The Coordinator of the Communications Center of the Polytechnic of Bragança, Nuno Rodrigues, shares the importance of this higher education institution's 100 Gbps connection (RCTS100* Project) to the Science, Technology and Society Network: "This activation has a special meaning for our academic community".
#1 What is the significance and impact of the activation of the connection of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança to the national 100 Gbps education and research network?
The activation of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança 's 100 Gbps connection to RCTS has a special significance for our academic community. This is because it finally represents the provision of connectivity to our institution under the same technical conditions (throughput and redundancy) as those provided for a long time to most institutions on the coast of our country. We know that this was a long-standing desire of the entire team at the FCCN Unit who, without ever giving up, have always shown the utmost commitment over the years to finding viable options that would lead to the elimination of this "digital divide", which has now come to fruition. Above all, we would like to acknowledge and thank everyone at the FCCN Unit who contributed to this result.
#2 What importance and impact do the digital services and projects of the FCCN Unit have on the day-to-day life of the IPBragança community?
The Polytechnic Institute of Bragança currently serves an academic community of more than 10,000 people, including students and teaching and non-teaching staff. This is a community with high connectivity requirements, which makes intensive use of electronic media to carry out a wide range of activities, whether teaching, administrative, research or outreach to the local and regional community. In this sense, the Unit's digital services FCCN are now essential tools and are used daily by our community in the different areas identified. In addition to the fundamental high-speed Internet connectivity service, we would like to highlight the importance for our institution of the Colibri/Zoom service in supporting teaching activities and the online access to scientific production provided by the b-on service.
#3 What other positive impacts result from this activation?
The completion of this new 100 Gbps connection, together with the integration of IPB's connection into the DWDM network managed by the FCCN Unit, will also boost the growth of the advanced computing cluster of the Digitization and Intelligent Robotics Research Centre (CEDRI/IPB) and facilitate its future integration into national and international advanced computing networks. In addition, it will allow access to the RCTS Lambda service (dedicated point-to-point circuits between teaching and research entities around the world), thus boosting the participation of the IPB research community (teachers, researchers, research centers) in national and international projects involving advanced computing resources, particularly in terms of big data and AI.
* Project co-financed by the Technical Assistance Operational Program, Portugal 2020 and the European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund.
