Groundbreaking collaboration between sixteen research and industry partners to enable 100GigE transport and routing demonstration from Chicago to New Orleans Convention Center

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 15 -- Internet2 together with CANARIE, the Dutch Research Consortium, ESnet, NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Louisiana Optical Networking Initiative (LONI), Northwestern University, Metropolitan Research and Education Network (MREN), US LHCNet (Caltech and CERN), SCinet, Level 3 Communications, Ciena, Cisco, Infinera and Juniper Networks, will deliver a groundbreaking multi-vendor, multi-network 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) circuit between the StarLight Communications Exchange in Chicago and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. The collaborators will demonstrate the much-anticipated capabilities of the next-generation, 100GigE-enabled Internet2 Network to begin deployment in early 2011.

The demonstration represents a one-of-a-kind collaboration between three optical vendors -- Ciena, Cisco and Infinera -- and provides one of the most comprehensive 100GigE transport interoperability tests to date.

Internet2 executive director of network services, Rob Vietzke, emphasizes the crucial role that the showcased network speed and complementary technologies will play in propelling the global research vision and making life-changing advanced applications available to a growing list of community anchor and research institutions. "For scientific collaborations to operate reliably worldwide, we have to do more than dramatically increase network capacity. We have to build on top of interoperable equipment and networks that work together to ensure the most exacting requirements are met -- and optimum performance realized -- from end to end."

To enable the demo, Infinera is supplying a 100GigE-framed circuit between Chicago and Baton Rouge using Infinera 100GigE Tributary Adapter Modules on the Internet2 optical network managed by Level 3. Ciena is providing the 100GigE transport atop a single wavelength provisioned LONI-provided Cisco DWDM platform between Baton Rouge and the Louisiana State University Health Science Center in New Orleans. The 100Gbps wavelength then leverages the Ciena DWDM metro system to the exhibit floor via SCinet -- the SC10 conference network infrastructure.

"Vendor interoperability is an important step toward attractive 100Gig solutions and widespread adoption, and we're proud to be a part of a collaboration that successfully demonstrates the possibilities," said Jack Waters, Level 3 chief technology officer and president of Global Network Services.

Juniper Networks T1600 Core Router platform provides end-to-end 100GigE IP routing from Chicago to New Orleans. Internet2 is among the first networks to deploy Juniper's new 100GigE router line cards and will use them to build the next-generation Internet2 Network. Both Northwestern University, which operates StarLight (with the University of Illinois at Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory) and LONI are providing support to guarantee sufficient local and regional network capacity in Chicago and Louisiana, respectively.

During the SC10 conference, NASA, NOAA, ESnet, the Dutch Research Consortium, US LHCNet and CANARIE will transmit 100Gbps of scientific data between Chicago and New Orleans to showcase the possibilities enabled by this cutting-edge network technology. Through the use of 14 10GigE interconnects, researchers from these organizations are expected to completely utilize the full 100 Gbps worth of bandwidth by producing up to twelve 8.5-to-10Gbps individual data flows. These organizations are just a few of the many institutions worldwide that are driving the need for 100GigE-enabled networks to support the vast amounts of data being produced as part of their scientific research efforts.

"For supercomputing applications such as climate modeling, users need to be able to copy data files that are expanding at an ever-increasing rate," said J. Patrick (Pat) Gary, project manager for NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center 's High-End Computer Networking Team. "A current case is the International Governmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report, for which modeling centers will produce tens of petabytes of data that need to be available at multiple sites around the globe."

Harvey Newman, professor of Physics at Caltech and US LHCNet Principal Investigator, said "This is the leading edge of a national and worldwide transition to the next generation of 100G networks which are needed to meet the needs of the Large Hadron Collider and other major research programs within the next very few years. As we have shown at recent conferences, and in a production setting, the high energy physics community is ready, willing and able to fully utilize such networks in support of their search for the next round of physics discoveries."

According to Steve Cotter, department head, ESnet at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, "This demonstration of 100G interoperability is an important first step in building the ecosystem of networking, middleware, storage and computing capabilities that will enable large-scale, distributed science at 100G speeds and beyond."

The Internet2 booth (#3539) will present the demonstration through the use of perfSONAR-PS network performance monitoring software, which will provide real-time traffic flow visualization on the full 100GigE circuit. perfSONAR is developed as part of a collaboration between Internet2, ESnet, RNP and GEANT. perfSONAR-PS is developed via a collaboration of U.S. research and education organizations and government laboratories (http://psps.perfSONAR.net). The Juniper T1600 core router with the 100GE line card, can also be seen in live operation at the SCinet NOC booth (#3351).

About the Collaborators:

www.canarie.ca

www.ciena.com

www.cisco.com

www.es.net

www.juniper.net

www.icair.org

www.infinera.com

www.internet2.edu

www.level3.com

lhcnet.caltech.edu

www.loni.org

www.mren.org

www.nasa.gov

www.noaa.gov

www.startap.net/starlight/

http://www.science.uva.nl/research/sne/

http://sc10.supercomputing.org/?pg=scinet.html

About SC10

SC10, sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) offers a complete technical education program and exhibition to showcase the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. This premier international conference includes a globally attended technical program, workshops, tutorials, a world class exhibit area, demonstrations and opportunities for hands-on learning. For more information on SC10, visit http://sc10.supercomputing.org/

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Source: Internet2