CC*Network-Campus: Advancing High-Speed Networking for STEM Research and Education at Kennesaw State University

This project establishes a cutting-edge research network at Kennesaw State University (KSU) along with Science DMZs comprising a Data Transfer Node server. It also upgrades the campus fiber networking infrastructure, switching, and routing components. This networking infrastructure provides 400Gbit/s connectivity to ten buildings on two KSU campuses. It connects them to a dedicated research backbone router and a core router for buffering at the research edge. These are connected through redundant 40/100Gbit/s links to the campus perimeter firewall to the campus core network. The networking components are specifically designed for both intra- and inter-campus collaborations and optimized for large-scale data transfers from and to compute and storage resources. The project fosters twenty science, technology, engineering and mathematics projects ranging from trustworthy machine learning, amphibian genomics, active robot sensing, geo-economic multimodal systems to biomedical research. It supports Ph.D. programs in Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Engineering and Data Science and Analytics along with 20 master’s degree programs such as artificial intelligence, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, and cybersecurity. To train KSU’s faculty and students, the Center for Research Computing at KSU organizes workshops for their faculty and students on utilizing national open cyberinfrastructure resources. This initiative enables KSU to engage in national research and discoveries by linking it to national and global research platforms and data repositories. Availing open science cyberinfrastructures, faculty and students including underrepresented minorities will benefit from national technical services. Cyberinfrastructure professionals at the university will develop expertise in research computing while learning and adopting the state-of-the-art technologies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.