The Taiwan Academic Network (TANet) is the latest international research network to link to the National Science Foundation's very high-performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) through the high-speed interconnection called Science, Technology And Research Transit Access Point, or STAR TAP. The vBNS-TANet linkup started operating at the end of October.

The connection will make it easier for institutions on the vBNS in the United States and on TANet in Taiwan to collaborate on research efforts that are data intensive and demand high bandwidth, including research in global climate change, protein structures, molecular biology, cosmology, and nanomaterials. Within a year, the linkup to the vBNS will offer enough bandwidth to support new and computationally demanding technologies, such as video streaming and tele-immersion.

The TANet connection through STAR TAP applies only to nonprofit organizations including universities and government research labs, involved in meritorious applications with similar institutions in the USA. Access to the vBNS will give these institutions the chance to exploit the network's high performance capabilities and utilize collaborative applications and networking tools. Among those tools and applications is the Biology Workbench, a Web-based virtual computing system used for the analysis of biological data. The tool was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and will initially be offered by the National Computational Science Alliance to Taiwan's National Health Research Institute (NHRI) and National Center for High Performance Computing (NCHC). The NHRI and NCHC will also have the chance to transfer and analyze large image datasets, such as the Visible Human databases and real-time biomedical images.

The TANet connection is the fifth international connection to the vBNS since STAR TAP was initiated in April 1997. The Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education (CANARIE) was the first international vBNS link via STAR TAP. The Singapore Research and Education Network (SingaREN) connected last November, the Asian Pacific Advanced Network Consortium (APAN) connected this past September, and Russia (MirNET) connected last month.

STAR TAP (http://www.startap.net) is a three-year project to establish a persistent infrastructure to facilitate the long-term interconnection and interoperability of advanced international networking in support of applications, performance measuring, and technology evaluations. It is funded by a $1.2 million NSF grant and maintained through a partnership among the University of Illinois at Chicago, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Argonne National Laboratory, Indiana University, University of Tennessee, and Ameritech Advanced Data Services. Physically, STAR TAP connects with the Ameritech Network Access Point (NAP) in Chicago, as do the vBNS and other high-speed research networks.

The STAR TAP anchors the international vBNS connections program (http://www.vbns.net). The vBNS, provided by NSF in partnership with MCI, was launched in 1995 to link NSF supercomputer centers. In the last two years it has grown to include connections to university campuses. The vBNS backbone runs at 633 megabits per second (Mbps). Well before the year 2000, it is expected to operate at 2.4 gigabits -- or 2,400 Mbps. Approximately 130 universities have been approved for connections so far. Connections to the vBNS run at a maximum of 45 Mbps with fastest links into NCSA and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The vBNS is a crucial player in the president's Next Generation Internet and is the initial interconnect for Internet2 member institutions.

"Taiwan and the United States have a number of strong ties in academia and research," said Tom DeFanti, STAR TAP's primary investigator and director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at UIC and an associate director at NCSA. "Now that TANet is connected to the vBNS through STAR TAP, American researchers and their international collaborators will have even more opportunities for long-lasting, productive, international research relationships using the capabilities of advanced high-speed networks."

Launched in 1990, TANet was the earliest Internet connection in the Asia-Pacific region. Nearly 500,000 users are connected to TANet, with the majority of connections in the bandwidth range well above dial-ups, and some into the tens of megabits per second.

"We are delighted that Taiwan's National Science Council has shown the willingness and the resolve to bear the expense of linking its advanced research institutions to the vBNS by making this connection. This will usher in collaborations at advanced levels between our research communities," said Steve Goldstein, NSF's program Director for International Networking Collaboration and STAR TAP Program officer.

UIC's EVL advances research in computer graphics and interactive techniques through its unique interdisciplinary blend of engineering, science, and art. Its students receive MS, PhD and MFA degrees through the UIC electrical engineering and computer science department and the UIC School of art and design. EVL receives funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Department of Energy, and Advanced Network and Services.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is the leading-edge site for the National Computational Science Alliance. NCSA is a leader in the development and deployment of cutting-edge high-performance computing, networking, and information technologies. The National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, industrial partners, and other federal agencies fund NCSA. The National Computational Science Alliance is a partnership to prototype an advanced computational infrastructure for the 21st century and includes more than 50 academic, government and industry research partners from across the United States. The Alliance receives core funding from the National Science Foundation and cost-sharing at partner institutions.