ARE-ON Provides Ultra-Fast Connection for Research and Education

Staff Writer

Courtesy of Media Services

Flipping the Switch - (left) Mike Abbiatti,  ARE-ON executive director, and UAM Chancellor Jack Lassiter (right) flip a ceremonial switch to officially connect UAM to the ARE-ON network. Abiatti presented a slideshow demonstrating some of the ways ARE-ON can help promote better health services in Arkansas.

   ARE-ON, a joint effort between Arkansas's 11 public universities and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, provides unparalleled access to research, education, emergency management and health services.

   According to the ARE-ON website, ARE-ON exists “to promote, develop, and apply advanced application and communications technologies to support and enhance education, research, public service and economic development.”

   Mike Abbiatti, Executive Director of ARE-ON, spoke at the ceremony and flipped a giant switch with UAM Chancellor Jack Lassiter. The switch lit a green light in a tube, symbolizing UAM’s connection to the state-of-the-art fiber network offered by ARE-ON.

   Abbiatti called ARE-ON “a true economic development asset.” “We’re here to help change the perception of Arkansas from ‘Poor me’ to ‘Follow me,’” he said.

   Abbiatti spoke before a crowd at the UAM Fine Arts Center, but he did not present the details of ARE-ON alone.

   Joining him and the crowd via high-definition streaming video, several presenters talked about the possibilities and applications of ARE-ON with research, academics, emergency preparedness and healthcare.

   David Merrifield, Chief Technology Officer, joined the ceremony from Fayetteville. Ed Leachman from Arkansas Tech University, Jeff Pummill and Rebecca Martindale also joined through the video stream.

   Present at the ceremony, Bobby Hoyle, chairman of the steering committee and director of information technology, spoke about ARE-ON as well.

   “We wanted to really enhance the learning experience of our students,” Hoyle said. “For a rural university like UAM, it’s critical that we be able to get outside the walls and touch the rest of the world, not just the rest of the state or the country. And that’s what ARE-ON does.”

Telehealth

   Abbiatti presented a slideshow demonstrating some of the ways ARE-ON can help promote better health services in Arkansas. Abbiatti stated Arkansas is 46th in overall health in the nation, but UAMS is ranked fifth in telehealth. Telehealth services use telecommunications to help medical procedures and patient care as well as medical learning.

   One shining example of UAMS research, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at UAMS, provides a way for families with newborns to view their babies from anywhere in the world while the baby remains in NICU. The Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines, Education and Learning System, or ANGELS, provides a service called ANGEL Eye, a high-definition video camera accessible by secure login by the baby’s parents. This way parents can monitor the baby even though they may not be able to visit the hospital.

   “Where we live should not determine whether we live or die,” Abbiati said. “Of all the applications of the ARE-ON family, this is one of those where we can say very clearly ‘This saves lives.’ This is important.”

Emergency Management

   Ed Leachman, the department head of emergency management at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, presented how ARE-ON can enhance emergency management and response services.

   The emergency management department at ATU began in 1998. Today, over 300 graduates have moved on to professional careers. The department currently has 275 enrolled students; 200 undergraduates and 75 graduates.

   “Workshops for emergency management can be delivered across the state,” Leachman said.

   ATU provides 60 percent of its emergency management courses online. Technology allows lessons to be captured and replayed online later for students across the state.

   The department focuses on three core principles: all-hazards correlation, continuity of operations and long-term recovery.

   Leachman said ARE-ON provides real-time communication for federal-level management but most importantly for local emergency management leaders on the front lines of emergencies across the state.

Distance Learning

   Rebecca Martindale of UA presented information about distance learning and increasing resources in curriculum.

   She spoke about a series of monthly webinars with speakers discussing various technologies and their uses in the classroom. Speakers included James Werle of Muse, a social utility connecting Internet2-enabled educators and Jane Park, Education Coordinator for Creative Commons, a non-profit organization enabling people to share and work with data freed from restrictive copyright laws.

   “Access is no longer an issue. We need to look at what the opportunities are,” Martindale said. “Those (opportunities) are going to be driven by (educators) in the classroom and in the research conducted.”

Super Computing

   Jeff Pummill, Manager of Cyberinfrastructure Enablement for the Arkansas High Performance Computing Center, spoke about the availability of super computing through ARE-ON.

   One super computer available for research use, the Star of Arkansas, contains 1,256 2.66GHz compute cores with 16 gigabytes of memory. This system performs 11 million hours of compute time every year, and ranked 341 of 500 on the TOP500 Supercomputing Sites list.

   Because of ARE-ON, UAM now has access to TeraGrid, a network of supercomputers. Faculty and students have access to computers like the Kraken XT5 at the National Institute for Computational Sciences, a joint project of the University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Kraken supercomputer ranks number 4 in the world as of June 2010.

   Pummill said faculty and researchers can contact him directly through the AHPCC website (http://hpc.uark.edu/hpc) if they wish to utilize the power of these networks and supercomputers.

History of ARE-ON

   “With the potential behind what ARE-ON delivers to the classroom, there is no discipline that is not touched by the potential and power of ARE-ON,” Hoyle said. “We’re not just an on-ramp. We are a major interchange. UAM sets up the backbone of the ARE-ON network and gives us a lot of opportunity.”

   The development of ARE-ON began in 2005. Previous to 2005, fiber connections ran through Arkansas connecting Monroe, Pine Bluff, Little Rock and Fort Smith. In 2005, UA was awarded $6.4 million by the state due to an initiative by Governor Mike Huckabee. This began the eCorridors ARE-ON. This money helped purchase fiber connections and other hardware necessary to connect UA to the Internet2 backbone and the National LambdaRail, a network for advanced research.

   Research and education lead the way in the development of Internet2. It provides cutting-edge technologies and networking to develop and use new technologies for sharing information.

   In 2006, voters helped ARE-ON receive an additional $9.5 million in bonds from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. This money allowed the second phase of the project to begin, which will finish connecting the remaining public universities to ARE-ON. Because of this money UAM became the second university to join the network.

   Construction in Monticello began in April 2009. Crews laid two fiber routes through Monticello. All together, approximately 38 miles will be laid within cities like Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Russellville, Jonesboro, and Monticello.

   An additional 1,500 miles of long-haul cable will be laid connecting Fayetteville to Tulsa, Okla., looping back down to Fort Smith and Alma; Alma to Little Rock through Russellville and Conway; Little Rock to Jonesboro through Widener; Little Rock to Monroe through Pine Bluff and Monticello; Little Rock to Dallas through Arkadelphia and Guernsey; a route to Magnolia from Guernsey is pending.

   Once the public universities are online, ARE-ON plans on connecting the secondary and two-year universities in about three years.

   The network will provide ten campuses with 10 gigabit connection speeds, which can be upgraded to 32 gigabits. The total capacity of the network will be 400 gigabits per second.

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