Reference projects

Remote microscopy demonstration with FEI

In August 2010, SURFnet created a lightpath via NetherLight from FEI in Eindhoven to Rio de Janeiro for a conference on microscopy. This international lightpath made it possible to operate and demonstrate microscopy equipment in Eindhoven from Rio de Janeiro, over a distance of 16,000 kilometres.

e-VLBI

e-VLBI, or real-time electronic Very Long Baseline Interferometry, uses fibre optic networks to connect radio telescopes to a central data processor, a purpose-built supercomputer that correlates data from the telescopes in real time.

Transferring data electronically and correlating it in real time eliminates weeks of waiting from the current VLBI method of storing data on disks and shipping them to the JIVE correlator for processing. This allows researchers to take advantage of Targets of Opportunity for conducting follow-on observations of transient events such as supernova explosions and gamma-ray bursts.

CineGrid

The mission of CineGrid is to build an interdisciplinary community that is focused on the research, development, and demonstration of networked collaborative tools in order to enable the production, use, preservation, and exchange of very-high-quality digital media over photonic networks. NetherLight facilitates this initiative by delivering international lightpaths, e.g. to show high-resolution 4K video content in collaboration with CineGrid partners.

LHCOPN

NetherLight is an active participant in the LHCOPN (Large Hadron Collider Optical Private Network), which was built to distribute large amounts of research data from CERN to Tier-1 data centres worldwide.

As one of the exchanges within LHCOPN, NetherLight facilitates lightpaths from CERN to Nikhef/SARA (NL-T1), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), DE-KIT (Germany), the Nordic DataGrid Facility (NDGF), TRIUMF (Canada) and ASGC (Taiwan).