FSML: Improving Information Technology to Facilitate Research at the Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology

Pymatuning生态学实验室（PLE; http：//www.biology.pitt.edu/facilities/pymatuning）位于宾夕法尼亚州西北部的Pymatuning湖上，是匹兹堡大学的野外工作站。 PLE 85年来一直是生物学研究和教育场所。 该项目将改善车站两个主要站点（Sanctuary Lake和Housing）的互联网接入，用基于光纤的专用互联网接入（DIA）取代目前的DSL服务。与其提供与Research-1设施相当的研究基础设施的目标相一致，这一改进将使PLE首次为其研究用户提供快速，可靠和一致的互联网访问。这些改进也将为PLE的教育和外展任务开辟新的机会。 光纤DIA将更好地满足PLE的本科生和研究生的需求，并将促进生物学数据密集型领域的培训，如遥感，全球信息系统（GIS）和生物信息学。 PLE的外展使命为初中和高中学生提供了一些以探究为基础的学习机会，这些机会采取了学生设计的实验形式。 与这些学生建立可靠的虚拟连接将允许视频会议，这将促进PLE这种类型的推广活动的发展。该项目旨在为PLE的两个使用最频繁的站点提供光纤，目标是为PLE用户提供高达20 MB的专用互联网接入带宽（上传和下载）。 这意味着PLE目前提供的带宽大幅增加，并将大大减少在春季和夏季高使用率期间出现瓶颈的可能性。通过这些改进，主要研究人员（PI）及其研究团队将能够可靠地访问带宽密集型应用程序，例如从公开数据集中下载GIS，气象站或宏基因组学数据，将Powerpoint或其他大型媒体文件移动到云存储或从云存储中移动，或将新收集的数据集上传到数据库。随着带宽的增加，PLE研究人员也将能够更有效地管理其他职责，而在PLE居住，如编辑期刊，提交手稿和赠款建议，并与学生和同事进行虚拟会议。

The Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology (PLE; http://www.biology.pitt.edu/facilities/pymatuning), located on Pymatuning Lake in northwest Pennsylvania, is the University of Pittsburgh's field station. PLE has been a site of research and education in biology for 85 years. This project will improve internet access at the station's two main sites, Sanctuary Lake and Housing, by replacing the current DSL service with optical fiber-based Dedicated Internet Access (DIA). Consistent with its aim of providing a research infrastructure on par with a Research-1 facility, this improvement will allow PLE for the first time to provide its research users with fast, reliable, and consistent access to the internet. These improvements will open up new opportunities for PLE's education and outreach missions as well. The fiber-optic DIA will be much better positioned to keep pace with the needs of PLE's undergraduate and graduate students and will facilitate training in data-intensive areas of biology, such as remote sensing, global information systems (GIS), and bioinformatics. PLE's outreach mission offers a number of inquiry-based learning opportunities for middle and high school students that take the form of off-site student-designed experiments. Having a reliable virtual connection to such students will allow for videoconferencing, which will facilitate the growth of this type of outreach at PLE.This project aims to run optical fiber to PLE's two most heavily used sites, with the goal of providing up to 20MB (upload and download) Dedicated Internet Access bandwidth to PLE users. This represents a substantial increase in the bandwidths PLE currently provides and will greatly reduce the potential for bottlenecks during periods of high use, as occurs during the spring and summer months. With these improvements, primary investigators (PIs) and their research teams will be able to reliably access bandwidth-intensive applications, such as downloading GIS, weather station, or metagenomics data from publicly available datasets, moving Powerpoint or other large media files to and from cloud storage, or uploading newly-collected datasets to data repositories. With increased bandwidth PLE researchers will also be able to more effectively manage other responsibilities while in residence at PLE, such as editing journals, submitting manuscripts and grant proposals, and having virtual meetings with students and colleagues.