• OPTICAL INSIGHTS BLOG

POLATIS switch at the heart of a networking record at SC22 Conference in Dallas


HUBER+SUHNER Polatis was proud to be a part of building the SCinet high-performance network for the SC22 supercomputing conference, where a WAN conference record was set. The Dallas conference brought together members of the international high-performance computing, networking, storage and analysis community to share the latest research, technologies and demonstrations.

This year's conference theme "HPC Accelerates" refers to how supercomputing is rapidly changing the world, by "accelerating" the speed of finding solutions – for corporations, governments, and other organizations.

The research innovations being demonstrated leveraged international connectivity provided by the collocating partners. They showed transmission of data and video streams of various qualities across a multi-continental path, using cloud and edge computing approaches to perform at-scale video processing, and to measure and monitor the network infrastructure, using this intelligence to dynamically control the network path.

SCinet is the dedicated high-capacity network for the annual conference. It is designed and built by a global volunteer collaboration of high-performance networking experts, which this year numbered 175 including Polatis VP Program Management and Architecture Rich Jensen, who commissioned the POLATIS switch.

SCinet showcases cutting-edge HPC technologies in network, hardware, protocols, information systems, software, and security – pushing the boundaries of networking technologies and innovations through workshops, demos, and collaborative opportunities. During the week of the conference, it becomes the most powerful and advanced network on Earth, connecting the SC22 community to the world.

This year SCinet set a WAN conference record 5.01 Tb/s total transmission bandwidth from across the globe that was switched through the POLATIS all-optical switch in the conference network operating center to the conference floor.

In reflecting on this year’s SC22 Rich Jensen said: "It was really great to be part yet again of this important industry event and have the chance to showcase our technology through this record-setting achievement. The signal and format-independent POLATIS all-optical switch is ideally suited to transparently switch the mixed 10GE, 100Ge, and 400GE formats of the WAN traffic signals."

Footnote to the picture: Spot the POLATIS switch just above the head of the crouching technician.