The National LambdaRail (NLR) is a consortium of leading U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies whose goal is to advance the research, clinical, and educational goals of its members and other institutions by establishing and maintaining a unique nationwide network infrastructure that is owned and controlled by the U.S. research community. NLR aims to support experimental and production networks, foster networking research, promote next-generation applications, and facilitate interconnectivity among high-performance research and education networks.

In October 2006, the NLR held its third "All Hands" meeting in Indianapolis. Case Western Reserve University is a member of NLR and was represented at the meeting by Dr. Roger Bielefeld, Director of Research Computing within ITS at Case. Previous meetings were held in Raleigh (June 2005) and Pittsburgh (April 2006).

The NLR web site is an excellent source of complete information on NLR, including especially the new map page, the page on support for researchers, and the NLR network operations center home page.

Case's connection to the NLR was made live in November 2006. Researchers interested in using the NLR connection are encouraged to investigate the information cited above and to contact Roger Bielefeld.