Abilene Network - Definition and Overview

Abilene Network is the U.S. high-performance backbone network created by Internet2.

Over 220 member institutions participate in Abilene, mostly universities with some corporate and affiliate institutions, in all of the US states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Overview

When established in 1999, the Abilene network backbone had a capacity of 2.5 gigabits per second. In 2003 an upgrade to 10 gigabits per second commenced and the completion of this was announced on February 4, 2004.

The name Abilene was chosen because of the network's resemblance in ambition and scope, to the Abilene Railhead in Abilene, Kansas, which in the 1860s represented the frontier of the United States in the context of the Nation's Railroad infrastructure. The project's aim is to achieve 100 Gigabit connectivity between every node by the end of 2006. In keeping with the Railroading analogy, the term LambdaRail is applied to Regional Optical Networks providing OC-192 connectivity in Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) Testbeds.

External link

• Abilene Backbone Network (http://abilene.internet2.edu/)