Old Dominion University will serve as the hub of a high-speed computer network that will link universities, laboratories, research centers and military posts in Hampton Roads with other institutions nationwide.

ODU’s participation in the National LambdaRail (NLR) project presents a unique opportunity for local researchers, making possible “big science” research, storage and visualization among and between Old Dominion and the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center – an ODU research center in Suffolk – and the College of William and Mary, NASA Langley Research Center, the Joint Training, Analysis, and Simulation Center and Jefferson Lab.

Jefferson Lab, W&M and NASA all were instrumental in helping bring the NLR hub to the region, ODU officials said.

“NLR connectivity puts ODU researchers at the same computational power-plane as every one else in the strongest research houses of this country,” said Mohammad Karim, ODU’s vice president for research. “Our researchers, particularly in the arena of modeling and simulation, digital library, oceanographic studies, nuclear physics, and sensor fusion, will be able to interact and swap data and information with collaborators from almost anywhere in almost real-time.”

When the network is completed this fall, it will allow supercomputers in multiple locations to operate like one machine, greatly increasing the available computing capability to gigabit and higher speeds. Researchers in different parts of the country will have a forum in which to do large-scale computing projects together.

To create the NLR backbone, regional nodes will be positioned in major urban areas to form a transcontinental network, with nodes in New York, Boston, Raleigh, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle, to name a few. The node in Washington, D.C., passes through Northern Virginia and serves ODU, as well as Richmond, Charlottesville and Blacksburg.

With heated global competition, the United States is in a marathon race to maintain an edge in fundamental areas of research and innovation. NLR will provide critically needed high-speed network infrastructure for the next generation of research and goes beyond Internet and Internet2 technology.