This year at the upcoming Supercomputing 2024 (SC24) conference, Pacific Wave infrastructure will be supporting numerous Network Research Exhibitions (NREs) showcasing methods to improve and accelerate international scientific discovery, collaboration, and analysis.

As big data gets ever bigger, researchers around the world have learned that managing these data flows is more than a matter of building bigger and bigger pipes. The challenges of managing the network and scientific workflows, as well as integrating globally distributed resources into a flexible infrastructure that meets the needs of many disciplines, have grown equally in pace with the data rates.

The NREs taking place at the annual Supercomputing conference seek to address these challenges so that scientific discovery continues and researchers are empowered by the data bounty they have created rather than being overcome by it.

Integrating International Compute, Storage, and Visualization Resources, and More

The North America Research and Education Exchange (NA-REX) is a collaboration to improve research and education networking in North America, and by extension globally, enabled by participation in open international Research and Education (R&E) exchange points and national and regional R&E networks. The collaboration is designed specifically to support R&E communities to accelerate science research, especially multi-domain science, data-intensive science, and research testbeds by developing an international infrastructure based on 400 Gbps end-to-end paths interconnecting major open exchange points. Other service components include open exchange Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs), and AutoGOLE/NSI dynamic provisioning.

The NA-REX infrastructure, along with Pacific Wave, StarLight in Chicago, and other resources, will support several NREs, including the Global Research Platform (GRP). The GRP will demonstrate techniques that dynamically create powerful, distributed, integrated systems of computers, data storage, visualization displays, and instruments at collaborating sites around the globe, making it easier for researchers to share resources, innovations, information, and knowledge. NA-REX itself will also conduct its own multi-booth international demonstrations using 400 Gbps paths along Pacific Wave, StarLight, and Internet2’s WIX to the SC24 venue in Atlanta.

• Global Research Platform (GRP) at StarLight (Booth 2751)

• NA REX Demonstration

Supporting Near-Terabit International Data Transfers and Application Use

Pacific Wave, as part of the APOnet collaboration, is supporting NICT and NII experiments such as demonstrating 800 Gbps data-transfer from Japan to the United States using Massively Multi-Connect File Transfer Protocol (MMCFTP), as well as demonstrating Tbps-scale Network Layer Anonymous Communication on Programmable Switches which offers improved security and reduces the amount of equipment required at each endpoint.

Another demo by Osaka University in Japan seeks to improve the memory-to-disk performance which may enhance the ability of researchers to analyze research data quickly. Five of the ten pathways across the Pacific used for these demonstrations will be facilitated by Pacific Wave and other collaborating international networks.

• MMCFTP’s Data Transfer Experiment Using Ten 100 Gbps Lines Between JAPAN and USA at NICT (Booth 3155)

• Disk-to-Disk Data Transfer Performance Investigation on Long-haul Networks Towards Practical Application of Research-EnhanceD ONION (RED ONION) at NICT

• Cross-Site Network Telemetry Based on Programmable Network Technology at NICT

• Toward Terabit-Scale Anonymous Communication Leveraging Programmable Switches at NICT

Improving Management of Large-Scale Network-Enabled Scientific Workflows

The SciTags initiative is an open international collaboration developing practical networking capabilities for High Energy Physics (HEP) research using National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), including the LHCOPN and LHCOne. SciTags is being developed to provide high-fidelity visibility into how science flows utilize network resources end-to-end, allowing R&E networks to better understand resource utilization and manage large-scale scientific workflows.

The demonstration will showcase the management of internationally distributed resources at a variety of Open Exchange Points over 400 Gbps paths provided by Pacific Wave, StarLight, CANARIE, the Metropolitan Research and Education Network (MREN), and NA-REX.

• Packet Marking and Flow Labeling for Networked Scientific Workflows, at StarLight

Dynamic Service Provisioning for Petabyte Data Exchanges

The Global Network Architecture Group (GNA-G) AutoGOLE/SENSE working group will also be presenting several demonstrations and experiments to showcase the global persistent multi-resource infrastructure based on the integration of the AutoGOLE and Software-defined network for End-to-end Networked Science at Exascale (SENSE) functions.

One SC24 demonstration will be showing workflows which include the resources in connected external facilities. Another demonstration will show data movement systems that can interact with the network to optimize their operations.

• A Next Generation Multi-Terabit/sec Campus and Global Network System for Data Intensive Sciences at Ciena (Booth 1940)

• Multi Domain Experiments Using ESnet SENSE on the National Research Platform / PacWave / FABRIC at Ciena

• AutoGOLE/SENSE: Edge Site Resource Integration with Network Services at US Department of Energy (Booth 3401)

• SENSE and Rucio/FTS/XRootD/dCache Interoperation at US Department of Energy

• International P4 Experimental Networks for The Global Research Platform and Other Research Platforms at StarLight

Integrating Internal and External Distributed Resources

Another set of demonstrations will show the FABRIC (Adaptive Programmable Research Infrastructure for Computer Science and Science Applications) infrastructure in operation.  FABRIC is an international infrastructure that enables cutting-edge experimentation and research at scale in the areas of networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing, storage, virtual reality, 5G, machine learning, and science applications.

The multi-booth FABRIC demonstrations for SC24 will highlight the many methods available for connections to external resources such as edge/site resources and other networks. This includes connections to multiple National Research Platform (NRP) sites and other R&E Networks, showcasing the FABRIC Research Cyberinfrastructure and the ease with which other resources and sites can be integrated.

• In-Network Remote Attestation for ScienceDMZ at Ciena (Booth 1940)

• FABRIC And Data Intensive Science Prototype Services at Ciena

• A Next Generation Multi-Terabit/sec Campus and Global Network System for Data Intensive Sciences at Ciena

• FABRIC at Ciena

• Multi Domain Experiments Using ESnet SENSE on the National Research Platform / PacWave / FABRIC at Ciena

Visit Pacific Wave at Booth 811

Data rates have grown exponentially since the early days of networked science and show no signs of stopping. These demonstrations and more will be supported by Pacific Wave during Supercomputing 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia, November 18-21, and thanks to them, visitors to the show floor can see how network researchers are preventing the challenges of managing this data from growing at the same rate.

If you’d like to learn more about Pacific Wave or the NREs that Pacific Wave will be supporting at SC24, please visit Booth 811.  You can also find a list of all accepted NREs at the SC24 website.

The global expansion of the Internet has revolutionized nearly every aspect of human society, and even greater transformations lie ahead.  Furthermore, many of these coming transformations will change not only how we do things but networking itself.  To ensure that the US’s K-20 research and education communities in California and beyond continue to contribute their leadership to these transformations, those communities will need access to a Terabit network capable of functioning as a testbed for creating tomorrow’s networking revolutions.

In pursuit of this goal, Pacific Wave is pleased to support the NSF-funded FABRIC testbed (Awards #1935966, #2330891, and #2029261) with high-bandwidth connections ranging from 100 to 400 Gbps in Los Angeles and Seattle. FABRIC is an international infrastructure that enables cutting-edge experimentation and research at-scale in the areas of networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing, storage, virtual reality, 5G, machine learning, and science applications.

The FABRIC infrastructure is a distributed set of equipment at commercial collocation spaces, national labs, and campuses underpinned by a coast-to-coast 1.2 Terabit per second ring, referred to as TeraCore and shown below. It is not intended to be an isolated testbed facility but instead interconnects with other specialized testbeds, production facilities, HPC facilities, and the Internet to create an environment for a wide variety of experimental activities where experimenters are allowed to pick and choose portions of the infrastructure for their experiments.

Additionally, while previously federated facilities were connected to FABRIC at 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps), thanks to TeraCore becoming operational in October 2023, the project team is now working to connect several federated facilities including SDSC at 400 Gbps.  Thanks to its connections to other international research and education networks, FABRIC also contributes to global network-enabled collaboration.

FABRIC provides access to cutting-edge programmable network technologies such as Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processors (P4), an open source, domain-specific programming language for network devices, and enables novel approaches to integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) into distributed and network systems control and management. Its diverse environment combining programmable and large computational resources also makes it a perfect fit for helping to train the next generation of computer science and network researchers.

A Testbed for New Network Architectures: the InterEdge project

The original Internet was designed to treat all packets of data equally and simply pass them along as quickly as possible between two endpoints, crossing boundaries between smaller networks as needed.  For many years, this functionality was sufficient and indeed was enough to spur the expansion of the Internet until it has become the backbone of the modern global economy.

However, these two design and operating principles, known as end-to-end simplicity and interconnection, are challenged by the need for network performance, security, and privacy.  These additional functions involve the network not only moving data from one place to another but also processing it while it is still traveling between its point of origin and destination.  Moreover, the devices that carry out these functions (caching, load balancing, firewalls, authentication) are typically at the network edge, isolated from one another and not interconnected at all.

Investigating how these inconsistencies in architecture can be reconciled and a new, consistent network architecture developed which is capable of carrying out these important functions is the purpose of the InterEdge project.

As core team member Scott Shenker of UC Berkeley explains it, “The InterEdge project aims to [provide] an edge architecture that allows [...] interconnection. A prototype of the InterEdge has been built by researchers at (in alphabetical order) ICSI, LBL, Mount Holyoke College, NYU, UC Berkeley, ICSI, and U Washington and will be soon deployed on the FABRIC testbed. The FABRIC testbed is ideally suited to the needs of the InterEdge, because all of the testbed nodes are equipped with the general-purpose compute that edge services need.”

A paper on the InterEdge project, titled “An Architecture for Edge Networking Services,” was written by Shenker and colleagues and accepted for the ACM SIGCOMM 2024 conference to be held in Sydney, Australia from August 4-8, 2024, after which a public link to the PDF will be available at the SIGCOMM 2024 website.

An Intelligent Testbed Enables At-Scale Network Security and Privacy Research

Cybersecurity and privacy threats increasingly impact our daily lives, our national infrastructures, and our industry. Moreover, as new technologies are released, threat actors improve their own capabilities through experience and close collaboration while defenders often work in isolation, using private data and facilities, and producing defenses that are quickly outpaced by new threats.

As with InterEdge, FABRIC’s ability to interconnect compute-capable edge devices at Terabit speeds makes it an excellent testbed for the Security and Privacy Heterogeneous Environment for Reproducible Experimentation (SPHERE) project (Award #2330066), the participants of which include USC’s Information Science Institute (ISI) and Northeastern University.  This project aims to transform cybersecurity and privacy research into a highly integrated, community-wide effort by providing all researchers with a common, rich, representative research infrastructure that meets their needs and facilitates reproducible science.

As Lead PI for the project USC ISI’s Jelena Mirkovic states, a large share of the SPHERE testbed is currently at ISI, while Internet-of-Things devices will be housed at Northeastern University.

Mirkovic further explains, “FABRIC allows for the control of bandwidth and delay between various parts of the SPHERE testbed and doesn’t mix experimental data traffic with other data traffic on the public Internet.  Also, because FABRIC’s participants include other major research facilities across the US, FABRIC opens up possibilities where a researcher can combine resources from these facilities with SPHERE resources, using dedicated, user-controlled connections from FABRIC.”

Currently, the SPHERE project seeks to connect its constituent parts in a way that guarantees reliable interconnection, but in the future FABRIC will also enable the SPHERE project to explore network security and privacy via experimenting with in-network computation that FABRIC provides.

“So far, we’ve focused on dedicated connections,” Mirkovic states, “but in the future we’d like to explore intelligent connections, capable of processing data in-network.  As an intelligent testbed, FABRIC will allow us to explore that.”

Building Productive Connections between Scientists and Network Engineers

At UC San Diego, Frank Wuerthwein and his colleagues have their eyes on another form of network redesign: building new interconnections between disciplines.  Wuerthwein seeks to offer hardware and other resources to FABRIC users through the NSF-funded Prototype National Research Platform (PNRP) (Award #2112167), as much of what they already have available fits well with FABRIC’s existing architecture.  Their connectivity supports this goal through a variety of network paths, with 100 and 400 Gbps connections through CENIC to both Pacific Wave and ESnet, both of which provide paths to FABRIC’s TeraCore ring.

Wuerthwein’s ultimate aim however extends beyond the interconnection of hardware.  In his discipline of high-energy physics, bespoke compute, storage, and networking technology is a must.

“The High-Luminosity LHC project is coming online in 2029 and is expected to produce up to an exabyte of data every year,” Wuerthwein states.  “Processing and moving that volume of data around will be an enormous challenge, and we can’t assume anymore that compute power will increase sufficiently if we just wait.  We need to change how scientific networking development is done.  Part of this is getting the scientists who use the network and those who create it on the same testbeds.”

Thus a major goal of making PNRP resources available to FABRIC is the creation of a blended social environment that includes researchers in both the physical and computer sciences on the same testbed. This shared space will help speed the development of bespoke technologies and their integration into the many big-data disciplines that use them.

Creating the Professionals that will Create the Transformations

With its high performance, convenient access, and large geographical span, FABRIC is not only a resource for the research community but can be used for non-networking and non-research applications, including classroom instruction.  FABRIC provides a hosted JupyterHub environment for experimenters, which comes with Jupyter notebooks automatically preloaded with FABRIC libraries and CLI tools. The portal and JupyterHub use federated identity through CI Logon and support any institutional identity provider that is part of InCommon Research and Scholarship (R&S) federation. This includes the majority of US educational institutions. Efforts are underway to make FABRIC easily available for use in the classroom, and more information about how to use FABRIC for instruction is available at the FABRIC website.

If you are interested in learning more about FABRIC or have any questions on how to apply it to your institution’s research and education projects, please visit the FABRIC website.

About Pacific Wave | pacificwave.net

Pacific Wave is a distributed, Research and Education (R&E)-focused, open Internet exchange. It provides for very high-performance Internet connectivity among US Science and Engineering R&E institutions and their international partners and is critical infrastructure for access to internationally supported instruments and large-scale data sources and repositories.

Pacific Wave enables large-scale scientific workflows to accelerate discovery in all areas of science and engineering, including high-energy physics, Earth sciences, astronomy and astrophysics, biology, and biomedical engineering, as well as scalable visualization, virtual reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

Pacific Wave is a joint project of the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) and is funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

About FABRIC | portal.fabric-testbed.net

FABRIC (FABRIC is Adaptive ProgrammaBle Research Infrastructure for Computer Science and Science Applications) is an International infrastructure that enables cutting-edge experimentation and research at-scale in the areas of networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing, storage, virtual reality, 5G, machine learning, and science applications.

The FABRIC infrastructure is a distributed set of equipment at commercial collocation spaces, national labs and campuses. Each of the 29 FABRIC sites has large amounts of compute and storage, interconnected by high speed, dedicated optical links. It also connects to specialized testbeds (5G/IoT PAWR, NSF Clouds), the Internet and high-performance computing facilities to create a rich environment for a wide variety of experimental activities.

FABRIC Across Borders (FAB) extends the network to 4 additional nodes in Asia and Europe.

Linz, Austria

As data volumes from experiments like High Energy Physics and Biomedical research accelerate, the demands for ultra-high capacity intercontinental connectivity increases.

However limitations of traditional file transfer protocols (particularly over long distances) are putting significant constraints on the ability of networks to support the needs of advanced research.

Japan's National Institute of Informatics, NII, are demonstrating at TNC17 the latest solution to this problem -Massively Multi-Connection File Transfer Protocol (MMCFTP).  MMCFTP allows files to be split and sent across multiple connections (either sessions on the same link or indeed across multiple links) to increase the throughput.

MMCFTP - How it works

Within the TCP/IP protocol, data is only sent after an acknowledgment is received in order to confirm that each packet being sent is correct. Over long distances, it takes a long time for the confirmation of each sending packet to arrive. 

As a result, the data transfer speed for large amounts of data decreases drastically. Massively Multi-Connection File Transfer Protocol (MMCFTP), developed by NII for transferring big data in the interest of international cooperation of science and technology, is one of the world's fastest protocols for transferring data over long distances. 

In MMCFTP, the high-speed data transfer of massive amounts of data is done by splitting the data file, creating multiple connections simultaneously, balancing the amount that is sent over each connection, and controlling the number of connections dynamically according to network conditions.

NII High Speed Data Demonstration

NII has installed two Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs) one in Tokyo and the other at GÉANT's London West POP. Each is equipped with two 100Gbit/s interfaces and the test files will be transmitted across both interfaces simultaneously. The connections from London to Tokyo will be using two separate connections. The first through Seattle and Montreal via JGN, WIDE, TransPAC, Pacific Wave, CANARIE, ANA-300 (a link operated by CANARIE/NORDUnet/SURFnet) and SURFnet; the second through Los Angeles and New York via JGN, SINET, Pacific Wave, Internet2, and NEAAR to GÉANT. Each of the 100Gbit/s North American routes has a path length of over 17,000Km

These separate geographically distributed connections will be combined using MMCFTP to provide extremely high speed data transfer between the two DTNs.

This demonstration is a follow-up from the MMCFTP demonstration at SC16 in Salt Lake City, Utah where a data rate of 150Gbit/s was achieved over a path length of approximately 7,00Km.

At TNC17, the target transfer rate was to at least reach 120Gbit/s (maximum 150Gbit/s) between Japan and EU. he results showed a speed of up to 131.4Gbit/s for Memory to Memory (M2M) transfer and 97Gbit/s for Disk to Disk (D2D) this D2D rate is a world record for an intercontinental data transfer between Asia and EU. The use of two separate routes provided an additional challenge to MMCFTP in this demonstration.

Such results not only enable advanced research projects but demonstrate the ability of file transfers to transcend the limitations of network bandwidth.

Summary Results

For more information please visit the GÉANT booth at TNC or view the NII poster presentation.

The 100 Gigabit per second (Gbps) upgrade to the Southern Cross Trans-Pacific Optical Research Testbed (SXTransPORT) dual submarine optical fibre links connecting Sydney to North America is complete.

The upgrade boosts bandwidth on both SXTransPORT links from 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps to accommodate the year-on-year growth of research and education traffic over the AARNet network. This traffic growth is driven by data-intensive science.

Networking to support data-intensive science

AARNet CEO Chris Hancock says this network infrastructure linking Australia to the United States and the global network of research and education networks is fundamental to Australia’s research infrastructure, underpinning much of Australia’s research efforts and innovation agenda.

“With research today increasingly collaborative, global and data-intensive, increasing the bandwidth of the SXTransPORT network ensures Australia continues to make significant contributions to global research endeavours, such as the Large Hadron Collider, the development of the Square Kilometre Array, the World Climate Research Program and important advances in the health and medical research sector,” he said.

AARNet’s long-term partnership with Southern Cross, together with funding from the United States National Science Foundation to the University of Hawaii, the Commonwealth and other entities, has evolved into a truly Pacific activity, integrating the New Zealand research network, REANNZ, and connecting one of the world’s most important international astronomy sites, Mauna Kea (Hawaii Island), as well as the international observatories on Haleakala (Maui), operated by the University of Hawaii.

Connecting isolated Pacific Island countries

The partnership has also secured broadband connectivity for several isolated Pacific Island countries, and notably for the University of the South Pacific campuses in Fiji, Tonga and the Marshall Islands. The South Pacific is a key region for observing climate changes, as well as oceanography, biodiversity and coral reef health. Connecting the Pacific Islands provides an opportunity to engage Pacific Islanders in a wide range of scientific and research initiatives in these fields of critical concern to their communities.

University of Hawaii President and CEO, David Lassner, a driving force behind United States funding and the collaborative work to connect the Pacific Islands, says the 100G upgrade to the network is another great milestone for research and education in the Pacific region.

“Working closely with colleagues at AARNet, Southern Cross and other collaborators, with the support of the National Science Foundation, has enabled Hawaii to participate in the continuing transformation of research and education through advanced broadband connectivity. Complex research that provides insights on the major challenges and opportunities the world faces must be increasingly interdisciplinary and international ” he said “and advanced networks like SXTransPORT are fundamental infrastructure for large-scale collaboration and enablement of the cyberinfrastructure that supports essential big data techniques.”

An enduring higher ed/industry partnership

Since 2003, Southern Cross Cable Network has provided the SXTransPORT in partnership with AARNet exclusively for not-for-profit research and education use. This has opened up opportunities for global collaboration that were previously unavailable to institutions in the Pacific region.

“Southern Cross is proud to be a long-term supporter of scientific and research endeavours through its partnership with AARNet. By extending the network to connect to REANNZ and Pacific Island Countries, the SXTransPORT project is an example of a truly exciting initiative in which all partners have worked together collaboratively to bring about great achievements for the region,” says Anthony Briscoe, President and CEO, Southern Cross Cable Network.

–ENDS–

About AARNet

AARNet Pty Ltd (APL) is the not for profit company that operates Australia’s Academic and Research Network (AARNet). The shareholders are 38 Australian universities and the CSIRO.

For more than 25 years, AARNet has provided ultra-high-quality regional, national and international broadband services to the Australian education and research sector, including universities, health and other research organisations, schools, vocational training providers and cultural institutions. By globally interconnecting like-minded collaborators, big data, innovative software tools and resources such as high performance computing, AARNet plays a vital role enabling the National Innovation and Science Agenda.

AARNet also provides a range of value-added network and collaboration services to support teaching, learning and research.

For more information, please visit AARNet at: www.aarnet.edu.au

About Southern Cross Cable Network

Southern Cross Cable Network provides fast, direct, and secure international bandwidth from Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii to the heart of the Internet in the USA.

The Southern Cross Cable Network comprises two submarine communications cables which were first commissioned in November 2000 and January 2001 at a cost of USD1.3 billion. They provide Australasian broadband users with international connections to the US West coast where global Internet hubs are located.  In 2001, total installed capacity was 80 Gbps, which has subsequently risen to 5.4Tbs of installed capacity today.

Latest technology trials have confirmed Southern Cross potential capacity of 14Tbs and beyond. The Southern Cross Cable Network is owned by Spark NZ (50%), Singtel-Optus (40%) and Verizon Business (10%).

Southern Cross Cable Network has offices in Bermuda, Sydney, Auckland and Wellington.

For more information, visit Southern Cross at: www.southerncrosscables.com

Media Contacts:

AARNet

Jane Gifford, Media & Communications Manager media@aarnet.edu.au; +61 458 700213

Southern Cross Cable Network

Rosemay Foot, Media Manager rosemay.foot@sccn.co.nz; +64 4 496 3250

https://news.aarnet.edu.au/aarnet-and-southern-cross-cable-network-boost-trans-pacific-research-network-to-100g/

The Pacific Research Platform has been awarded CENIC's 2016 Innovations in Networking Award for Experimental Applications.

The Pacific Research Platform, made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, has been selected by the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) as a recipient of the 2016 Innovations in Networking Award for Experimental Applications. The NSF proposal investigators Larry Smarr, Tom DeFanti, Frank Würthwein, Phil Papadopoulos, (UC San Diego), and Camille Crittenden (UC Berkeley), have had essential technical support from John Graham (UC San Diego), John Hess (CENIC), and Eli Dart (ESnet).

From biomedical data to particle physics, researchers depend heavily on high-speed access to large datasets, scientific instruments, and computing resources. To meet the needs of researchers in California and beyond, the National Science Foundation awarded a five-year grant to fund the Pacific Research Platform (PRP). The PRP’s data sharing architecture, with end-to-end 10 – 100 gigabits per second connections, will enable region-wide virtual co-location of data with computing resources and enhanced security options.

The PRP will enable fast and secure data transfers between participating campuses, which include all ten University of California campuses, Stanford, Caltech, USC, and San Diego State University – all of which are connected via the 100 Gbps CENIC Network. The PRP extends to include the University of Washington, Montana State, the University of Hawaii System, Northwestern University, UIC, and internationally to the University of Amsterdam. Since the PRP was funded, other partners have joined, including the University of Tokyo, and Clemson University. The PRP provides high-speed links to five supercomputer centers (UCSD’s SDSC, LBNL’s NERSC, NCAR, NCSA, and NASA’s NAS) as well as the Open Science Grid and NSF’s Chameleon cloud. Finally, PRP interconnects with high-performance networking sites at PNWGP, FRGP, MREN, Starlight, and internationally to Australia’s AARnet and Korea’s KISTI/KREONet.

“To accelerate the rate of scientific discovery, researchers must get the data they need, where they need it, and when they need it,” said UC San Diego computer science and engineering professor Larry Smarr, principal investigator of the PRP and director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). “This requires a high-performance data freeway system in which we use optical lightpaths to connect data generators and users of that data.”

The bringing together of cross-disciplinary teams of data science application researchers and networking engineers is facilitated by the combined 30-year experience of Calit2 and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), two of the University of California Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation. Camille Crittenden (UC Berkeley), Deputy Director of CITRIS and PRP co-PI said, “The Pacific Research Platform is an ideal vehicle for collaboration between CITRIS and Calit2 given the growing importance of universities working together for the benefit of society.”

The project uses CENIC’s California Research and Education Network (CalREN), Pacific Wave (a project of CENIC and PNWGP) and integrates Science DMZs, developed by ESnet as secure network enclaves for data-intensive science and high-speed data transport, thereby creating a secure, seamless fabric that will enable researchers worldwide to collaborate while not losing any of the advantages of network architecture specially optimized for the unique needs of big-data research.

“ESnet is committed to working closely with the Pacific Research Platform to leverage the Science DMZ and Science Engagement concepts to enable collaborating scientists to advance their research,” said Eli Dart, ESnet Network Engineer. The project also received strong support from members of the UC Information Technology Leadership Council, led by UCOP CIO Tom Andriola, which includes Chief Information Officers [CIOs] from the ten UC campuses, five medical schools, the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and the Office of the President.

The PRP supports a broad range of data-intensive research projects that will have wide-reaching impacts on science and technology worldwide. Cancer genomics, human and microbiome integration, biomolecular structure modeling, galaxy formation and evolution, telescope surveys, particle physics data analysis, simulations for earthquakes and natural disasters, climate modeling, virtual reality and ultra-resolution video development are just a few of the projects that are benefiting from the use of the PRP. The PRP will be extensible across other data-rich domains as well as other national and international networks potentially leading to a national and eventually global data-intensive research cyber-infrastructure.

“Research in data-intensive fields is increasingly multi-investigator and multi-institutional, depending on ever more rapid access to ultra-large heterogeneous and widely distributed datasets,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “The Pacific Research Platform will make it possible for PRP researchers to transfer large datasets to where they work from their collaborators’ labs or from remote data centers.”

“PRP will enable researchers to use standard tools to move data to and from their labs and their collaborators’ sites, supercomputer centers and data repositories distant from their campus IT infrastructure, at speeds comparable to accessing local disks,” said co-PI Thomas A. DeFanti, a research scientist in Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego.

The computers that “terminate” the optical fiber Big Data flows in DMZ systems, sending, receiving, measuring, and monitoring data, are termed by ESnet Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs). Within each campus Science DMZ, the Pacific Research Platform will deploy a DTN developed at UC San Diego under the NSF-funded Prism@UCSD project, led by PRP co-PI Papadopoulos. Dubbed Flash I/O Network Appliances (FIONA), they are modestly priced, Linux-based computers made of commodity parts, and featuring terabytes of flash drives optimized for data-centric applications. “FIONAs act as data super-capacitors for the Science Teams,” said Papadopoulos.

John Graham, a Senior Development Engineer in Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute has been building and deploying FIONAs to PRP campuses. CENIC’s John Hess has led a large group of network engineers, network providers, and measurement programmers from PRP sites that have been measuring and optimizing throughput from to FIONA to FIONA for over 14 months.

Frank Würthwein, a physicist at UC San Diego and SDSC program director, is a PRP co-PI; he leads technical development of the application groups and monitor progress from the scientists’ perspective. “The PRP is not a build-it-and-they-will-come exercise,” said Würthwein, who is also executive director of the Open Science Grid. “The cyberinfrastructure is responsive to the existing and expected needs of data-intensive applications, so we are building a very science-focused platform that will put these universities above and beyond what other regions already have.” The PRP-wide Large Hadron Collider (LHC) cyberinfrastructure is a direct outgrowth of the SDSC LHC UC-wide initiative, started in October 2014 and led by PRP co-PI Würthwein.

“The PRP is an extraordinary collaboration among researchers, distributed computer architects, network engineers, measurement experts, and multi-institutional IT leaders – all of whom are working together to create a dedicated research cyberinfrastructure that will be a national, even global, model, said Louis Fox, CENIC’s President, and CEO. “The impact of the PRP will create ripples across the diverse CENIC community, as innovations in the research community have done since CENIC’s inception.”

The PRP Science Teams include:

Particle Physics Data Analysis
UCSD: A.Yagil, F. Würthwein (team leader); UCI: A. Lankford, A. Taffard, D. Whiteson; UCSC: A. Seiden, J. Nielsen, B. Schumm; Caltech: H. Newman; UC Davis: M. Chertok, J. Conway, R. Erbacher, M. Mulhearn, M. Tripathi; UCSB: C. Campagnari; UCR: R. Clare, O. Long, S. Wimpenny

Astronomy and Astrophysics Data Analysis
Telescope Surveys: LBNL: Peter Nugent; UCD: Tony Tyson; Caltech/IPAC/JPL, UCB, Stanford/ SLAC, UCI, UCSC, UW
Galaxy Evolution: UCI: CGE, director James Bullock; UCSC: AGORA, directors Joel Primack & Piero Madau
Gravitational Wave Astronomy: Caltech: David Reitze, Executive Director, LIGO Laboratory; UCSD: Frank Würthwein

Biomedical Data Analysis
Cancer Genomics Hub/Browser: UCSC: David Haussler, Brad Smith
Microbiome and Integrative ‘Omics: UCSD: Rob Knight, Larry Smarr; UCD: David Mills, Carlito Labrilla; Caltech: Sarkis Mazmanian; UCSF: Sergio Baranzini
Integrative Structural Biology: UCSF: Andrej Sali

Earth Sciences Data Analysis
Data Analysis and Simulation for Earthquakes and Natural Disasters: UCB: Steve Mahin, with UCSD, UCD, UCLA, UCI, USC, Stanford, OSU, and UW. Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) 
Climate Modeling: NCAR/UCAR: Anke Kamrath, Marla Meehl
California/Nevada Regional Climate: UCSD/SIO: Dan Cayan
CO2 Subsurface Modeling: SDSU: Christopher Paolini and Jose Castillo

Scalable Visualization, Virtual Reality, and Ultra-Resolution Video
UCSD: Tom DeFanti, Falko Kuester, Tom Levy, Jurgen Schulze; UIC: Maxine Brown; UHM, Jason Leigh; UCD: Louise Kellogg; UCI: Magda El Zarki, Walt Scacchi; UCM, Marcelo Kallmann, Nicola Lercari; UvA: Cees de Laat

Innovations in Networking Awards are presented each year by CENIC to highlight the exemplary innovations that leverage ultra high-bandwidth networking, particularly where those innovations have the potential to transform the ways in which instruction and research are conducted or where they further the deployment of broadband in underserved areas.

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. The nonprofit organization operates the California Research and 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.

AARNet, Australia’s Academic and Research Network, today announced the launch of the Australia Wide-Area SDN Testbed, an innovation platform for developing high-speed technologies, established in collaboration with nine universities and CSIRO Data61. The announcement was made during the Open Networking Foundation SDN Down Under event in Sydney.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging technology with the potential to revolutionise the way networks are provisioned and managed. SDN offers solutions for improving network flexibility and reducing costs via software-based management and control.

A real-world research environment

“The Testbed is a real-world research network environment, a simulation of the Internet that we’ve put in place to make it easier for researchers in the fields of computer science, engineering and mathematics to test, prototype and validate advanced networking concepts in the SDN arena and accelerate the development of high-speed networking. Developing and supporting initiatives to explore what the future network might look like has been a focus of AARNet’s work since its early days of pioneering the Internet in Australia,” says AARNet’s CEO Chris Hancock.

David Wilde, AARNet’s Chief Technology Officer says access to a wide-area SDN testbed provides researchers with new opportunities to exploit the potential of SDN.

“We know SDN works in single domain environments, like the campus and data centre, but little research has been undertaken to validate whether the technology works across multiple domains with different administrators, such as telco carriers and enterprises.”

A consortium of researchers from CSIRO Data61 and nine universities, led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), secured LIEF (Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities) grant funding from the Australian Research Council to deploy SDN equipment within each of their labs.

The other eight consortium members are University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University, University of Adelaide, RMIT, Swinburne, University of Queensland, University of Wollongong and Australian National University.

These sites are being interconnected by AARNet to create a national wide-area SDN testbed environment with the ability to peer internationally with testbeds in the USA, Europe and elsewhere.

Professor Vijay Sivaraman of the UNSW School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications and a driving force behind the project says, “SDN is fairly new and disruptive, but a barrier to uptake for organisations that could benefit from it, such as enterprises and carriers, is that the technology hasn’t been validated sufficiently. The main objective for establishing this Testbed is to demonstrate to industry that the technology is not just a great idea on paper, but something that will work in practice, and show how it works under real conditions.”

SDN teases apart the data forwarding function of a piece of network equipment from its path calculation function, taking advantage of commodity network hardware for the former and inexpensive virtualised compute for the latter to deliver network flexibility.

Testbed infrastructure

Based on open standards, the Testbed infrastructure consists of a core of four interconnected NoviFlow OpenFlow-enabled switches at AARNet backbone sites in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Seattle controlled by virtual machines (VMs) in Sydney and Melbourne.

The four switches talk to the VM OpenFlow controllers, which are running ONOS software, developed by Open Networking Lab, and appear as a single distributed router – spread across 16,000km. Connectors from this AARNet core run out to SDN equipment (a similar set up of switches and servers) installed in the labs at the participating universities and CSIRO Data61.

With the AARNet core acting as a network exchange interconnecting the university SDN network domains, the setup simulates the Internet.

The Seattle presence enables AARNet to interconnect the testbed with similar testbeds operated by Internet2 and ESnet research networks in the United States, as well as with the global OpenFlow network facility recently deployed by ON.LAB, boosting opportunities for Australian researchers to run experiments with their US-based counterparts.

“Connecting to Seattle enables us to examine network behaviour at genuine intercontinental scale, and will enable us to explore how and if SDN works across progressively larger geographical areas. Australia’s international connectivity is very expensive – a potential real world application of SDN is to examine ways we can make more efficient use of our international links, leading to cost savings,” says Wilde.

He is also interested in exploring the dynamic provisioning of multi-layer services for better integration of network compute and storage nationally and globally.

“This is about building a network that can more intelligently shift connect compute resources to data storage, or move data without taking congestion paths,” he explains.

Professor Sivaraman says a primary research focus for UNSW is quality of service.

“At the campus level, we’re interested in how we can improve the user experience online by using SDN technology. We want to be able to distinguish between video content, for example, and a large data transfer from a research lab so that we can prioritize traffic,” says Professor Sivaraman.

Craig Russell, Principal Research Engineer of CSIRO’s Data61 innovation group, and another driving force behind the project, says the ideal outcome from research in this area is a wider acceptance that SDN is viable so that commercial organisations can see that the technology can solve some of the problems they face.

“The Testbed can also be utilized as an incubator for startups, an environment for stimulating ideas and developing proof of concepts, and nurturing projects that ultimately end up as products in the marketplace,” says Russell.

Media Contact

Jane Gifford

+61 2 9779 6960

media@aarnet.edu.au

https://news.aarnet.edu.au/aarnet-launches-sdn-innovation-platform-for-researchers/

Brocade announced today that Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) has selected Brocade network solutions in the world’s first 100-Gigabit per second (Gbps) Research and Education (R&E) network link between Asia and the United States, as a part of Pacific Wave.

Pacific Wave, a joint project between CENIC and Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), is a state-of-the-art international Internet exchange facility that interconnects the research and education community of the Pacific Rim with California’s research universities and 200 other research institutions across the United States. These institutions will benefit from the new network and leverage new levels of scale and performance, enabling them to access scientific instruments and exchange data with their research collaborators in the Asia-Pacific region.

The new network relies on the Brocade® MLXe Core Router as the interconnection, peering, and routing exchange fabric, enabling high-performance 100 Gbps connectivity and providing a next-generation software-defined exchange (SDX) based on software-defined networking (SDN) technology. It supports a dynamic and agile network with new levels of operational efficiency and automation, enabling on-demand connectivity between the various global points of presence. With this infrastructure, Pacific Wave intends to leverage an innovation platform that enhances connectivity to campus and wide-area “Science DMZ” applications. This will allow researchers to move data between labs and scientific instruments to collaborators’ sites, supercomputer centers, and data repositories with zero performance degradation.

The Brocade MLXe Core Routers will be located in primary points of presence in Sunnyvale, Calif., Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Tokyo—all running 100 Gbps connections. In turn, these points of presence will provide connections between the Pacific Wave network and entities such Internet2, the United States Department of Energy’s ESNet, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s N-wave, and commercial cloud providers regularly used by national and international R&E communities.

With the Pacific Wave network, 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—will be enhanced with faster, more powerful, and more flexible interconnections among Pacific Rim and North American science resources. The Pacific Wave network will enable better support of Big Data flows, 8k and 4k video resolution, and 3D video distribution. The network will also support real-time interactive instrument control, virtual reality, and telepresence applications that will facilitate scientific collaboration.

“Brocade is honored to work with CENIC on the next stage of its expansion to Asia,” said Jason Nolet, senior vice president, Switching, Routing, and Analytics Products Group, Brocade. “In the New IP era of networking, it is especially crucial for research and education networks like CENIC to have the technology in place that will enable them to stay ahead of the curve and continue making a difference in the research and education world.”

“Bringing Brocade into the CENIC network as we connect to Asia has been critical to the success of the endeavor,” said Louis Fox, chief executive officer, CENIC. “We look forward to the future of the established connection, and the research and sharing that the network will enable.” 

Additional Resources

• Brocade MLXe Routers
• Pacific Wave Announces World’s First Trans-Pacific 100-Gigabit R&E Network
• See Brocade at SC15, Nov. 16-19, 2015, Booth 937

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. The nonprofit organization operates the California Research and 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 Brocade: www.brocade.com

Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) networking solutions help the world’s leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. © 2015 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ADX, Brocade, Brocade Assurance, the B-wing symbol, DCX, Fabric OS, HyperEdge, ICX, MLX, MyBrocade, OpenScript, The Effortless Network, VCS, VDX, Vplane, and Vyatta are registered trademarks, and Fabric Vision and vADX are trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United States and/or in other countries. Other brands, products, or service names mentioned may be trademarks of others.

Brocade Contacts:

Media Relations
Lauren Barnard  408.333.4731 lbarnard@brocade.com                                            

Investor Relations
Michael Iburg  408.333.0233 miburg@brocade.com

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

Networking teams are deploying an infrastructure architecture known as the Science DMZ to help researchers make productive use of ever-increasing data flows.

Read more: http://www.scientificcomputing.com/article/2015/10/science-dmz-infrastructure-architecture-accelerates-data-flows

The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) announced today that it, along with the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) as a sub awardee and coauthor of the proposal, has been awarded a grant of nearly $3.5M from the National Science Foundation’s International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program. The grant will allow the expansion of Pacific Wave and further enable U.S.-Asia scientific research collaborations through both increases in capacity and the development of the Pacific Wave Software Defined Exchange (SDX) over a five-year period.

The Pacific Wave SDX, which will be deployed in Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area, is an integral component of the international effort to interconnect research and education networks using Software Defined Networking (SDN). The Pacific Wave SDX joins several other IRNC awardees to support research, development and experimental deployment of multi-domain SDXs and will serve as an innovation platform for next generation networking, including enhancing connectivity to campus and wide-area “Science DMZ” infrastructures like the Pacific Research Platform (PRP), which enables researchers to move data between labs and scientific instruments to collaborators’ sites, supercomputer centers, and data-repositories without performance degradation.

“California’s research universities, along with more than 200 other research institutions across the U.S., will benefit from these enhanced capacities, enabling them to access scientific instruments and exchange data with their research collaborators in the Asia-Pacific Region,” said CENIC President & CEO Louis Fox, who is also principal investigator on this IRNC grant. “We look forward to working with other IRNC awardees, the NSF, and our Asia-Pacific colleagues as we continue to develop this critical infrastructure for international scientific research.”

The Pacific Wave SDX will be deployed on a parallel infrastructure to enable research and education networks to peer with each other independent of their connection point to Pacific Wave. The use of a separate but integrated set of facilities improves the overall resilience and flexibility of the exchange while continuing to provide the production quality Pacific Wave is known for.

The Pacific Wave infrastructure now incorporates the Western Region Network (WRN) and now has Points of Presence (POPs) in Denver, Albuquerque, and El Paso. The inclusion of WRN now gives Pacific Wave a resilient 100 Gbps ring incorporating key network nodes across the western United States and provides upgraded connectivity with the Starlight exchange in Chicago.

Pacific Wave, a joint project of CENIC and PNWGP, is a state of the art international Internet exchange facility that interconnects the research and education community of the Pacific Rim. The Western Region Network is a collaboration of CENIC, PNWGP, Front Range GigaPop (FRGP), Albuquerque GigaPoP (ABQGP) and the University of Hawaii.

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 Pacific Northwest Gigapop • www.pnwgp.net

Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) is a long-standing multi-state R&E networking not-for-profit organization that serves the greater Northwest. PNWGP’s roots go back to helping create the original Internet, including ARPAnet and NSFnet, and today encompasses a wide range of R&E, R&D, statewide K20, state and local government, and healthcare networks, as well as support for network research efforts and provisioning of advanced network capabilities for research endeavors such as the new NSF Ocean Observatory Infrastructure. PNWGP has a long history of close collaboration with CENIC including co-creation of Pacific Wave, TransitRail/CPS, and other pioneering efforts.

A long-standing Australia-United States (US) joint venture to facilitate research and education (R&E) network capacity across the Pacific Ocean was celebrated on 28 April 2015 at a special event held at the Embassy of Australia in Washington DC.

AARNet provides the network infrastructure connecting Australia to the US West Coast in partnership withSouthern Cross Cable Network (SCCN). With the very generous support of SCCN, AARNet is upgrading the submarine optical fibre links known as SXTransPORT to 100 Gbps by the end of 2016. Building on a series of investments, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) this week announced funding for upgrading the US side of the infrastructure interconnecting AARNet to the US research networks.

Technology leaders from AARNet, NSF, REANNZ, Internet2, Pacific Wave and the University of Hawaii were among the guests celebrating the ongoing international collaborative effort that has contributed to the development of the trans-Pacific research network infrastructure over many years.

AARNet CEO Chris Hancock said this investment continues the strong relationship between the NSF and Australia for interconnecting AARNet to the US R&E community that dates back to the early 1990s. The relationship has been characterized by aligned and supportive network investments on both sides of the Pacific.

“AARNet’s upgrades to the SCCN and SXTransPORT links have been critical for accommodating the growth of international traffic over the network, largely driven by data-intensive science. Developing international R&E network capacity between Australia and the US has also evolved into a truly Pacific activity, with AARNet recently connecting REANNZ, the New Zealand NREN, as well as supporting connectivity into Pacific Island countries such as Fiji, Tonga and the Marshall Islands,” said Hancock.

Jim Kurose, Assistant Director of NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate said the award builds on successful, proven prior partnerships between the Australian Government and the NSF.

“The funding will provide a critical network upgrade to the US end to accommodate today’s data-intensive science and to drive scientific discovery in many areas, including astronomy, oceanography, and high-energy physics,” he said.

The forthcoming upgrade will support US connectivity that passes through Hawaii to connect one of the world’s most important international astronomy sites, Mauna Kea (Hawaii Island), as well as the international observatories on Haleakala (Maui).

Australia’s Ambassador to the USA Kim Beazley acknowledged the vital role globally interconnected research network infrastructure plays.

“The Embassy of Australia is pleased to celebrate the continued Australia-US partnership in critical research infrastructure and the advanced Pacific R&E network connection. The project builds on a rich history of research collaboration between our two nations, and will greatly expand opportunities to work together in areas of mutual interest, including astronomy, global climate issues, biodiversity, and coral reef study, and medicine,” he said.

http://news.aarnet.edu.au/australia-us-partnership-powers-trans-pacific-science-and-research-networking/

Upgrade to Major US West Coast Peering Exchange for Research and Education Enhances Worldwide Ultra-High-Performance Networked Collaboration

Pacific Wave today announced the completion of a second 40-Gigabit per second (Gb/s) connection from the US West Coast to Australia and New Zealand.  Crossing the Pacific Ocean from Los Angeles through the Big Island of Hawaii and on to Australia, this ultra-high-performance network link complements an existing 40 Gb/s link from Seattle through Oahu to Australia.

Both links provide increased performance and robustness to the Pacific Wave distributed international peering exchange, which is the chief means by which the world's advanced research and education networks cross the Pacific Ocean and a crucial part of the global advanced networking infrastructure.  In this capacity, Pacific Wave enables cutting-edge activity in all realms of data-intensive science, including cancer treatment, climate research, digital media, genomics, oceanography, seismography, software-defined networking, space science, and more.

A joint project between the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) with support from the University of Southern California and the University of Washington, Pacific Wave is a state-of-the-art international peering exchange designed to serve research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond and features connection points at three US West Coast locations: the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Seattle.  

"Global innovation, particularly in the data-intensive sciences where our most pressing modern challenges lie, is no longer possible without global networking," observes Louis Fox, President and CEO of CENIC.  "Maintaining our shared advanced network infrastructure at the highest possible level is critical if we are to overcome the challenges we confront in climate change, medicine, and economics, to name but a few areas."

"Shared infrastructure improvements like this -- and others yet to come -- are probably among the most effective investments that society can make nowdays, given the positive impact they can create for global communities and for our planet," Fox added.

"It's important to note that upgrades like this are not an endpoint in themselves but a step toward the future," states PNWGP's Executive Director Amy Philipson.  "Increased bandwidth invariably brings increased demand for bandwidth, which is why Pacific Wave's planned connectivity upgrades include 100 Gbps connectivity as well -- and I'm sure it won't end there."  Adds Philipson, "It's also important to note that this will not only benefit innovation in Australia and New Zealand but around the world as well.  Some of the most significant institutions and data-intensive scientific instrumentation in the world is located there, which means that researchers around the globe will also benefit from greatly improved connectivity to their colleagues two nations."

"This upgrade significantly improves global access to the unparalleled collection of international astronomical observatories in Hawaii," said University of Hawaii President David Lassner, who also serves as principal investigator for the NSF International Research Network Connections (IRNC) project that supported the US costs of the upgrade.  "Current instruments already generate terabytes of data every 24 hours, and next generation projects like the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea and NSF-supported Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on Haleakala will challenge our international research networks even more.  So it was critical that we built into this upgrade our plans to move to 100 Gbps in 2016."

This announcement also comes on the heels of an announcement by the Australian advanced network AARNet of their new partnership with New Zealand advanced network REANNZ and Southern Cross Cable Networks to provide New Zealand scientists and researchers with access to ultra high-speed international connectivity as well as the general Internet.  The partnership means that New Zealand scientists and researchers will, for the first time, have capacity for big-data transport between New Zealand and the rest of the world.

"As long time participants in Pacific Wave, REANNZ has benefited greatly from the distributed multi-city and multi-network exchange model that provides convenient 'one-stop' high performance connectivity to the US scientific community," says Steve Cotter, CEO of REANNZ.  "We look forward to continued collaboration as we plan to scale our networks to 100G and deploy emerging technologies like software defined networking."

"We're pleased to be contributing to the expansion of vital global research network infrastructure," adds AARNet CEO Chris Hancock.  "Built in partnership with Southern Cross Cable Networks, this second high-speed AARNet link across the Pacific adds capacity, diversity and redundancy to our network, further bolstering our international connectivity to ensure Australia's, and New Zealand's, participation in major international scientific research collaborations."

More information including network maps and a full list of participants can be found at www.pacificwave.net.

* TransLight/Pacific Wave is funded by NSF Award No. 0962931.

Pacific Wave announced the completion of a 100-Gigabit connection for the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), the high-speed computer network serving US Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and scientific facilities.  With the completion of this new connection in Sunnyvale, CA, ESnet has upgraded its peering capabilities to research networks in 40 countries throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond.

"International exchange points such as Pacific Wave serve a critical role in the architecture of the Internet, and they are especially important in supporting large-scale scientific collaboration," stated ESnet Division Director Greg Bell. "This new 100-Gigabit connection will improve data mobility for scientists at the cutting edge of discovery in high-energy physics, fusion energy research, climate science, and many other fields."

ESnet provides the high-bandwidth, reliable connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions, enabling them to collaborate on some of the world's most important scientific challenges including energy, climate science, and the origins of the universe. Funded by the DOE Office of Science, and managed and operated by the ESnet team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ESnet provides scientists with access to unique DOE research facilities and computing resources.

"The international advanced network infrastructure that first emerged as an aspiration in the 1990s has become a vital part of 21st century collaborative research in a vast number of disciplines," said CENIC President and CEO Louis Fox. "Ensuring that the research labs and partners served by ESnet enjoy cutting-edge connectivity to colleagues around the world is an equally vital part of maintaining the pace of innovation, as well as the United States' continued position as a global leader in data-intensive research."

"Pacific Wave and ESnet are both cornerstones of international advanced networking," adds Amy Philipson, Executive Director of Pacific Northwest Gigapop. "The better the connectivity between our networks, the more value we bring to our participants and the bigger the positive impact we both have through supporting data-intensive collaborative research into topics of great global importance."

A joint project between the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) with support from the University of Southern California and the University of Washington, Pacific Wave is a state-of-the-art international peering exchange designed to serve research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond and features connection points at three US West Coast locations: the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

Over the ten years since its inception, the Pacific Wave international peering exchange has become a critical part of the international advanced network infrastructure and the dominant means by which all of the world's such networks cross the Pacific Ocean.

SEATTLE, WA and LOS ANGELES, CA – Representatives of Asia Pacific Advanced Network Ltd. (APAN) and Pacific Wave have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) building on their longstanding relationship by agreeing to promote their respective and mutual objectives by providing for appropriate collaborations and peerings between their participants/members.  They will collaborate on the development, deployment, and communication of network technologies, services and applications to support the global research and education community.

As part of this MOU, they will encourage the use and development of common standards and their technical implementations; the development of next-generation networking and applications in research and higher education; the encouragement of technology transfer to accelerate leadership in research and higher education; and collaboration with each other and government agencies and departments to promote and encourage the interconnection of advanced networks and deployment of advanced technologies around the world.

“The APAN membership is of enormous significance to global research and education, including CENIC members in California, and the Pacific Wave Internet Exchange provides the perfect venue to facilitate collaborations between APAN and other research and education networks in the Pacific Rim, the United States, and even Europe and South America ” said Louis Fox, President and CEO of CENIC, the nonprofit corporation which, together with the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, runs Pacific Wave with the support of the University of Washington and the University of Southern California.  “Strengthening the relationship between APAN and Pacific Wave in areas like collaboration, next-generation technology, and tech transfer will help maintain the Pacific Rim and their collaborators as major forces for innovation in the coming century.”

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.

With a total of five exchange points located in Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles and connected by a 100G fiber backbone, the Pacific Wave international peering facility provides research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond the opportunity to peer with one another, removing international borders as boundaries to network-enabled global collaboration and innovation.  Current participants represent networks and agencies from Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, South America, Taiwan, and the United States.  Many multi-national networks such as GLORIAD, NORDUnet (Nordic countries), and redCLARA (Central and South America) also participate, bringing the total of nations whose research and education communities can collaborate on network-enabled projects via Pacific Wave to more than 40.

About APAN • www.apan.net

APAN (Asia Pacific Advanced Network) is the name both of the network itself and of the non-profit organization created in 1997 to undertake the network’s creation and development on behalf of its members.  The APAN network is designed to be a high-performance network for research and development on advanced next generation applications and services. APAN provides an advanced networking environment for the research and education community in the Asia-Pacific region, and promotes global collaboration.  The international members of APAN represent the global research and education network interests in the countries and economies of Asia and Oceania.

APAN’s objectives are to coordinate and promote network technology developments and advances in network-based applications and services, to coordinate the development of an advanced networking environment for research and education communities in the Asia-Pacific region, and to encourage and promote global cooperation to help achieve these.  APAN also coordinates developments and interactions among its members and with international peering organizations both in networking and applications.

About Pacific Wave • www.pacificwave.net

“Pacific Wave was created by organizations with a vested interest in serving research and education along the West Coast of the United States, as APAN was created on behalf of the Pacific Rim,” said Pacific Northwest Gigapop CEO Ron Johnson.  “Enabling vibrant collaboration between our respective communities is among the most important ways we can serve them in today’s landscape of boundary-free innovation.”

“APAN was founded not just to connect devices but to connect people,” said Dae Young Kim, Chairman of APAN and professor of Information Communications Engineering at Chungnam National University in Korea.  “As an organization, we must build pathways for collaboration and cooperation as well as for fiber-optic cable, including those between academic and commercial researchers.  This will maintain not only network-dependent research but the network itself in its most cutting-edge state.”

SEATTLE, WA and LOS ANGELES, CA – Representatives of the Pacific Wave international network peering facility and the Trans-Eurasia Information Network*Corporation Center (TEIN*CC) today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding highlighting the two organizations’ desire to work together to promote advanced networking, collaboration, and advocacy among and on behalf of the Pacific Rim research and education communities.

With this Memorandum of Understanding in effect, researchers across the Pacific Rim will be even better able to collaborate globally on world-class research projects in areas such as radio astronomy, distributed (grid) computing, telemedicine, climatology, digital cinema, high-energy physics, and more. Global educational collaboration will also be further enabled, as high-performance networks have enhanced distributed classrooms and student exchange programs through high-quality videoconferencing and other technologies.

“Pacific Wave is an integral part of the worldwide fabric of research and education networks,” said Louis Fox, President and CEO of CENIC, the nonprofit corporation which, with the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, runs Pacific Wave with the support of the University of Washington and the University of Southern California. “Formalizing the relationship with TEIN*CC is yet another building block in ensuring robust, high-performance connectivity of the sort that is essential in today’s landscape of borderless global collaboration.”

“This relationship with TEIN*CC further emphasizes the vital role Pacific Wave plays among advanced research and education networks,” adds Pacific Northwest Gigapop CEO Ron Johnson. “Each such agreement between the world’s advanced networks and exchanges strengthens the web of interconnected high-performance optical networks, enabling them to function as the foundation beneath so much 21st century research and education.”

With a total of five exchange points located in Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles and connected by a 100G fiber backbone, the Pacific Wave international peering facility provides research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond the opportunity to peer with one another, removing international borders as boundaries to network-enabled global collaboration and innovation. Current participants represent networks and agencies from Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, South America, Taiwan, and the United States. Many multi-national networks such as GLORIAD, NORDUnet (Nordic countries), and redCLARA (Central and South America) also participate, bringing the total of nations whose research and education communities can collaborate on network-enabled projects via Pacific Wave to more than 40.

Launched at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) 3 Summit in Seoul in 2001, the TEIN network created by the Trans-Eurasia Information Network initiative began with a single link between France and South Korea and evolved to provide a dedicated high-capacity Internet network between research and education communities in the Asia Pacific region. Through westbound links to GN3 (formerly GÉANT), its pan-European counterpart, TEIN offers direct high-speed intercontinental connectivity, and with support from the European Commission, the TEIN partner countries now include Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. Now in its third generation as TEIN3, the network’s upgrade to TEIN4 will receive funding support from the European Commission and from the participating National Research and Education Networks (NRENs).

About Pacific Wave

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. The distributed design of Pacific Wave allows participants to engage in bilateral peerings regardless of which node they are physically connected to. This design offers significant flexibility and opportunities for networks utilizing any of a dozen trans-Pacific cables for their circuits as well as for building redundancy and robustness into peering relationships that would otherwise be cost prohibitive and complex . For more information, please visit http://www.pacificwave.net/.

Source: TechZone360

We’re beginning to get accustomed to news involving software-defined network applications within individual service provider networks. But Pacific Wave now has the ability to use SDN within its international peering facility to enable service providers to dynamically establish circuits between one another.

Pacific Wave is a joint project of the Corporation for Education and Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), and its dynamic circuit provisioning capability is based on the On-Demand Secure Circuits and Advanced Reservation System (OSCARS) developed by the U.S. Department of Energy – Energy Sciences Network (ESNet).

“This software is a form of SDN,” wrote a Pacific Wave spokesperson in response to an e-mail inquiry from TMCNet. “Reservations can be made literally seconds before [circuits] are used, so it’s pretty much real-time on-demand.”

Read the full article at TechZone360

SALT LAKE CITY — International distributed network peering facility Pacific Wave announced today the enabling of dynamic circuit provisioning using the On-demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System (OSCARS) developed by the US Department of Energy – Energy Sciences Network (ESnet). This new capacity of Pacific Wave will allow researchers (via their regional network provider) to reserve, and have dynamically allocated during the reservation period, a point-to-point network facility across one or more networks.

Pacific Wave is a distributed international peering facility that enables high-performance research and education networks in the Pacific Rim and beyond to connect with one another in any of three cities in the US West Coast (Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles). Pacific Wave is a joint project of the Corporation for Education and Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), and is designed to enhance the efficiency of IP traffic across the west coast of the United States and with partners around the Pacific Rim. With the advanced connectivity provided by Pacific Wave, researchers in data-intensive sciences including astronomy, ocean research, genomics, and high-energy physics can collaborate with one another from anywhere in the world.

“This new offering by Pacific Wave, a major international interconnect point for research and education networks around the Pacific Rim, could vastly expand the number of networks that can interact via such a utility and the kinds of research that can be enabled by it,” said Louis Fox, President and CEO of CENIC.

“The implementation of OSCARS with the new Pacific Wave 100G capacity, when combined with Science DMZs at research institutions, brings a whole new set of collaborative opportunities for data intensive science,” noted Amy Philipson, Executive Director, PNWGP. “More importantly, testing and refining this utility now will enable the research, data sharing, and collaboration envisioned by projects like the Square Kilometre Array which seeks to probe the early universe, test Einstein’s theory of gravity, and search for intelligent life.”

OSCARS open-source software is the most widely adopted inter-domain dynamic circuit services application within the global research and networking community. Its open and evolving framework is inspiring, and inspired by many collaborators that include academic institutions, global networking members as represented at Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) and standards body, Open Grid Forum (OGF).

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop is a nonprofit corporation serving research and education organizations throughout the Pacific Rim. They provide cost-effective, robust, reliable, high-bandwidth, and high-capacity networking to support the missions of these organizations and the needs of researchers, faculty, students, and staff. PNWGP designs, implements, and manages a multi-state high-bandwidth and high-capacity network specifically designed to meet unique requirements of research and education communities. For more information, please visit http://www.pnw-gigapop.net/.

About CENIC

California’s education and research communities leverage their networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students. CENIC designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast majority of the state’s K-20 educational institutions are connected. In order to facilitate collaboration in education and research, CENIC also provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry research organizations with which CENIC’s Associate researchers and educators are engaged. For more information, please visit http://www.cenic.org/.

About ESnet

ESnet provides the high-bandwidth, reliable connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions, enabling them to collaborate on some of the world’s most important scientific challenges including energy, climate science, and the origins of the universe. Funded by the DOE Office of Science, and managed and operated by the ESnet team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ESnet provides scientists with access to unique DOE research facilities and computing resources. For more information, please visit http://www.es.net/.

SEATTLE – Today Pacific Wave and Northern Wave announced an agreement that will allow their participants to peer with each other. Northern Wave will now connect Pacific Wave (www.pacificwave.net) in Seattle to the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange Facility (www.startap.net/starlight) in Chicago. This relationship provides new opportunities for international research and education networks and university participants to exchange networking traffic at multi-Gigabit rates between the Pacific Rim, the US, and Europe. In addition, researchers and educators at any connecting institution along the Northern Wave path in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Washington will have access to participants on the Pacific Wave exchange.

Pacific Wave is state-of-the-art peering exchange facility that, for over 10 years, has connected research, scientific, and education institutions and networks throughout the Pacific Rim and the world, increasing network efficiency and throughput while reducing latency and costs. Pacific Wave is a joint project of the Corporation for Education and Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP (PNWGP) and is designed to enhance the efficiency of research and education network traffic across the west coast of the US and with partners around the Pacific Rim.

Northern Wave is a similar facility recently funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) via North Dakota State University (NDSU) and PNWGP to provide a new shared 10Gbps optical network connection between Seattle and Chicago for research and education institutions. The grant, part of NSF’s Academic Research Infrastructure program, funded optical equipment to build the network along a fiber path provided by PNWGP and the BOREAS network (a collaboration among the Universities of Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin-Madison, and Iowa State University (www.boreas.net).

“Northern Wave brings a significant new capacity to research and education networks through improved international communication facilities as well as the easy exchange of data for initiating collaborations with other institutions. This is especially important for the establishment of large competitive research centers. It will also provide connectivity to large computational and visualization platforms at remote locations,” says Kalpana Katti, North Dakota State University Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and NSF CAREER Award grantee.

“Connecting Northern Wave and Pacific Wave puts into place a new piece of the cyberinfrastructure necessary for complex interdisciplinary work on the cutting edge of science and technology,” said Amy Philipson, Executive Director, PNWGP. “Together with the other advances that Pacific Wave offers its participants, such as 100G networking along the US west coast, dynamic circuits, support for Science DMZ-model research networks, and software-defined networking, we’re delighted help facilitate the arrival of true 21st century networking.”

Northern Wave is supported by the National Science Foundation ARRA ARI Award No. 0963559.

Pacific Wave is supported by the National Science Foundation IRNC Award No. OCI-0962931.

StarLight receives support from the National Science Foundation, IRNC Award No. OCI-0962997 and ARRA ARI Award No. 0963095.

About CENIC

California’s education and research communities leverage their networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students. CENIC designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast majority of the state’s K-20 educational institutions are connected. In order to facilitate collaboration in education and research, CENIC also provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry research organizations with which CENIC’s Associate researchers and educators are engaged. For more information, visit www.cenic.org.

About North Dakota State University (NDSU)

North Dakota State University is a student-focused, land-grant, research university — an economic engine that educates students, conducts primary research, creates new knowledge and advances technology. The university provides affordable access to an excellent education at a top-ranked research institution that combines teaching and research in a rich learning environment, educating future leaders who will create solutions to national and global challenges that will shape a better world. For more information, please visit http://www.ndsu.edu/.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP)

The Pacific Northwest Gigapop is a nonprofit corporation serving research and education organizations throughout the Pacific Rim. They provide cost-effective, robust, reliable, high-bandwidth, and high-capacity networking to support the missions of these organizations and the needs of researchers, faculty, students, and staff. PNWGP designs, implements, and manages a multi-state high-bandwidth and high-capacity network specifically designed to meet unique requirements of research and education communities. For more information, please visit http://www.pnwgp.net/.

About StarLight

StarLight is the world’s most advanced national and international communications exchange facility. StarLight provides advanced networking services and technologies that are optimized for high-performance, large-scale metro, regional, national and global applications. With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), StarLight was designed and developed by researchers, for researchers. StarLight is managed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern University, the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, and Calit2 at University of California, San Diego, in partnership with Canada’s CANARIE national networking organization and The Netherlands’ SURFnet. (www.startap.net/starlight)

West Coast network peering facility leverages Ciena’s coherent technology across the Internet2 backbone to support data-intensive research and education efforts

HANOVER, MD — 11/13/2012

Ciena® Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), the network specialist, today announced that the Pacific Wave international network peering facility—which connects research and education (R&E) networks in 40 countries in the Pacific Rim and beyond—was recently upgraded with Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, equipped with WaveLogic™ coherent optical processors. This deployment will provide 100Gb/s networking capabilities to Pacific Wave’s extensive R&E network infrastructure across the western coast of the United States, from Los Angeles to Seattle.

The 100G backbone now connecting Pacific Wave’s major peering locations will not only provide regional and national high-speed connectivity between higher education and research institutions throughout the U.S. Pacific Coast, but will also allow R&E institutions around the world to collaborate more quickly and effectively in data-intensive, international sciences such as astronomy, oceanography, high-energy physics, and genomics.

In choosing Ciena for this deployment, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) –who together operate Pacific Wave as a joint project – are ensuring that Pacific Wave is consistent with the recent Internet2 and the US Department of Energy (ESnet) 100G backbone upgrades.

Key Facts:

• Pacific Wave is a distributed international peering facility that enables R&E networks to share traffic at any of five locations in three cities: Los Angeles, Sunnyvale, and Seattle. Current network participants are located throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond including Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, South America, Taiwan, and the United States. Connectivity to Europe is further facilitated via peering with StarLight Chicago.

• The Pacific Wave peering facility’s West Coast backbone will be powered by Ciena’s coherent technology, a critical component of the company’s OPn architecture, to provide significant scale and capacity to support the increasing bandwidth requirements of large-scale e-science, distributed computing, and storage applications.

• In addition, the network supports ESnet’s On-Demand Secure Circuits and Reservation System (OSCARS) that enables the dynamic provisioning of multi-domain, high-bandwidth virtual circuits that provide bandwidth and service guarantees to support research applications and has the potential to incorporate software defined networking in the future.

• Ciena’s 6500 allows Pacific Wave’s West Coast backbone to ride on the Internet2 backbone as a fully separated “virtual wave,” capturing the benefits of a private fiber network at a fraction of the cost through managed spectrum.

• Funded through grants from the National Science Foundation to the University of New Mexico, the Pacific Wave network will also provide advanced broadband network capabilities, services, content, and applications, expanding the use of the Internet2 network in the western United States and enabling new capabilities to participants in CENIC, PNWGP, and Internet2 R&E networks. 

Executive Comments:

• “Now more than ever, research and education efforts require high speed networks that can quickly and reliably transfer massive amounts of data and applications over greater distances. Ciena’s coherent optical solutions provide the economical and exponential growth in bandwidth requirements required to support data-intensive, collaborative research projects so that scientists can conduct experiments, investigate, and collaborate with peers in new and innovative ways.”
  – Rod Wilson, Senior Director of External Research, Ciena 

• “This upgrade is the latest step forward in Pacific Wave’s long history of advanced approaches to Layer 2 networking. The 100G upgrade to the Pacific Wave backbone will help empower the next revolution in global scientific collaboration and Science DMZ-model research networking. Ciena’s impressive track record in high-speed fiber-optic network builds makes them a welcome ally in our mission to ensure that California research and education benefits fully from advanced networking and the innovation it enables.”
  – Louis Fox, President & CEO, CENIC

• “This 100G upgrade to Pacific Wave enables new research along one of the most vital corridors in the West.”
  – Dr. Gil Gonzales, Principal Investigator, University of New Mexico

• “With this new 100G West Coast upgrade for Pacific Wave, plus the 10G Northern Wave peering connection between PacWave in Seattle and StarLight in Chicago, PNWGP is delighted to be taking part in what amounts to a massive advance in research networking throughout North America. This is truly 21st century networking, made possible by organizations that work together for a common goal.”
  – Amy Philipson, Executive Director, PNWGP 

•  “Providing America’s leading universities with access to the most advanced network technology and increasing the global capacity for advanced science collaboration among our members and their partners is critical to Internet2. We are proud to work with our partners at CENIC, PNWGP and Ciena to support our members in accelerating scientific discovery and providing access to advanced technologies to the public through our nation’s community anchor institutions.”
  – Rob Vietzke, Vice President of Network Services, Internet2 

Supercomputing 2012:

• Ciena is participating in several demonstrations at the SC Conference 2012 (SC12), in Salt Lake City, November 12-15. To learn more about the Pacific Wave network, visit CENIC and PNWGP at SC12 booth #3647.

Technology Background:

• The pioneer and market leader in coherent technology for optical transmission, Ciena has to date shipped over 16,000 coherent 40G/100G line interfaces to more than 100 customers across the globe, with over 15 million coherent kilometres deployed worldwide. Ciena has a long standing commitment to the research and education sector and powers several of the world’s largest research networks include Internet2 (US); ESnet (US); SURFnet (Netherlands), RENATER (France), CANARIE (Canada), and JANET (UK).

• OPn is Ciena’s approach for building open, programmable next-generation networks that scale and automatically adapt to handle the changes created by cloud/data center migration, mobile broadband and the growing demand for high-bandwidth applications and services including those that support R&E efforts across the globe.

Supporting Resources and Multimedia:

• Application Note: Coherent Optical Processing for High-Capacity Networks
• Data Sheet: 6500 Packet-Optical Platform
• White Paper: Addressing Network Uncertainty with an Intelligent Infrastructure
• Video: 100G and Beyond for Research and Education Networks
• White Paper: OPn Network Architecture

About CENIC
California’s education and research communities leverage their networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students. CENIC designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast majority of the state’s K-20 educational institutions are onnected. In order to facilitate collaboration in education and research, CENIC also provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry research organizations with which CENIC’s Associate researchers and educators are engaged. For more information, visit www.cenic.org.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop
The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) is a not-for-profit organization whose team brought the original internet to the northwest in the 80’s, and which today provides the full range of cost-effective, reliable, broadband high-performance networking, interconnection and peering, and related collaboration mechanisms, needed to help support the missions of our diverse membership, including the research, education, medical, cultural, government and leading technology organizations throughout the pacific-northwestern USA and also internationally across the Pacific Rim via Pacific Wave. For more information, visit http://www.pnw-gigapop.net/.

About Internet2
Internet2® is a member-owned advanced technology community founded by the nation’s leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 provides a collaborative environment for U.S. research and education organizations to solve common technology challenges, and to develop innovative solutions in support of their educational, research, and community service missions. For more information, visit www.internet2.edu. 

About Ciena
Ciena is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with OPn, its approach for building open next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. We routinely post recent news, financial results and other important announcements and information about Ciena on our website. For more information, visit www.ciena.com.

Note to Ciena Investors
Forward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena’s actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 5, 2012. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena’s expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “should,” “will,” and “would” or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Press Contacts:
Nicole Anderson
Ciena Corporation
(877) 857 -7377
pr@ciena.com

Investor Contacts:
Gregg Lampf
Ciena Corporation
(877) 243 6273
ir@ciena.com

Jamie Moody
Ciena Corporation
(214) 995-8035
jmoody@ciena.com

Janis Cortese
CENIC
(714) 220-3454
jcortese@cenic.org

Groups to Deploy 100G Networking Capabilities across West Coast, Share Infrastructure, and Work on Network Initiatives

La Mirada, CA — Feb. 7, 2012 — CENIC, the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, (PNWGP) and Internet2 today announced plans for a major, long-term collaboration to deploy 100 Gigabit per second (Gbps) networking capabilities across the entire West Coast of the United States, to share a common optical networking infrastructure, and to work on many network based initiatives.

This shared infrastructure, using PNWGP and CENIC fiber-optic cable and Internet2’s new Ciena optical system, will initially support the West Coast portion of Internet2’s new nationwide backbone network and the advanced Research & Education (R&E) peering and exchange services provided by CENIC and PNWGP. This long-term collaboration includes the Pacific Wave international distributed exchange, whose major exchange and access points in Seattle and Los Angeles are being interconnected with 100 Gbps capacity to support interconnections and transport at 100 Gbps speeds. Twenty-seven networks representing more than 40 countries throughout the Pacific Rim, the Americas, and the Middle East connect to one another via Pacific Wave.

“These 100 Gbps network interconnection and transit capabilities will enable our U.S. and international research partners to achieve the performance and service capabilities required by next generation research initiatives,” noted Louis Fox, President and CEO of CENIC.

“This is an extraordinary step forward in cooperation and mutual commitment between Internet2 and two R&E technology leaders, PNWGP and CENIC,” said Dave Lambert, CEO of Internet2. “We will work together to best and most cost-effectively serve our overall R&E community with next generation capabilities and services.”

“By partnering on this infrastructure, we are able to share our resources and expertise and further leverage our long-term reliance upon Internet2 and also the proven Internet2 network operations center to achieve reliable, ultra-high-performance networking which is affordable for our members and partners,” said Amy Philipson, Executive Director of PNWGP.

Internet2, CENIC, and PNWGP also will provide advanced broadband network capabilities, services, content, and applications to expand the U.S. Unified Community Anchor Network’s (U.S. UCAN) western community and to existing participants in all three organizations’ collective R&E networks.
Ron Johnson, chair, Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and Stephen Wolff, chief technology officer, Internet2, both of whose involvements in the Internet date back to the early days of ARPAnet and NSFnet, praised this new partnership and network fabric. Johnson noted that this “establishes the evolved relationship between our organizations as well as the directly shared technical platform that we have all been seeking. This will enable the R&E communities we serve both to pursue the next generation of innovations enabled by our networks, apps, and content, and to extend them for even broader impact to other key constituencies.” Wolff echoed these views, saying “thanks to this partnership, there will be many new opportunities for collaboration in the service of our communities and in the advancement of technology.”

About Internet2 • www.internet2.edu
Internet2, created and led by U.S. research universities, is one of the world’s most advanced networking consortia for global researchers and scientists, who develop breakthrough Internet technologies and applications and spark tomorrow’s essential innovations. Internet2 consists of more than 350 U.S. universities; corporations; government agencies; laboratories; higher learning; other major national, regional and state research and education networks; and organizations representing more than 50 countries. Established by Internet2 in 2011, U.S. UCAN is a national project dedicated to ensuring community anchor institutions, including public libraries, schools, community colleges, research parks, public safety and health care institutions have access to advanced broadband capabilities. Internet2 is a registered trademark.

About CENIC • www.cenic.org
California’s education and research communities leverage their networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective, high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs of their faculty, staff, and students.
CENIC designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast majority of the state’s K-20 educational institutions are connected. In order to facilitate collaboration in education and research, CENIC also provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry research organizations with which CENIC’s Associate researchers and educators are engaged.

About Pacific Northwest Gigapop • www.pnw-gigapop.net
The Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) is a not-for-profit organization whose team brought the original internet to the northwest in the 80’s, and which today provides the full range of cost-effective, reliable, broadband high-performance networking, interconnection and peering, and related collaboration mechanisms, needed to help support the missions of our diverse membership, including the research, education, medical, cultural, government and leading technology organizations throughout the pacific-northwestern USA and also internationally across the Pacific Rim via Pacific Wave.

About Pacific Wave • www.pacificwave.net
Pacific Wave is a state-of-the-art distributed international peering and exchange facility, which spans the West Coast of the USA including major interconnected points of presence in Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles and is designed to serve research and education networks throughout the Pacific Rim and the world. Pacific Wave enhances research and education network capabilities by increasing network efficiency, reducing latency, increasing throughput, and reducing costs. Pacific Wave is a joint project between CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and is operated in collaboration with the University of Southern California and the University of Washington.

Media Contacts:
Todd Sedmak, Internet2
(202) 331-5373 • Todd@Internet2.edu

Janis Cortese, CENIC
(714) 220-3454 • jcortese@cenic.org

Amy Philipson, PNWGP
(206) 310-0097 • amy.pnwgp@gmail.com