The research and education (R&E) community in Singapore just got a shot in the arm with the launch of a new Internet Exchange this week.

And according to the Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network (SingAREN), the SingAREN-Lightwave Internet Exchange (SLIX) is the first 100Gbps community network to be set up in the Southeast Asia region.

The National Research Foundation (NRF), SLIX is a network that links up SingAREN, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and the two oldest universities in Singapore, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the National University of Singapore (NUS).

These organizations form the core nodes of the SLIX ring setup which are in turn connected to other networks and organizations.

SLIX is built on an optical fiber core comprising dark fiber and uses dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology to deliver its 100Gbps speeds. SingAREN says the network has the capability of scaling up to 400Gbps - and higher - in future.

SingAREN began as a national project funded by the Singapore government, and was established to facilitate the cost-competitive adoption of advanced Internet technologies to benefit Singapore’s research and education community.

SingAREN itself is connected to various local educational institutions such as Republic Polytechnic and Singapore Polytechnic, as well as a number of R&E networks in the region.

Among others, this includes the TEIN*CC (Trans-Eurasia Information Network*Cooperation Center), the Academic and Research Network (AARNet) in Australia, and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan.

SLIX is expected to open up new possibilities as an R&E test-bed for big data including the transfer of genome and climate data, high-speed applications, and as a supercomputer interconnect. The high-speed core will also lend itself to benefits such as database mirroring services, bilateral disaster recovery, high volume traffic peering and high performance computing federation and other shared services.

Enhanced network services through collaboration with international partners are highlighted as possible plans for SLIX in the future, according to a presentation at the launch event held in Singapore on August 28.

“SingAREN is proud to be the first to launch a 100 Gbps research and education network in the region,” said Associate Professor Francis Lee Bu Sung, President of SingAREN.

“By increasing the network speed by ten-fold and with our suite of value-added services, SingAREN aims to facilitate collaborations amongst our local research organizations and with their international counterparts.”