Internet2 comes to Portland

The Portland Research and Education Network (PREN) is a collaborative project of the three principal research and education institutions in the Portland metropolitan area: Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology (OGI), Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) and Portland State University (PSU).
Internet2 connectivity was initially achieved on July 26, 2000.

   Before this, Portland was the only metropolitan area among the top 25 that had not been connected to Internet2. To rectify this situation, the three main centers of high technology research and education in Portland, Oregon Graduate Institute (OGI), Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), and Portland State University (PSU), built a metropolitan area network to interconnect the three institutions, and to connect this network to the Intemet2 via the Pacific/Northwest Gigapop. This connection is transforming, qualitatively and quantitatively, many high quality research projects in the three institutions, as well as enabling many challenging new research areas, ranging from medical imaging to adaptive quality of service (QoS) to distributed access to automated chip test equipment.

OGI, OHSU, and PSU worked closely together to create this cost effective solution for the proposed connection to Intemet2. All three institutions have demonstrated experience with establishing and running high quality network infrastructures. Most importantly, all three partners are working together in this project, sharing expertise and experiences, including the participation of Dr. Lazowska and Dr. Corbato, representatives of the Pacific/Northwest Gigapop. The successful collaboration among the partners with complementary skills, leveraging the significant Felp from the extensive experience of University of Washington personnel, produced the cost effective network plan.

The three partner institutions represent the cutting edge in research in their respective disciplines: OGI in Computer Science and Engineering, OHSU in Health Sciences, and PSU in Engineering. Combined, the three institutions have over $140 million of sponsored research per year. The proposed network will foster cross-disciplinary research among the, three institutions, and collaborations between Portland and other researchers already on Intemet2.