Indiana Gets $6 Million for Running N-Wave

IU's GlobalNOC will provide operations support for NOAA's powerful research network.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded Indiana University a $6 million contract for expanding IU's role of providing operations management for NOAA's N-Wave scientific network. N-Wave is a network connecting a number of academic supercomputing sites across the USA. Indiana's Global Research Network Operations Center (GlobalNOC) has provided network engineers, software developers, and service desk technicians for N-Wave since 2010. With the initial three-year, $1.6 million contract set to expire, NOAA and GlobalNOC have agreed to a new contract for the support operation. The $6 million in new funds will be paid out through specific work orders for GlobalNOC services.
According to NOAA, N-Wave is a "highly scalable, stable, and secure network built using 10GB per second Wave Division Multiplexed (WDM) fiber-optic links supplied by partners in the national Research and Education (R&E) network community." Research institutions at partner sites around US use the N-Wave network to move data and share resources for NOAA research and other related HPC projects.