(June 30, 2012) Data
transferred in 30 seconds while public Internet took over a day.
BGI, the world’s largest genomics organization, announced today that a
group of scientists and researchers successfully demonstrated genomic data
transfer at a sustained rate of almost 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) over a new
link connecting US and China research and education networks. This data rate is equivalent to moving more
than 100 million megabytes -- over 5,400 full Blu-ray discs -- in a single
day.
The data
transfer demonstration was part of a June 22nd event in Beijing celebrating a
new 10 Gigabit US – China network connection supported by Internet2, the China
Education and Research Network (CERNET), the National Science Foundation (NSF),
and Indiana University. Three centers and their representatives participated in
the demonstration – BGI, Dr. Xing Xu, Director of Cloud Computing Product;
University of California, Davis, Dr. Dawei Lin, Director of Bioinformatics Core
of Genome Center; and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Dr.
Don Preuss, Head of Systems Group. Aspera Inc., the creator of the technology
that moves the world’s data at maximum speed, provided software to support the
data transfers.