Funding renewal for CANARIE's CAnet 4 critical to future of Canadian research

The future of CANARIE Inc is becoming an increasing urgent concern for Canadian researchers in all walks of life as its five-year funding agreement with the federal government is due to expire at the end of this FY. Although there are positive indications that the Harper administration is receptive to funding renewal, the lack of certainty is prompting organizations dependent upon the agency's CAnet 4 high-speed research network to examine their options while speaking out in support of a new mandate.

CANARIE has submitted a request for $120 million over five years to Industry Canada, which will be forwarded to Cabinet for consideration in the next Budget. CANARIE officials would not comment on its funding situation for this story, but RE$EARCH MONEY spoke with several users of CAnet 4 and discovered a passionate defence of CANARIE and CAnet 4. High-speed networking is dramatically transforming the way research is conducted in the 21st Century and users contend that CANARIE is an integral element of Canada's ability to compete and innovate.

BCNET one of a series of optical regional advanced networks (ORANs) that serve their respective user communities and rely upon CANARIE to provide backbone infrastructure. BCNET president Michael Hrybyk says CANARIE has evolved into "essential research infrastructure", supporting several big science projects that are completely dependent on high-speed broadband.

"We're concerned that CAnet 4 gets adequate funding. The federal government can't simply turn off the national network," says BCNET president Michael Hrybyk. "Contracts for the network are finished on March 31st (2007) ... You can't run it down to the wire."

Nortel Networks Corp, Canada's largest R&D performer, also considers CANARIE to be an essential tool for remaining on the cutting edge of new applications development and networking capabilities. In 2005, Nortel established a direct link to CAnet 4 which it uses to connect to laboratories and researchers globally.

"Researchers don't just work in labs anymore. They need to work seamlessly and effectively with their peers on a global basis. The only way is through CANARIE," says Rod Wilson, Nortel's director of advanced technology research and a CANARIE board member. "CANARIE is an enabler and if it is not renewed, it would have a very profound effect."

In recent years, CANARIE has led the world in the develop of user controlled light paths (UCLP), giving researchers access to dedicated network connections with huge bandwidth. This year, it has added a new generation of optical equipment called Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexing (ROADM) to provide permanent lightpath connections to high-performance computing sites and others facilities (R$, October 18/06).

Tentative plans are also in the works to participate in a next-generation Intenet project that combines UCLP, web services and wireless, allowing researchers to configure high-bandwidth networking connections on demand. If CANARIE receives renewed funding, the new suite of technologies will enhance CAnet 4 and could lead to the creation of its successor, CAnet 5.

"There are wonderful examples of e-science moving forward because of high-speed networking. There is now access to networks that perform at 10 gigabits per second," says Wilson. "The Canada-France telescope can move pure, uncompressed data to researchers in France and Canada. There's an opportunity to stretch objectives and networks."

For individual universities, high-bandwidth networking has become part and parcel of conducting research, especially in the life sciences.

"The nature of research would have to change without CAnet 4," says Dr Tim McTiernan, executive director of Innovations at University of Toronto, U of T's research commercialization operations arm.

"There is a growing set of network connections between U of T's research strengths and North American and global research strengths, " says McTiernan, who is also U of T's assistant VP research. "It would be hard if there was no CAnet 4 because there's going to be exponential growth in the next few years."

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