OFFN, Supercomputers and Fast Connectivity – Making the Impossible Practical for Oklahoma’s Higher Education Institutions

Supercomputing and high-speed data transfer capabilities have made scientific discovery more practical. As a result, research computing in Oklahoma is growing by leaps and bounds thanks in part to OneNet’s OneOklahoma Friction Free Network.

OFFN is OneNet’s dedicated Science DMZ that provides access to supercomputing resources across the state and the ability to transfer data to research facilities around the world.

“Supercomputing makes the impossible practical,” said Henry Neeman, Director of Supercomputing Center for Education and Research, University of Oklahoma, who was one of the original designers of the OFFN network.

And that’s what OFFN is doing for students, faculty and staff at our state’s higher education institutions.

OFFN Growth

OFFN began with a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation in 2013 to increase research computing resources at the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and Langston University. Since then, OneNet and several institutions have applied for nine NSF Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) grants to expand OFFN and have received over $5 million in funding from NSF.

When all of the awarded projects are complete, OFFN will connect 30 higher education locations to OFFN. This gives campuses access to supercomputers at several universities that have offered to share their supercomputing resources with other institutions. Researchers also take advantage of OFFN’s high-speed data capabilities to move research data to supercomputers or other research facilities throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Learn more about how OFFN and supercomputers make the impossible practical – watch our video!

Increasing Connectivity

NSF has awarded the last five projects to OneNet and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. These projects have funded fiber builds to six locations—College of the Muscogee Nation, Rogers State University, Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, Oklahoma City University, Cameron University’s Fires Innovation Science and Technology Accelerator campus and Oklahoma State University’s Biomedical Imaging Center.

In addition, these five projects have increased bandwidth at participating campus locations to 10 Gbps or 100 Gbps connections.

OFFN Successes

The College of the Muscogee Nation is not only new to OFFN, but new to OneNet as well. As Oklahoma’s recognized tribal college, CMN plans to utilize the network for science and education projects in traditional Myskoke foods, water and soil research, and field conservation and sustainable agriculture.

“As researchers, faculty members, and administrators, we are continuing the legacy of education of our people,” said Dr. Monte Randall, CMN president. “To have the OneNet system on our campus and being able to connect to all of the Research 1 institutions in the state of Oklahoma is huge for us.”

Rogers State University connected to OFFN through an early grant, then received a fiber build and upgrade to their connectivity through a later grant. Faculty are using the connection to improve interactive learning for their popular game development courses.

“OFFN enabled the use of interactive and multimedia-rich educational content, making learning more engaging and effective,” said Dr. R. Curtis Sparling, department head and assistant professor for RSU. “Students can now collaborate in real-time on projects, assignments and group activities, enhancing their teamwork and communications skills.”

At Oklahoma State University’s Biomedical Imaging Center, the new OFFN connection will enable daily high-speed data transfers between the center in Tulsa and Oklahoma State University’s supercomputer in Stillwater. OSU scientists at the center study infant brain development, impacts of adverse childhood experiences on brain development and the body, and addiction and substance use disorders.

“OneNet allows us to take data that is collected here and quickly and safely send that data to the high-performance computing center’s supercomputer, which is named Pete,” said Kyle Simmons, Ph.D., director and professor in pharmacology and physiology at OSU Center for Health Sciences.

“Without OneNet’s backbone infrastructure we wouldn’t be able to do that. We would have to recreate those resources here in Tulsa, which would be really prohibitively expensive and unnecessary given the existence of the high-performance computing center in Stillwater.”

OFFN Reach

Currently, OneNet has one grant proposal pending with NSF. If funded, the project will increase OFFN connectivity to 100G to meet the growing research requirements at Langston University and University of Central Oklahoma.

“Thanks to NSF’s CC* program, research computing in Oklahoma has grown exponentially in the last 10 years,” said Brian Burkhart, OneNet’s chief technology officer and the principal investigator on several of the projects.

“As we bring more higher education institutions onto the OFFN network, we reach more students, faculty and staff across Oklahoma with opportunities for learning, discovering and growing the knowledge base and future workforce for our state.”

Learn more! Read about our most recent NSF CC* award!