Exchange points play an important role in providing facilities in key geographic locations where numerous R&E networks co-locate. There are several U.S.-based exchange points that provide facilities that ease the interconnection of the Internet2 Network with non-U.S. R&E networks bringing links to the United States.

The following are U.S.-based international exchange points operated by Internet2:

Manhattan Landing (MAN LAN)

MAN LAN is a high-performance exchange point in New York City that supports Layer 2 Ethernet connections to facilitate peering among U.S. and international research and education (R&E) networks. The exchange point, built at 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY is a collaborative effort of:

• Internet2 – providing program management and operational oversight
• NYSERNet (The New York State Education and Research Network) – providing Manhattan collocation facilities, and metropolitan fiber resources
• The Global Research NOC at Indiana University – providing engineering support and daily technical operation of the MAN LAN exchange point.

View a diagram of MAN LAN connectivity. Learn how to obtain a connection at MAN LAN.

Washington International Exchange (WIX)

WIX is a high-performance exchange point in McLean, VA that supports Layer 2 Ethernet connections to facilitate peering among U.S. and international R&E networks. The exchange point is a collaborative effort of:

• Internet2 – providing program management and operational oversight
• Mid-Atlantic Crossroads Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) – providing engineering and logistical support

Today, WIX provides an open network exchange facility for a rich community of international and domestic research and education networks. By providing this critical connection point to the U.S. and abroad, WIX enables researchers to partner and collaborate with their peers around the world. WIX is also an active participant in the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF). The GLIF community shares a common vision of building a new grid computing paradigm in which the central architectural element is optical networks, not computers, to support the most demanding e-science applications. The GLIF’s links are being made available for scheduled use by scientists involved with advanced data-intensive application, middleware, protocol, and optical networking development.

The following are U.S.-based international exchange points operated by Internet2 community member organizations:

AMPATH is an international exchange point in Miami, Florida, that facilitates interconnections between the United States, Latin American and Caribbean research and education networks.  AMPATH aims to facilitate participation to under-represented groups in Latin America and the Caribbean in U.S. science and engineering research and education activities through the use of high-performance network connections.

AtlanticWave is an international peering fabric interconnecting the United States, Canada, Europe and South America. With distributed IP peering points in New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Miami, and Sao Paulo, AtlanticWave connects the key exchange points on the U.S. East Coast – MAN LAN, NGIX-East, SoX, and AMPATH.

Pacific Wave is a joint project between the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), and is operated in collaboration with the University of Southern California and the University of Washington. Pacific Wave provides a peering fabric available at three U.S. Pacific coast locations:

1. Bay Area (Sunnyvale and Palo Alto)
2. Los Angeles (3 sites)
3. Seattle

StarLight is a 1GigE and 10GigE switch/router facility for high-performance access to participating networks and a true optical switching facility for wavelengths. StarLight is operated by Northwestern University at a downtown campus location in Chicago, Illinois.