| |
Since 2005 Arkansas universities have been working together to establish a statewide regional optical network to connect Arkansas to the National Lambda Rail
Network. Construction of the UCA portion of this network began in April 2009.
National Lambda Rail (NLR) (http://www.nlr.net/)
The National Lambda Rail is a major initiative of U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies to provide a national scale
infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications.
The stated goals of NLR are to
- Support experimental and production networks
- Foster networking research
- Promote next-generation applications
- Facilitate interconnectivity among high-performance research and education networks
|
As shown in the architecture map, Arkansas has no National Lambda Rail presence, preventing Arkansas universities from participating in this initiative. |
 |
| |
Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (AREON) (http://www.areon.net/)
AREON is the answer to the National Lambda Rail Arkansas gap. It is a regional optical network meant to connect Arkansas to NLR. AREON is now a state
agency and has contracted with various providers to lease fiber optic cable that ties into NLR or other regional optical networks at key points. This fiber path
is shown on the map below.
|
 |
Some of Arkansas' neighboring states have already completed such a project, including Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Missouri.
AREON will be used by Arkansas universities for various purposes. Almost all of those particular purposes will be educational and/or research initiatives proposed by
the local faculty. One particular purpose that is of interest to the UCA IT department is that commodity Internet service will be available through AREON. Currently our
commodity Internet is purchased through the Arkansas Department of Information Systems (DIS).
|
|
