Abstract
High-bandwidth communication has become a key factor for scientific installations as Observatories. This paper describes the technical, organizational, and operational goals and the level of completion of the ALMA Optical Link Project. The project focus is the creation and operation of an effective and sustainable communication infrastructure to connect the ALMA Observatory, located in the Atacama Desert, in the Northern region of Chile, with the point of presence in ANTOFAGASTA, about 400km away, of the EVALSO infrastructure, and from there to the Central Office in the Chilean capital, Santiago. This new infrastructure that will be operated in behalf of ALMA by REUNA, the Chilean National Research and Education Network, will use state of the art technologies, like dark fiber from newly built cables and DWDM transmission, allowing extending the reach of high capacity communication to the remote region where the Observatory is located. When completed, the end-to-end Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) capable link will provide ALMA with a modern, effective, robust, communication infrastructure capable to cope with present and future demands, like those coming from fast growing data transfer to rapid response mode, from remote monitoring and engineering to virtual presence.
