Category: Case studies

REANNZ Connected Schools and their Network Use

Value for Schools Being Part of the REANNZ Community is Demonstrated

We have recently completed projects to monitor schools network traffic. The Mid Canterbury Schools cluster connected to the REANNZ Network in 2011. During Term 2, 2012, as part of a project for the Ministry of Education, we monitored the traffic that this cluster of 23 schools generated. The data collected clearly shows the value of being part of the REANNZ community.

The numbers - for the total cluster traffic:

    • 48.5% travelled over the REANNZ Network
    • 26.7% came across REANNZ’s international link from Sydney
    • 33.3% was sourced from New Zealand based caches

Once a school is connected and part of the REANNZ community they have “all you can eat” access to the network for a fixed fee, unlike most ISPs.

The more content and services that are available on our network, the greater the value is to our members. Through our “settlement-free-peering policy” REANNZ is continuously adding content to the network, meaning that as more content is carried on the REANNZ Network, ISP fees that our members have to pay, will go down.

Find the report here, and see our website if you want to join the REANNZ community.

Are you interested in how well your home, school or work broadband connection is? Join the thousands who have tested and compared their ISP’s performance on the New Zealand Broadband Test website.

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Searching for a new earth

As many of you know, REANNZ regularly publishes case studies that highlight some of the interesting things our members have been doing.

In the past, these “interesting things” have included genetic engineering to produce bigger, healthier sheep, improving the odds of surviving a tsunami, and even creating music when the musicians are in three separate countries.

This time, it’s all about looking into space in an effort to find planets like Earth.

Alpha Centauri

It’s the work of an international team that includes Professor John Hearnshaw from the University of Canterbury. The focus is on searching for Earth-like planets in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ with liquid water, and neither too hot or cold.

The team is looking at our nearest neighbour, Alpha Centauri. They’re making tens of thousands of observations over three years to measure any “wobble”, and this will enable them to calculate the mass of any planets, as well as their orbit.

Case study

The case study is out now. The full version has been visible on our website for a couple of days, and we’ve just now included an A4 pdf version for you to download if you wish.

Feel free to check out the other case studies we’ve put together as well—there’s a full list on our website.

Suggestions

Finally, if you are engaged in an interesting project, use our network in some way and would like to see your efforts highlighted in a similar case study in the future, then we’d very much like to know!

Contact us and we’ll be in touch.

(Image: Fraser Gunn Photography)

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KAREN Seminar: IPv6 for real-time musical collaboration

Join us on Tuesday 26 July when Associate Professor Ian Whalley will share his experiences of spearheading the use of IPv6 for international electroacoustic music collaboration.

Technology enables new forms of musical collaboration

Ian Whalley from the University of Waikato is leading the charge in the application of advanced networks and IPv6 for music performance collaboration. He recently collaborated with musicians in China and Canada in a real-time, live musical performance over a distance of 30,000 kilometres.

Advanced networks, through real-time digital audio and HD video, provide the opportunity for electroacoustic music practitioners to connect with, bridge, amalgamate, and lead diverse sound-based music traditions; facilitating new hybrid sonic art forms. The presentation covers how KAREN (and our relationships with Internet2 and other NRENs around the globe) makes this possible, some of the technical issues faced with using IPv6, and then a example work is put forward to illustrate various points made.

For more, you can read the full case study about Ian’s research and performance.

How to participate

This event is being held 3:30 – 4:30, Tuesday 26 July 2011 via the KAREN Video Conferencing Service. You can find video conferencing connection details on our event calendar.

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NZ on the hunt for Dark Matter – KAREN Spotlight #4

In this KAREN spotlight on uses of the network for science and education, we explore the New Zealand Compact Muon Solenoid group’s international collaboration on the search for new particles.

New Zealand physicists have joined the world-wide search for dark matter, an invisible building block of the Universe

A group of New Zealand physicists can better collaborate on CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) projects based in Switzerland and France thanks to KAREN. The high-speed connection to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid means New Zealand researchers can partner with CERN members from approximately 60 other counties in the search for new particles.

The CMS group hopes to learn more about the origin of mass, extra dimensions of space, the reasons for the imbalance of matter and antimatter observed in the Universe, and dark matter.

For more, you can read the Godzone particle hunters case study.

Get your copy of this case study

These case studies are available as A4 pdfs for you to download. You can find the full list of case studies on our publications page. We also have printed copies of KAREN case studies on hand and available for you to use. Simply contact us and we can send them to you.

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Digital Music Seminar

Join the team from the Albany St Studio on 22 March who are investigating remote music production, recording and performance through their high-end, KAREN connected digital music production console.

About this seminar

Run by the University of Otago, the Albany St Studio recently welcomed the addition of a state of the art digital production console. With the console now connected to KAREN, the music men of Albany St Studio are starting to gather a team of musicians, researchers and companies interested in experimenting with music at a distance.

Join Stuart Barson and John Egenes from 3:30 – 4:30pm on Tuesday 22 March to hear about their plans for the studio and their recent exploratory trips to the UK and USA to meet leaders in digital music and plant the seeds of artistic collaborations.

This open seminar is being held via the KAREN Video Conferencing Service.

How to participate

See the ‘KAREN seminar: Music without borders’ event listing for connection details.

More information

View the ‘Music without borders’ case study on our website

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KAREN Connects Australian and New Zealand SKA Teams over 5500 kms

Last week, the Australia – New Zealand SKA (Square Kilometer Array) team successfully ran a supersonic radio astronomy data trial over KAREN’s new 1Gb/s link to Sydney.

Australia – New Zealand SKA development continues excellent progress

Auckland University of Technology’s Institute for Radio Astronomy and Space Research (IRASR) and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at Curtin University in Perth made a significant contribution to Australia – New Zealand SKA (Square Kilometer Array) development last week with a successful, high-speed data transfer trial.

Data from AUT’s 12-metre radio telescope at Warkworth recorded during joint Trans-Tasman radio astronomical observations of radio galaxy Centaurus A, was successfully transferred to Curtin University at 1Gb/s. It took less than one hour to transfer 0.5 TeraByte of radio astronomical data from AUT to Curtin.

1 Gb/s KAREN link to Sydney proven

This was made possible by the recent upgrade of KAREN’s (Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network) international connectivity between New Zealand and Australia from 155 Mb/s to 1 Gb/s. KAREN’s new international network went live on 15 November and provides the only research link between New Zealand and Australia. The new, upgraded service provides 1 Gb/s capacity to both Sydney and Los Angeles, greatly enhancing the opportunity for KAREN members to communicate and collaborate with the global research and education community.

Professor Sergei Gulyaev from AUT University says, “I congratulate REANNZ and the New Zealand KAREN community for securing such a significant upgrade of international connectivity. For us, New Zealand radio astronomers, it opens up the opportunity for real-time operations and allows us to move from the technique of VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) to its real-time version, e-VLBI, the basic technique for future SKA.”

Professor Steven Tingay from Curtin University says: “This is a very important milestone towards Australian – New Zealand SKA development. Electronic data transfer for the large data volumes generated in radio astronomy is an important technique that enables the maximum science to be extracted from our observations. This milestone will allow a wide range of science to be jointly undertaken by Australian and New Zealand radio astronomers”.

Donald Clark, CEO of REANNZ says “KAREN’s upgraded international network was specifically designed to meet the increasing capacity demands of our members and ensure New Zealand’s continued participation in leading-edge, international science like the SKA. We’re truly impressed by the Australasian SKA community’s enthusiasm which saw them take advantage of the full 1Gb/s capacity only two days after the network went live.”

More information

Check out the KAREN Weathermap graphic on the SKA Australia – New Zealand website (http://www.ska.gov.au/news/Pages/101123-KARENconnectsAustralianandNewZea…)

Read the Gazing at galaxies far, far away case study on our website

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Research for customised healthcare – KAREN Spotlight 3

In this third KAREN spotlight on uses of the network for science and education, we explore the Auckland Bioengineering Institute’s organ modelling for diagnosis and treatment of disease.

NZ leads new approach to disease diagnosis

The Auckland Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland is a lead player in the international Physiome Project. Headed by Rutherford Medal winner, Professor Peter Hunter, this project is creating sophisticated mathematical models of all a human’s organs that will lead to a new patient-specific approach to the diagnosis and treatment of disease and help doctors to provide treatment customised to the individual patient.

For more, read the full Tailor-made healthcare case study.

Get your copy of this case study

These case studies are available as A4 pdfs for you to download. You can find the full list of case studies on our publications page. We also have printed copies of KAREN case studies on hand and available for you to use. Simply contact us and we can send them to you.

[Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net]

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Sheep Genome Success – KAREN spotlight 2

In this second KAREN spotlight on uses of the network for science and education, we explore AgResearch’s participation in an international collaboration to produce a new genetic tool to improve sheep breeding.

Building bigger, better sheep

AgResearch has played a vital role in the development of the Illumina Ovine SNP50 BeadChip – a cutting-edge research and production tool that will help produce bigger and healthier sheep. KAREN enabled AgResearch to host a single sequencing database accessible to all research partners.

For more, read the full Building bigger, better sheep case study

Get your copy of this case study

These case studies are available as A4 pdfs for you to download. You can find the full list of case studies on our publications page. We also have printed copies of KAREN case studies on hand and available for you to use. Simply contact us and we can send them to you.

[Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net]

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Tsunami – Improving the Odds: KAREN Spotlight 1

Earlier this year, I talked to GeoNet Project Director, Dr Ken Gledhill about their use of KAREN in receiving real-time tsunami data from monitoring stations across the pacific to better predict how tsunami will strike NZ’s coastline. Check out the case study for more details.

New uses of KAREN on show

Over the last few months we’ve been catching up with researchers and educators across our membership to understand their use of KAREN. This has given rise to a fresh set of case studies about our communities’ use of ICT over KAREN. We have been publishing these case studies online and sharing them with KAREN stakeholders.

We think these fantastic exemplars deserve a longer time in the sun, so we’ll be turning the spotlight on a new case study every couple of weeks. Keep tuned for more…

Warning system saves lives

The first case study explores GNS’s hazard monitoring system GeoNet. We talk to GeoNet Project Director, Dr Ken Gledhill (who has since been busy with the Canterbury earthquakes) about GeoNet’s use of KAREN in receiving real-time tsunami data from monitoring stations across the pacific.

For more, read the full Tsunami: improving the odds case study

Get your copy of this case study

These case studies are available as A4 pdfs for you to download. You can find the full list of case studies on our publications page. We also have printed copies of KAREN case studies on hand and available for you to use. Simply contact us and we can send them to you.

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