Argonne National Laboratory high performance network support of APS experiments

Argonne National Laboratory is currently positioned to provide access to high performance regional and national networks. Much of the impetus for this effort is the anticipated needs of the upcoming experimental program at the APS. Some APS collaborative access teams (CATs) are already pressing for network speed improvements and security enhancements. Requirements range from the need for high data rate, secure transmission of experimental data, to the desire to establish a open-quote open-quote virtual experimental environment close-quote close-quote at their home institution. In the near future, 155 megabit/sec (Mb/s) national and regional asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks will be operational and available to APS users. Full-video teleconferencing, virtual presence operation of experiments, and high speed, secure transmission of data are being tested and, in some cases, will be operational. We expect these efforts to enable a substantial improvement in the speed of processing experimental results as well as an increase in convenience to the APS experimentalist. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics