Pacific Wave Announces World’s First Trans-Pacific 100-Gigabit R&E Network

Berkeley, October 22, 2015 – Pacific Wave is pleased to announce that the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) has established the world’s first 100-Gigabit per second (Gbps) research and education (R&E) network link between Asia and the U.S., with related transit, peering, and exchange fabric. Pacific Wave is collaborating with Indiana University to provide this 100Gbps capability to the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded International Research Network Connections (IRNC) TransPAC4 project, led by IU. Pacific Wave recently received a five-year NSF IRNC award to serve as the U.S. Pacific Rim’s open and distributed interconnection, peering, and exchange fabric, including Software-Defined Exchange (SDX), Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and research DMZ capabilities.

This integrated 100Gbps trans-pacific layer 1, 2 and 3 TransPAC – Pacific Wave network fabric incorporates:

• A dedicated 100Gbps wavelength between the Pacific Wave national Research & Education (R&E) node in Seattle, U.S.A. and Tokyo, Japan
   
• 100Gbps peering and routing fabrics – using Brocade MLX routers - in Tokyo and Seattle
   
• Access and peering in Tokyo for Asian R&E networks at both the long-standing WIDE/T-REX/T-LEX Open Exchange Point, and at the newly-established Pacific Wave node at 3-8-21 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-Ku
   
• The 100Gbps connection in the U.S. using Pacific Wave’s existing 100Gbps open, distributed, wide-area peering and exchange fabric, which is based on a distributed mesh of Brocade MLX routers, across the Pacific Wave backbone, and has primary points of presence in Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles, as well as additional 100Gbps access and peering at StarLight in Chicago
   
• On the U.S. side, the Pacific Wave fabric provides direct 100Gbps connectivity with multiple 100Gbps interfaces to Internet2’s Advanced Layer 2 and 3 Services (AL3S and AL2S), as well as 100Gbps connectivity to ESnet, and 100Gbps and/or 10Gbps connections to nearly all the major Asia Pacific R&E networks, U.S. Department of Energy’s ESnet, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration N-wave, and commercial cloud providers regularly used by national and international R&E communities
   
• Interconnection of the U.S.-based Pacific Wave and the Japan-based WIDE/T-REX peering, exchange, interconnection and Science-DMZ facilities, creating the first intercontinental R&E open, distributed exchange and peering fabric
   
• Extension of the new Pacific Wave experimental SDN and SDX fabrics across the Pacific Ocean to Asia, enabling direct interconnection with Asian R&E SDN and SDX projects, including those supported by WIDE and others. GENI, OpenFlow, and related projects will also be supported
   
• Connectivity to Pacific Wave’s 100Gbps wide-area Inter-institutional Science DMZ network, which has primary points of presence within Los Angeles, Seattle, Sunnyvale, and which serves as the backplane for the new NSF-sponsored Pacific Research Platform

“In the end, the purpose of advanced networking is to accelerate progress in research and education and to speed and broaden our impact on society,” said Dr. David Lassner, president of the University of Hawaii. “This major improvement in both the speed and sophistication in Trans-Pacific connectivity will help our global academic community do both.”

“This milestone is great news. The world’s hardest problems can only be solved through global collaboration, and 10Gbps links will soon be insufficient to support large-scale science,” said Greg Bell, director of the Scientific Networking Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and director of the Energy Science Network (ESnet). “Faster data almost always means faster discovery. More important than bandwidth, though, is a growing spirit of international cooperation in our community: multiple stakeholders are working together towards a common goal of open, fast, and safe research networking for the world."

The TransPAC – Pacific Wave network infrastructure will also specifically support and enable:
 

• The TransPAC project, which supports research and education network traffic across the Pacific, through a collaboration with APAN, TEIN, DANTE, JGN-X, NICT, NICC, CERNET, and other Asian networking groups.
   
• Significant enhancement of the international GLIF (Global Lambda Integrated Facility) network fabric
   
• Direct interconnection of international “Science DMZ” fabrics, including those of Pacific Wave and StarLight with those in Asia and Europe thereby facilitating friction free 100Gbps interconnection of many of the world’s important production science and research data, instrument, and computational resources
   
• A broad range of scientific research efforts, including big data and remote instrument based projects that are currently limited by low capability connectivity across the Pacific Ocean
   
• Network R&D efforts including better support of big data flows, 8k, 4k, and 3D video distribution, as well as real-time interactive instrument control, virtual reality, and tele-presence applications
   
• Faster, more powerful and more flexible interconnections among Pacific Rim and major North American science resources – cloud, compute, storage, and other capabilities important to the research community
   
• Extension of the Pacific Wave open peering fabric to include a Tokyo point-of-presence, which directly interconnects with the WIDE/T-REX exchange in Tokyo, thus enabling direct R&E peering and exchange across the Pacific
   
• Improved connectivity between Asian collaborators and the international telescopes in Hawaii via the inter-related NSF IRNC project which has been awarded to the University of Hawaii(with CENIC and PNWGP as partners) to team with AARnet in upgrading the existing dual 40Gbps links to two 100Gbps links that terminate on Pacific Wave and provide dual access points in Hawaii

The 100Gbps link is presently in operation and the related advanced R&E network peering and other infrastructures are expected to be fully operational later this autumn.

 “This new trans-pacific 100Gbps network fabric, which includes built-in open-exchange and peering, as well as support for SDX, SDN and Research DMZ capabilities, is an important step forward in evolving an optimal, highly flexible global architecture for high-performance interconnection of research and education networks and, most importantly, the world’s researchers and their crucial instruments, data, and applications,” said Professor Jun Murai of Keio University and WIDE.

“This project brings together some of the most remarkable scientists on both sides of the Pacific, along with an amazing group of technical experts.  We are also grateful for the support of commercial partners like Brocade, who provided essential hardware to us and assisted us in quickly deploying this 100Gbps trans-Pacific link,” said David Reese, managing director of Pacific Wave.

Pacific Wave Participants:

AARNet, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Amazon, Asia Pacific Advanced Networks, California Community Colleges, California Institute of Technology, California K-12 System, California State University, CANAIRIE (Canada), Carnegie-Mellon University West, CENIC, Center for Infectious Disease Research, CenturyTel, CERNET (China Chapman University, CineGrid, CISCO, City of Seattle, CSTNet (China), CUDI (Mexico), Defense Research and Engineering Network III, Energy Sciences Network, Exploratorium, Front Range Gigapop, NTT ResearchGEMnet (Japan) , GLIF, GLORIAD, Gonzaga University, Google, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Idaho Regional Optical Network, Institute for Disease Modeling, Institute for Systems Biology , Internet2, JGN-X (Japan), KISTI/KREONet (Korea), Los Nettos, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Research, Montana State University, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Research and Education Network, Naval Postgraduate School, New Mexico GigaPop, Nevada System of Higher Education, NICT (Japan), NII/SINET (Japan), NOAA N-Wave, NOAA PMEL, NORDUnet, North Dakota State University, Northern Wave, Northwest Access Exchange, NSF International Research Network Connections, NTT Research, National University of Singapore Gigapop (NUS-GP), Pacific Northwest Gigapop, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, California Public Libraries, Pepperdine University, PRAGMA, Providence Health & Services, Qatar Foundation (Qatar), ResearchChannel, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle Internet Exchange, Seattle Science Foundation, SF Jazz, Spokane Symphony, Stanford University, Starlight/Translight, Tata Communications, TransPAC (Asia), TWAREN (Taiwan), UltraLight, University of Alaska, University of California, University of Hawaii, University of Montana, University of New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton West, University of San Diego, University of San Francisco, University of Southern California , University of Washington, Virginia Mason Medical Center, WA Dept. of Transportation, WA Dept. of Information Services, Washington K-20 Network, Washington State Libraries, Washington State University, Western Regional Network, Western Washington University

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About Pacific Wave • www.pacificwave.net

Pacific Wave is a joint project of the Pacific Northwest Gigpop (PNWGP) and CENIC (the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California) which is partially supported by NSF funding. Pacific Wave is a pioneering, high-performance, production quality, open, distributed peering and exchange fabric that spans and integrates nodes across the entire west coast of the USA from Mexico to Canada and has major points-of-presence in Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles on its purpose-built 100Gbps open peering backbone.  Now, via the new 100Gbps TransPac – Pacific Wave link, the open peering and exchange fabric extends to and includes T-REX in Tokyo.  Pacific Wave interconnects nearly all of the Asia Pacific Region’s research and education networks and enables them to directly connect, on their own terms, and under their own control, to each other and to other resources in the USA and elsewhere, including the North America’s primary open exchanges such as StarLight, and North American R&E networks such as Internet2, NREN, DREN, CANARIE, AMPATH, CUDI, and to the full range of USA commodity ISPs and cloud providers. Pacific Wave’s facilities also include (1) a second dedicated 100Gbps West Coast 100Gbps backbone, providing a production quality Science DMZ fabric and (2) the new Pacific Research Platform; and dedicated, independent, purpose-built SDX, SDN, and OpenFlow fabrics, including two separate 10Gbps links for enabling “breakable network” experimentation. All these facilities directly interconnect with Internet2’s AL2S/AL3S and other experimental fabrics.  The Pacific Wave points of presence in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Sunnyvale serve as GLIF Optical Lambda Exchange Facilities (“GOLE’s”).

About WIDE, and T-REX • www.wide.ad.jp

WIDE, the Widely Integrated Distributed Environment is both a long standing, large scale, Japanese network research consortium and an ongoing project which encompasses leading-edge network research and networking for research, as well as a continuing array of endeavors which regularly make major contributions to the development and evolution of the Internet, and to the successful incubation and commercialization of key network technologies. The WIDE consortium, which was founded in 1988 by Professor Jun Murai of Keio University and his team, is comprised more than 100 leading technology-driven companies and approximately 70 universities across Japan. As part of its ongoing research and education mission, WIDE operates the international, high-performance, open exchange peering and interconnection capability – called “T-REX” (Tokyo Research Exchange) - which serves as Japan’s open exchange, GLIF GOLE, and primary R&E peering site. WIDE also provides several other open internet exchanges within Japan. 

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop  (PNWGP) • www.pnwgp.net

The Pacific Northwest GigaPoP (PNWGP) is a nonprofit, participant and research driven, advanced networking organization whose roots, and team, go back to helping create, and being a major component of the original internet. The PNWGP has a record of helping develop key Internet technologies. 

About CENIC • www.cenic.org

CENIC connects California to the world—advancing education and research statewide by providing the world-class network essential for innovation, collaboration, and economic growth. This nonprofit organization operates the California Research & Education Network (CalREN), a high-capacity network designed to meet the unique requirements of over 20 million users, including the vast majority of K-20 students together with educators, researchers, and other vital public-serving institutions. CENIC’s Charter Associates are part of the world’s largest education system; they include the California K-12 system, California Community Colleges, the California State University system, California’s Public Libraries, the University of California system, Stanford, Caltech, and USC. CENIC also provides connectivity to leading-edge institutions and industry research organizations around the world, serving the public as a catalyst for a vibrant California.

About International Networks at Indiana University  • http://internationalnetworking.iu.edu

International Networks at IU leads two large-scale international research networks that link scientists around the world, making it possible for them to collaborate and share information that can lead to life-changing discoveries. IU International Networks is responsible for planning, operating, and managing the National Science Foundation-funded America Connects to Europe network (Award #0962973), which links the US to Europe, and TransPAC, which links the US to Asia (Awards #0962968 and #1450904).

About TransPAC – Pacific Wave • www.pacificwave.net

TransPAC – Pacific Wave is a joint effort of two NSF-funded projects: TransPAC4, (NSF grant number 1450904) which supports backbone circuits between the US and Asia, and Pacific Wave, an advanced, distributed, open exchange operated by the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) and the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), which supports and interconnects R&E networks and other network resources across the Pacific Rim and the USA. Jennifer Schopf, Ph.D., Indiana University’s Director of International Networks, is principal investigator on the TransPAC award.  Louis Fox of CENIC and Ron Johnson of PNWGP and the University of Washington’s Information School are the Pacific Wave principals.

Pacific Wave Media Contacts:

Lee Ann Weber  lweber@cenic.org
714.220.3465

Pacific Northwest Gigapop Media Contact:
Jonah Keough keough@pnwgp.net
206.897.2188

Indiana University Media Contact:
Ceci Jones ccjones@iu.edu
812.856.2337