.
Dr. Lesser Blum
Our research group is currently investigating the adsorption of various adsorbates at the charged metalelectrolyte interface. We are principally interested in an atomic level description and modeling of interfacial
geometries, electronic and chemical structures of the electrode surface and adlayer at a given surface potential.
Experimentally, the interface dynamics are studied using voltammetry where the faradaic and capacitive processes at
the surface and double-layer are monitored while the surface potential is cyclically varied. Monte Carlo and
molecular dynamics simulation techniques will be used to simulate the time-evolution of these interfacial processes
including phase transitions occurring at the adlayer. The time-dependent 3-D visualization of the interface structure
as the surface potential is changed will prove essential to the understanding of the complex charged metal-electrolyte
interface.
Dr. Yasuyuki Ishikawa
Ab initio direct molecular dynamics (MD) method is attractive for systems with complicated,
multidimensional potential surfaces. It is feasible now to perform the direct MD with accurate electronic structure
methods. In our laboratory, the mechanism for performing ab initio direct MD calculations based on
gradient-corrected density functionals has been implemented and applied to a few intracluster reactions of
atmospheric relevance. Hybrid density functional method in which the exchange functional is a linear combination of
Hartree-Fock exchange and a functional integral of density gradient is employed. Visualization and analysis of the
contour plot for the HOMO, LUMO, and the time evolution of the charge density along the reaction path will help
explain the dynamics and provide insight into the charge transfer mechanism.
- 15 -
Multimedia Transmission in Fiber Optic LANs Using Optical CDMA
Team Leader:
Dr. Oscar Moreno, Mathematics, UPR-Río Piedras
Optical fiber is becoming the standard medium for communications, as it is more reliable, sturdy, and has a higher
bandwidth than previously used media. On the other hand, in certain situations we have to transmit information at
information at different rates simultaneously (e.g. video, voice and data). We propose a scheme by which to transmit
information at different rates through optical fiber. This scheme will be used for transmission in applications where
optical LANs are used.
In the last few years a variety of Spread Spectrum (SS) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) techniques have
been proposed for applications in fiber-optic networks. The main advantage of using CDMA in fiber-optic networks
over more traditional like wavelength division multiple access is in the simplicity of the required optical signal
processing. Another aspect of CDMA systems of interest to fiber-optic communications is that, due to their
asynchronous operation mode, they provide a natural choice for the bursty nature of the traffic in heavily used
networks. Also, in a CDMA system the addition of new users is easy, since it requires only a new quasi-orthogonal
code to serve as the new user’s address.
In this project we will apply a CDMA fiber-optic network to multi-rate transmission. Operating conditions for
successful operation of the network will be explored. Specifically, new families of Optical Orthogonal Codes
(OOCs) will be established where good correlation properties within one code family is established, but also between
families of different code lengths. Possible constructions of multi-media OOCs and the corresponding basic structure
of the receiver for the multi-media network will be established.
Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research project
Team Leaders:
Dr. Ariel Lugo, Director, International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA
Dr. John Thomlinson, Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies, UPR-Río Piedras
The Luquillo Long Term Ecological Research Project is a joint effort between the UPR Institute for Tropical
Ecosystem Studies, the USDA International Institute for Tropical Forestry and more than 40 scientists from across
the US mainland and Puerto Rico. The basis of the project is long-term monitoring of environmental variables of the
Luquillo Experimental Forest which is part of the only tropical rain forest in the National Parks registry. This longterm project, which was started more than 100 years ago, is focusing on (i) patterns of disturbance in space and time,
(ii) ecosystem response to different patterns of disturbance, (iii) land-stream interactions, (iv) effect of management
on ecosystem properties, (v) integration of ecosystem models and geographic information systems.
Of particular importance in this proposal is to satisfy the connectivity needs of the Spatial Analysis Technologies
Laboratory of the Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies (SATLITES). There are two major needs for improved
Internet connections at SATLITES. The first is for data access, the second is for collaborations with researchers at
remote sites, particularly when those collaborations involve access to supercomputers.
Many of our projects use satellite imagery as a basic data set. There are two main problems with using satellite
imagery here in Puerto Rico. The first is that for much of the time, much of the island is hidden, from a satellite's
perspective, by clouds, rendering acquisition of new imagery impossible. This leads us to mine existing imagery
archives, which introduces the second main problem, that of access speed to Internet archive sites. A typical image
scene from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) scanner is 260 MB in size, and four full scenes are required to cover
Puerto Rico. Downloading a Gb of data with our current Internet access is not possible. Because of the frequent
cloud cover, it is important to screen imagery before download or purchase, and even accessing the "Quick-look"
thumbnails of historic images requires an unreasonably long time. We are then typically faced with having to
purchase images, sight-unseen, on tape or CD, rather than being able to browse and download (generally at no
charge) those images that will be useful, which would be possible with a high-speed Internet link.
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A new LANDSAT satellite will be launched this year. The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez is installing a
receiver through which it will be possible to download TM imagery on a regular basis (at best, bi-weekly). With a
high-speed link to TCESS, we would be able to assess the suitability of each image as it is downloaded, and obtain
those that will be useful on-line. To cover Puerto Rico with the new TM imagery will require an estimated 1.7 GB,
and this will be available, potentially, twice a month.
The other area in which we need high-speed Internet access is off-site collaborations. We have just started an
ecological modeling initiative with the San Diego Supercomputer Center, under the auspices of NPACI and the NSF
Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network. While most of the modeling proper will be conducted in batch
mode, real-time access to the computers has been promised for debugging code and some visualization of data and
results. With our current access, "real-time" begins to lose its meaning. We see the new High-Performance
Computer Center (HPCC) at the UPR Central Administration as a complementary facility, particularly regarding
visualization, but currently we could not even conduct visualizations at a useful speed from our offices to the HPCC.
In conjunction with off-site collaborations, we would benefit greatly from real-time teleconferencing. Even the
increased functionality of email over the last few years has benefited us greatly, so improvements to productivity that
might be obtained from real-time on-line access to collaborators, while hard to quantify at this stage, will surely be
enormous.
C.3
Current PRDVnet Configuration
The Office of Information Systems of the UPR - Central Administration has developed an island wide network,
PRDVnet, which provides data and video services to the UPR community, linking all the of 11 academic units of the
University. The network consists of over 30 Points of Presence (PoP) throughout the island of Puerto Rico,
interconnecting UPR academic units, 22 other universities, industries and several governmental institutions.
The overall network is designed as a star configuration, with the Network Operations Center (NOC) located at the
Central Administration offices at its center. The University of Puerto Rico was assigned a Class B network with
network number 136.145.0.0 and domain name upr.clu.edu. PRDVnet uses T1 circuits for WAN connection and
ATM, Fast Ethernet and Switched Ethernet (10 and 100 Mbps) as LAN technologies. Commodity Internet
connectivity for PRDVnet is provided by UUnet through a fractional DS-3 connection (6 Mbps). Also, PRDVnet
uses a T1 connection with Sprintlink for redundancy and backup purposes. These connections are through a series of
undersea optical cables linking San Juan to Florida.
- 17 -
Figure 1. Current interconnect topology of PRDVnet.
PRDVnet uses Bay Networks BCN and BLN routers and Cisco 4500 routers in its core infrastructure, with Bay
Networks 28115 10/100 switches at the edges. Furthermore, at the Mayagüez and Río Piedras campuses where there
are ATM campus backbones, Bay Networks Centillion ATM switches are used. PRDVnet is a multiprotocol
network. It supports TCP/IP, IPX, Decnet , AppleTalk, and IEEE bridging protocols whereas for videoconferencing
PRDVnet supports the H320 protocol. Routing on the PRDVnet is managed by BGPv4 for inter-domain routing.
The PRDVnet is currently being managed by engineer Felix Ramos with a staff of 2 other engineers, 1
telecommunications specialist, 2 network technicians and 1 systems analyst. Management of the network is presently
being done using Optivity v.8 on a AIX platform with Netview. Monitoring of the network involves periodic capture
of WAN links NOC backbone status. Currently, only 5/8 user services to the campuses and institutions are offered
but a 7/24 service is expected in the near future.
C.4
Current Institutional Network Infrastructures
C.4.1
University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras
The Río Piedras campus is presently served by two interconnected networks. The first, is a FDDI ring (100Mbps
bandwidth) which connects the heaviest trafficked buildings, including the main library and the Natural Sciences
complex. Each of these buildings contains a Cisco AGS+ router which terminates into 10baseT ethernet LANs. The
second network is based on a shared 10baseT Ethernet, with a star topology and connects the remaining buildings.
- 18 -
Both these networks intersect in the campus Computing Center.
Figure 2. Current interconnect topology of UPR – Río Piedras.
The Río Piedras campus is presently connected to the PRDVnet islandwide backbone through two separate T1 lines
supporting data transmission. These lines are microwave based and are supplied by CellularOne, a local service
provider. The microwave connectivity is possible since the Central Administration buildings are less then one mile
away with a direct line-of-sight from the Río Piedras campus.
Several upgrades are to be accomplished in the next few months.
An ATM OC-3 backbone based on Bay Networks products will be put in service within the Winter 99 semester. This
ATM backbone will in the first phase replace the FDDI ring. The second phase of the implementation, to be
completed before the end of year 1999, will connect the remaining buildings to the ATM backbone. We shall also
finish to rewire all remaining secondary buildings, which are mostly administrative in nature, from cat3 to cat5 or
optical fiber cabling.
The campus management team is presently being run by engineer Carlos Carle with the help of two
telecommunications specialists and one system administrator. Undergraduate computer science students are also
presently employed as part-time help, offering them valuable networking experience. Management of the campus
network is being done with the use of Optivity Enterprise v.8 on a Sun UltraSparc 120 workstation.
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Basic security protocols will be implemented, within the advent of the ATM backbone, by the use of BaySecure, a
Radius Server type application able to authenticate remote access users. A variety of firewall technologies are also
presently being evaluated for deployment in the near-future.
C.4.2
University of Puerto Rico – Medical Sciences
The diagram found in Figure 3. shows the network infrastructure of the UPR-Medical Sciences with a core
comprised of a Bay Networks Accelar 1200 layer 3 switch. The topology used is a collapsed Ethernet backbone
using frame switching with 100baseT links full duplex, with each frame switching having 2Gbps internal throughput.
The main layer 3 switch has 15Gbps internal throughput, 7Mpps routing capability with no lost packets. The router is
a Bay Networks ASN router with 150kpps segment throughput.
The network in Medical Sciences is currently being managed by Prof. Sandra Santos with a staff comprised of 2
network engineers, 2 network technicians, 2 central systems administrators and 7 NT systems administrators.
Management of the network is presently being done using Optivity v.8 on a HP OpenView platform for snmp alarm
monitoring.
Security protocols on the Medical Sciences network will be implemented in the very near future. Planned are two
distinct areas; (1) a public area, where unrestricted access will be granted to different services such as http, smtp,
ftp, etc. and (2) a private LAN where access will be granted only with the proper user validation or authentication.
This will be achieved through the use of FireWall-1 from Checkpoint.
C.4.3
University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez
The Campus network is connected to the University of Puerto Rico’s Central Administration via dual lines, a T1 line
(1.54 Mbps) contracted with Cellular One and a fractional T1 line (896 Kbps) with Puerto Rico Telephone Company
(PRTC). The PRTC line has 24 channels of 64 Kbps capacity, however in the actual configuration 14 channels are
used for data communications and 10 for voice .
The topology of the Campus network is shown in Figure 4. The network is a star configuration with "clouds" at the
star points. The exact configurations inside these "clouds" are determined by the specific needs of the departmental
operations inside each buildings.
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Figure 3. Current interconnect topology of UPR – Medical Sciences.
The RISC network initiative (Spanish initials for Computational Systems Integrated Network), completed in 1997
thanks to matching Campus and Central Administration funds, laid down a fiber optic network to all the Campus
buildings and updated the backbone interconnection equipment. The fiber infrastructure consists of 24 strands of
fiber to 54 locations in the Campus. Sixteen (16) of these strands are multimode, eight (8) are single-mode.
The core of the Campus network infrastructure is a Nortel ATM switch, with an outside router, and a Cisco 7000
router serving several of the buildings. Physical connections are primarily fiber optic and copper Ethernet
connections with serial links to remote buildings. Backbone traffic in the Campus is a combination of ATM
(MPOA), Ethernet and FastEthernet. Protocols are varied, including TCP/IP, IPX, DECnet and LAT. Efforts are
underway in the rest of the campus to minimize the various protocols in use. Recently the Mayagüez Campus
acquired the domain name uprm.edu, the use of which we are now encouraging.
Management of the network is done using Optivity Enterprise v.8 as well as MRTG as a monitoring tool. There are
also plans on implementing Big Brother (http://maclawran.ca/bb-dnld/) as well as a campus firewall.
The management team at the Mayagüez campus is headed by engineer Martin Melendez. He is assisted by 2 network
technicians and 5 undergraduate and graduate students of the Electrical Engineering Department. The campus also
has two other network engineers on staff which will be participating at some level in the reasearch network project;
1) Victor Diaz is the Assistant Dean of Information Technology at the Academic Affairs Deanship; 2) Anibal
Morales is the network engineer of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department.
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Figure 4. Current campus topology of the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez network (RUMnet).
C.4.4
NAIC - Arecibo Observatory
The current (basic) network topology of the Arecibo Observatory can be described by two LAN subnetworks
supporting IEEE 802.X ethernet. A WAN subnet connects the observatory to NSInet through a 56kbps line.
The core routers within the Arecibo site are Sun Microsystems UltraSPARCs running Solaris 2. The Internet link
uses a single Cisco 2500 with 10Mbps ethernet for the LAN and 56Kbps for the WAN connection. The WAN
connection to the NASA Science Internet ISP is provided by AT&T via their FTS2000 government contract.
The distance to the nearest PRTC “concentrator” in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo is 3.1 miles. This “concentrator” box
currently supports 56Kbps data links (DDS), but would need to be enhanced to support a full T1 channel or greater.
The distance of 3.1 miles is measured along the road to the Observatory (Rte 625), by the side of which are the poles
supporting the Observatory’s current telephone cables.
C.5
PRISAnet Planned Enhancements to Accommodate the vBNS
PRISA proposes to connect to the vBNS network by using initially a DS-3 connection to CONUS. In order to
maximize flexibility for both research and commodity services and allowing for future sustainability, we will be
exploring an interconnection through a regional aggregation point. We will be exploring the creation of a
partnership with a mainland university, the likeliest candidate being the University of Miami. Such a partnership
- 22 -
will allow a connection between us to the Florida GigaPoP situated in Gainesville, which in turn is connected to the
Southern Crossroads (SoX) at GeorgiaTech.
The Island network may be one of the most important pieces of this project. The network must be created with the
future in mind. A generic low level infrastructure, created from SONET will provide for network growth to support
many different applications through both research and commodity service providers. The proposed design involves
the purchase of point-to-point SONET services with a minimum DS-3 bandwidth, interconnecting each of the four
participating institutions as well as the University of Puerto Rico – Central Administration where the NOC of
PRDVNet is situated. These SONET links will interconnect each university providing a common Layer One
infrastructure that is flexible and reliable. A higher level logical connectivity, at Layer Three, utilizing IPv4 in the
short term and IPv6 in the future, will then be constructed on this low level service. The interconnect topology will
be of a star configuration with the PRISAnet GigaPoP at its center. The PRISAnet GigaPoP will handle both
commodity and research traffic from the 4 participating institutions.
Using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) we will be able to discriminate between commodity and research traffic at
the PRISAnet GigaPoP router. Traffic to vBNS authorized institutions will then be sent to the Southern Crossroads
and be routed thereafter. Commodity traffic coming from the research institutions will be handled by the PRDVNet
router.
The proposed interconnect topology of PRISAnet is presented in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Proposed interconnect topology of PRISAnet to accommodate the vBNS link.
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The PI of this proposal will submit in early February 1999 a proposal entitled “The Visualization Laboratory of the
University of Puerto Rico Supercomputing Facility: Establishment of a HPCC Facility Supporting Scientific
Research in Puerto Rico” to the EPSCoR Grants program. This proposal was selected by an internal review
committee. The importance of this proposal is that two distinct, yet intertwined resources were delineated. The first
institutional resource to be proposed was the creation of a distributed visualization laboratory, whereas the other was
for an underlying networking resource supporting the distributed facility. Within the EPSCoR Grants proposal,
$400,000 was asked to support the first of many steps towards the creation of the island-wide research network,
PRISAnet. Specifically, the monies asked were for the purchase of three Cisco 7500 series routers to act as edgedevices for the three UPR campuses as well as a Cisco 12000 series router to act as the core router of the PRISAnet
GigaPoP.
C.6
PRISA Engineering Resources – Planning and Technical Expertise
Recognizing that Puerto Rico is solidly engaged in transforming itself into a knowledge-based economy, the
University of Puerto Rico is dedicated to building in the immediate future strong initiatives in Computer and
Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE). Underpinning this effort is the need for dedicated, reliable and
significant network resources, both in facilities and personnel. This effort will be supported by every means possible.
Each of the participating institutions has a competent network engineering staff which, albeit small in present-day
numbers, will make up the core of the design and management team of PRISA. All of these individuals have been
responsible for implementing and maintaining the campus and/or intercampus networks. They have been directly
involved in activities such as LAN administration, daily maintenance and monitoring of the network physical plants,
as well as participating with University administrators in strategic and budgetary planning.
The PRISA management team will also be complemented by senior faculty members involved in meritorious
applications, as well as administrative representatives knowledgeable with CISE and IT issues, from the UPR, PREPSCoR, the RCSE and NAIC.
PRISA will ensure that the meritorious applications’ requested bandwidth be delivered within the physical
limitations of the network, as well as continuously striving to better the services available. Enforcement of allocation
policy will be ensured by use of correct management and monitoring tools.
Furthermore, PRISA will take charge of coordinating the implementation of a uniform set of standards and policies
with regards to routing, security, monitoring and various other protocols throughout the participating institutions.
To complete the PRISA management team, we have chosen to create an external advisory committee (EAC),
comprised of recognized leaders in the Internet2 community. In a recent AAAS sponsored event, we were fortunate
to host a consultation team constituted by the following people:
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Daniel Van Belleghem, EPSCoR liaison officer at NCSA
Richard DesJardins, Networking consultant, NREN, Nasa-Ames Research Center
Ron Hutchins, Director of Engineering, Office of Information Technology, Georgia Tech
Doyle Friskney, Associate VP for Information Systems, University of Kentucky
who were in Puerto Rico to provide consulting assistance to the UPR to help develop high performance networking
in support of UPR research and education. Because of their initial exposure to a pre-PRISAnet situation in Puerto
Rico, we have invited the team members to constitute the EAC of PRISA. The EAC would advise PRISA on matters
of funding and policy, best-practice methods and the establishment of a comprehensive set of networking standards
between all participating levels. Finally they could potentially mediate and facilitate interactions with academic
bodies, National Labs and telecommunication service providers. They will be required to submit an annual
performance review to the governing body of the University of Puerto Rico, to NAIC as well as PR-EPSCoR.
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C.7
Coordination with Network Service Providers
We are presently engaged in negotiations with a few network service providers for both the Island wide portion of
the advanced network as well as that of the connection to the mainland. These providers include AT&T, MCI
Worldcom, and Puerto Rico Telephone Company (PRTC)/GTE International.
The present-day situation (January 1999) is complicated by the sale of the government-owned Puerto Rico
Telephone Company (PRTC) to GTE International. Since the acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of
February 1999, after approval from the FCC, it is presently legally impossible for UPR and GTE representatives to
discuss any future business opportunities or discuss any items that might be considered competitive in nature with
customers on the island. As such, we have only had limited discussions with PRTC representatives, acting on behalf
of GTE International. Preliminary prices, quoted by PRTC, were on the order of $150,000/month for a DS-3 leased
line between San Juan, Puerto Rico and Jacksonville, Florida. This line would not be available before the first
quarter of 2000, after the completion and start of operations of the Americas II undersea cable. Till then, DS-3
services are only available through a satellite connection with New York City at a prohibitive cost of
$200,000/month. Furthermore, we were recently made aware of the possible availability of OC-3 services through an
option that GTE Internetworking has on a portion of the ARCOS-I cable which will come in service by the first
quarter of 2000. We will be exploring this and other possibilities as well.
Another important factor might further influence connectivity between Puerto Rico and CONUS. Global Crossing
Ltd., is a Bermuda based, independent provider of world-wide fiber optic telecommunications networks. Global
Crossing is rapidly developing major fiber optic undersea cable systems and terrestrial facilities. Two of their
projects are significant to the region. First, Mid-Atlantic Crossing (MAC), will be a 7,500km two fiber pair selfhealing ring connecting New York, Bermuda, the Caribbean (in St-Croix, a neighboring island to Puerto Rico distant
by 100 miles) and Florida. Service is expected to commence in December 1999. MAC is being designed to operate
initially at 20 Gbps of service capacity and to be upgradeable to a minimum of 40 Gbps using DWDM technology.
Second, Pan American Crossing (PAC), will be ready for initial service in February 2000 and will link California,
Mexico and Panama and will interconnect with MAC in St-Croix.
Given the lead time on proposal consideration, and the fast-evolving nature of the networking situation in Puerto
Rico, with the advent of Americas II and the privatization of PRTC, it is most likely that prices and services will be
significantly different by the time this proposal should be funded. Nevertheless, details of connection costs based on
DS-3 and OC-3 bandwidths will remain to be developed and coordinated with NSF.
We have estimated costs based on current available rates. The figures will be further described in the Budget
Justification section.
C.8
Quality of Service Assurances and Network Management Plan
While the over-provisioning of bandwidth at a given institution is typically used as an interim solution to Quality of
Service, PRISA will explore the implementation of protocols such as RSVP layered priority queueing, which
promises low-latency IP service by establishing high-performance links between source and recipient(s).
Coordination of RSVP implementation by our network engineering staff will take place with Cisco Consulting
Engineers as well as qualified personnel from other vAIs.
By coordination with the meritorious applications’ team leaders, PRISA will also evaluate on a periodic basis issues
related to QoS and their relevancy to specific projects. This will allow certain degrees of differentiation in network
QoS to be done on a per application basis in order for specific meritorious applications to fully take advantage of
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QoS related protocols and technologies.
Furthermore, by strict monitoring and the implementation of adequate routing arbitration, PRISA will ensure that the
vBNS Acceptable Use Policy is adhered to for all traffic originating from the participating institutions.
C.9
Availability and Continuing Support
C.9.1
Plans for Making the vBNS Broadly Available
As was delineated in section C.5, the institutions’ ATM or Ethernet systems will provide vBNS IP service to all
associated faculty members and researchers who need communication facilities to other vBNS member institutions.
With an adequately installed routing system with QoS provisions made available to the meritorious applications
presented in this proposal and those to be subsequently added, non-meritorious traffic originating from the campuses
will not interfere.
C.9.2
Provision of Continuing Support
Recognizing the long-term importance of this initiative, the University of Puerto Rico has committed to the
continuing maintenance of a vBNS connection when achieved, beyond the two years covered by this award.
PRISA working jointly with PR-EPSCoR, the RCSE and the Office of the Vice President for Research and
Academic Affairs of the University of Puerto Rico will strive to promote the value and need for high-performance
computing and networking with the governing bodies of the University of Puerto Rico and the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico.
Furthermore, because of the remoteness of Puerto Rico, a variety of options for connectivity and partnerships will be
explored by PRISA in order to minimize connectivity costs. The following presents several focal points within this
activity:
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C.10
Work with telecommunication vendors as more bandwidth becomes available within the Caribbean region;
Work with agencies such as NASA, DOD and the USDA which have a large and important presence on the
island, coordinating these efforts with NSF as well as exchanging strategies with our counterparts of Alaska
and Hawaii;
Pursue partnerships with other local institutions where their missions and goals are compatible to the
prevailing Internet2 and vBNS Acceptable Use Policies (AUP);
Pursue our goal to become an international connection point for Caribbean and South American research
institutions.
Contribution to the State, National and International Network Infrastructures
The long-term aim of PRISA is to provide the first and likely to be unique high-speed networking hub (the PRISAnet
gigaPoP) for academic institutions throughout the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and potentially to the whole of the
Caribbean region. A DS-3 connection, eventually upgraded to OC-3, to the vBNS under the present program would
provide a significant bridge to this end.
The PRISA project will also serve as a link to a major NSF facility situated in a remote region, linking the Arecibo
Observatory to the vBNS and indirectly to NREN, facilitating access to the U.S. astronomy community.
Furthermore, the PRISA project in itself will serve as model to the International networking community as to means
of providing advanced networking resources to remote regions of the globe.
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Finally, it is our intent to eventually develop PRISAnet as an international connection point, duplicating the
StarTap model. With a connection to the vBNS, this connection point would facilitate the long-term
interconnection and interoperability of advanced networking projects arising from Caribbean and South American
countries.
C.11
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the vBNS Link and Dissemination of Experiences
The services provided by PRISA to its member institutions will be monitored on a continual basis using a variety of
network management applications. Specifically, parameters related to QoS delivery such as availability, reliability,
error rates will be examined. The data will be used to investigate the QoS related issues of scheduling and
multiplexing of the meritorious applications with ultimate goals of maximizing throughput and minimizing delay and
jitter. Our unique point-of-view as a remote-distance end-point institution connected through undersea fiber cables
should clearly provide interest in the networking community.
The results of the vBNS connection’s performance as well as those related to particular applications utilizing the
vBNS service will be disseminated on PRISA’s future Internet pages. PRISA will also be actively participating in
scientific forums such as industrial and academic conferences and workshops. Further dissemination of network and
research results will take place through PRISA’s participation in Internet2 and Southern Crossroads activities.
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