Internet2 renews with Indiana University for GlobalNOC

Internet2 awarded a new three-year contract for Indiana University's GlobalNOC to provide customer service desk and break-fix support for the Internet2 national network. The agreement will commence on January 1, 2023. 

“We greatly appreciate the community team that convened to assist with shaping the RFP process, analyzing proposals, and providing instrumental input on this consolidated support approach,” said Rob Vietzke, vice president of network services at Internet2. “Reengaging with the IU GlobalNOC allows a clear path forward for the Internet2 Network Operations Center to continue providing world-class, transparent, and trusted support for our member community. This decision also aligns with Internet2’s strategic priorities for 2022, including the rollout of new tools and services enabled by our Next Generation Infrastructure and the expansion of our senior- and mid-level engineering functions.”

“For nearly a quarter century, the GlobalNOC at Indiana University has been proud to partner with Internet2 to help provide innovative support, services, and technologies to advance research and education networks,” said Rob Lowden, IU vice president for IT and chief information officer. “We are honored that Internet2 chose to continue our partnership after a competitive request for proposal process. Our culture of high expectations, scientific curiosity, and world-renowned expertise make the GlobalNOC an excellent fit to continue working with Internet2 well into the future.”

In addition, Rob Vietzke, Vice President of Network Services at Internet2, is stepping down to pursue other career opportunities. Rob has served the Internet2 community in this role since 2006. As Vice President of Network Services, he led strategic planning, management, and operation of the Internet2 Network, including evolving and transforming its business model, relationships with regional partners, developing and expanding the service portfolio, and assuring the financial model. Vietzke led three major network upgrades during his time at Internet2. Most recently the Next Generation Infrastructure (NGI), completed in 2021, offers a fully automated 400G national infrastructure with new services, new capabilities, and major efficiencies for the R&E community.

https://internet2.edu/internet2-and-indiana-university-agreement-for-network-operations-support/

Internet2 completes migration to its 5th gen optical backbone

Tuesday, January 18, 2022  Internet2  

Internet2, which serves 323 U.S. universities, 59 government agencies, 46 regional and state education networks, has migrated its research and education (R&E) network traffic to its fifth-generation backbone.The new network’s optical layer now supports up to 32 terabits per segment with a new generation of transponders in increments of 400-800 Gbps. NGI’s new packet layer provides 8-16 petabits per second of port capacity per location. NGI delivers...

READ MORE

Read More

Internet2 completes migration to its 5th gen optical backbone

Internet2, which serves 323 U.S. universities, 59 government agencies, 46 regional and state education networks, has migrated its research and education (R&E) network traffic to its fifth-generation backbone.

The new network’s optical layer now supports up to 32 terabits per segment with a new generation of transponders in increments of 400-800 Gbps. NGI’s new packet layer provides 8-16 petabits per second of port capacity per location. NGI delivers new software-driven advanced capabilities while also creating a greener footprint, with an expected 70 percent reduction in power consumption achieved through the latest hardware advancements.

“The technological advancements being enabled on the Internet2 network – together with software, tools, and security resources that have been developed in collaboration with community members – are providing next-generation capabilities that propel academic and research collaborations,” said Howard Pfeffer, Internet2 president and CEO. “A comprehensive upgrade of this scale allows us to support our community’s R&E infrastructure needs now and into the future – from K-12 students with connected devices, to faculty teaching classes and lab components, to scientists collaborating with colleagues all over the country and the world.” 

Internet2’s new infrastructure includes 12,000 miles of new single-mode ultra optical fiber across the U.S., along with power- and space-saving optical and routing equipment .

In 2021, Internet2 moved over two and three-quarters exabytes of data. 

Key vendors include Cisco, Ciena, Lumen, and General Datatech (GDT). 

“Ciena and Internet2 have a long history of success in building network architectures that fuel the next generation of scientific discovery,” said Steve Alexander, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Ciena. “Years ago, we teamed up with Internet2 to create America’s first 100G national research and education network and we look forward to supporting this next phase of their network evolution.”

“This initiative is a clear example of Cisco’s commitment to education and our focus on driving industry innovation,” added Renee Patton, Cisco’s global director of education and healthcare. “Our work with Internet2 is a model for the future of research and education globally. With innovative approaches such as this, we are working together to power inclusive exploration and learning for all.” 

“Lumen has been a key partner to Internet2 for years and provides the fiber backbone that powers their recent upgrade to Next Generation Infrastructure,” commented Sonia Ramsey, regional vice president of the Lumen state and local government and education market. “Internet2’s super high-speed network is built on the Lumen optical fiber and colocation infrastructure that quickly and securely connects important research and development groups and academic institutions in more than 40 cities. These ultra-fast connections are designed to increase scientific collaboration among diverse organizations across the U.S.”

https://internet2.edu/internet2-next-generation-infrastructure-operational-transition-to-fully-automated-400g-national-infrastructure-complete/

Read More

Internet2 to deploy Cisco's latest 8200 series routers

Internet2 will deploy Cisco's latest 8200 series routing platform powered by Cisco Silicon One ASICs, running IOS XR7 and Network Services Orchestration (NSO) software as part of the packet infrastructure upgrade to its national backbone. The deployment is part of a strategic alliance announced by Internet2 with Cisco to deliver next-generation capabilities and software solutions across the U.S. research and education (R&E) infrastructure.

The new agreement between the two organizations focuses on delivering a national R&E network with increased capacity incrementing at 400 Gbps, on-demand cloud-connectivity, and a reduced carbon footprint that will remove 6681 metric tons a year of carbon from the environment. The agreement also includes collaborative opportunities for Internet2 and Cisco to support research activities and multi-domain service orchestration with campus and regional partners.

Highlights

• Cisco 8201 and 8202 routers will be deployed in 48 locations across the country utilizing between 1 and 4 devices per location. A typical node which connects national backbone resources with regional networks has between 24 and 96 400G network access ports.
• Cisco NSO will become the basis for an extensible network-wide automation platform that will immediately deliver Internet2 services and can eventually support campus to regional to national to cloud service orchestration.
• The system will be interconnected using native 400G wavelengths on Internet2's optical network to deliver Nx400G capacity between cities.
• A move to segment routing with multiprotocol label switching (SR-MPLS) and Ethernet virtual private network (EVPN) will allow researcher applications to eventually claim up to an entire 400G link for a particular application while other network uses are dynamically moved to other paths.
• As part of the agreement, Cisco is also offering incentive programs for regional networks and campuses to adopt similar technologies for their own network upgrades.
• While delivering 4 to 12 times more capacity across the national footprint, the new Cisco solution is expected to require 668 metric tons less power and cooling.

"Research and education networks have never been more critical than they are today, and the selection of Cisco is a very exciting and critical milestone for the R&E community," said Howard Pfeffer, President and CEO, Internet2. "Cisco is supporting the delivery of a software-driven infrastructure that enables rapid deployment of new services and tight integration with applications and scientific workflows on the campus and in the cloud, both of which are essential to our nation's future. Cisco has also made substantial commitments not only to Internet2, but to the broader R&E community, by pledging ecosystem-wide support that helps us bridge campus, regional, national, and international needs." 

"Now more than ever, we believe that technology can be used for good to build a more inclusive future for us all," said Cisco Senior Vice President of U.S. Public Sector Nick Michaelides. "Innovation is in Cisco's DNA and we are proud to stand with and support leading researchers by providing a technological backbone that will help them connect, share data, collaborate and accelerate all their great work. Internet2 members are some of the brightest minds in the world, working to solve the biggest problems on the planet and we're honored to help them connect and work together to help build that more inclusive world we envision."

Internet2 to move onto CenturyLink’s new low-loss optical fiber

Wednesday, December 18, 2019  CenturyLink, Internet2  

by Benedict Chua, Assistant Editor Internet2 will migrate the majority of its footprint onto CenturyLink's new low-loss optical fiber. CenturyLink recently pulled new, low-loss optical fiber over a large portion of its national network. The installation uses an ITU-T G.652.D compliant single-mode optical fiber that is optimized for high bit rate coherent systems using advanced modulation schemes supporting 100G and above. CenturyLink also realigned...

READ MORE

Internet2 to deploy open line system (OLS) from Ciena

Tuesday, October 15, 2019  Ciena, Internet2  

by Benedict Chua, Assistant Editor Internet2 will deploy a flexible grid open line system (OLS) from Ciena to transform its network to a more scalable, programmable and adaptive architecture. The upgraded network, which connects several hundred universities, government agencies, and community anchor institutions across the U.S., strengthens Internet2 and the wider R&E community’s ability to conduct scientific research, enhance collaboration,...

READ MORE

Read More

Internet2 to move onto CenturyLink’s new low-loss optical fiber

by Benedict Chua, Assistant Editor

Internet2 will migrate the majority of its footprint onto CenturyLink's new low-loss optical fiber.

CenturyLink recently pulled new, low-loss optical fiber over a large portion of its national network. The installation uses an ITU-T G.652.D compliant single-mode optical fiber that is optimized for high bit rate coherent systems using advanced modulation schemes supporting 100G and above. CenturyLink also realigned amplifier spacing to create more efficient resources for optimized optical networks.

Internet2 said the move will support its new all-coherent open-line system. CenturyLink has also been selected to provide the professional services to migrate Internet2 to its new platform, which will be equipped with a flex-grid open-line system being provided by Ciena. The new contractual fiber-use agreements will extend through at least 2042. Internet2 will have the ability to reach anywhere on its domestic footprint with an unregenerated wavelength of up to 200G. Many high-use spans on Internet2’s Network will also support 400G and 800G wavelengths with existing technologies and higher bitrates are expected in the coming years as new DSP technology comes into production. Internet2 has been able to achieve unregenerated spans without employing Raman amplification, a reduction in complexity and improved efficiency both at installation and for ongoing operations.

“We believe the combination of the most advanced fiber from CenturyLink with the latest coherent transmission technologies from Ciena provides enormous opportunities to enable research and academic pursuits in the United States,” said Rob Vietzke, vice president of network services for Internet2. “Whether it is tracking the origins of Neutrinos in the Antarctic, comparing gene sequences or studying the climate, this new optical network, with its ability to span very long distances at very high bandwidths and improved efficiency, is essential to providing the best research infrastructure for data-intensive science on the globe.”

“One of America’s leading research and education organizations placed its trust in CenturyLink to upgrade its network to a high-speed, high-capacity, fiber-optic network that will support today’s leading-edge research projects,” said Sonia Ramsey, CenturyLink’s vice president for the state and local government and education market. “Internet2’s selection of CenturyLink recognizes the company’s long-standing relationship with the research and education community and our commitment to meet the community’s ever-increasing advanced technology needs.”     

https://www.internet2.edu/news/detail/17474/

Internet2 to deploy open line system (OLS) from Ciena

Tuesday, October 15, 2019  Ciena, Internet2  

by Benedict Chua, Assistant Editor

Internet2 will deploy a flexible grid open line system (OLS) from Ciena to transform its network to a more scalable, programmable and adaptive architecture.

The upgraded network, which connects several hundred universities, government agencies, and community anchor institutions across the U.S., strengthens Internet2 and the wider R&E community’s ability to conduct scientific research, enhance collaboration, and improve operations.

The OLS element will provide access to a highly reliable, contiguous coherent optical network that can facilitate wavelength delivery and efficient data transfer throughout the continental United States. The OLS also includes Ciena’s commitment to support wavelengths launched directly from Internet2’s member networks for transport to strategic endpoints beyond their regional footprints.

Specifically Internet2 will deploy Ciena’s latest-generation Waveserver – powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme – programmable 200G-800G coherent optics to enable Internet2 to deploy 800G wavelengths in metro locations and support efficient 400GE interconnect over native 400G wavelengths between Internet2 points-of-presence system-wide.

Ciena said Internet2’s deployment will reduce the overall space and power footprint of the current optical add-drop locations by as much as two-thirds, contributing to a lower cost and greener network that supports substantially more capacity. Internet2 will be able to tune, control and dynamically adjust optical capacity across any path using Ciena’s Liquid Spectrum ™ analytics software. Additionally, Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan domain controller will help improve network management and operations.
Executive Comments:

“Ciena put forth a great proposal that met Internet2’s objectives to efficiently increase capacity, increase optical reach, and support open line system use cases. Together with superior coherent modems and a proven support system, the openness, flexibility and greener profile of this network will play a key role in our ability to accelerate discoveries in the research and education community. We are delighted to have Ciena as a partner in tackling the great research and education challenges of the next decade,” stated Howard Pfeffer, President and CEO, Internet2.

“Internet2 is a trailblazer in the R&E community. They are also leaders in developing collaborative environments that are shaping how future high performance, high capacity networks will be created to fuel the digital society. Ciena worked with Internet2 to establish America’s first nationwide 100G R&E network and this latest initiative will significantly enhance Internet2’s services,” said Rod Wilson, Chief Technologist for Research Networks, Ciena.

Read More

Internet2 to deploy open line system (OLS) from Ciena

by Benedict Chua, Assistant Editor

Internet2 will deploy a flexible grid open line system (OLS) from Ciena to transform its network to a more scalable, programmable and adaptive architecture.

The upgraded network, which connects several hundred universities, government agencies, and community anchor institutions across the U.S., strengthens Internet2 and the wider R&E community’s ability to conduct scientific research, enhance collaboration, and improve operations.

The OLS element will provide access to a highly reliable, contiguous coherent optical network that can facilitate wavelength delivery and efficient data transfer throughout the continental United States. The OLS also includes Ciena’s commitment to support wavelengths launched directly from Internet2’s member networks for transport to strategic endpoints beyond their regional footprints.

Specifically Internet2 will deploy Ciena’s latest-generation Waveserver – powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme – programmable 200G-800G coherent optics to enable Internet2 to deploy 800G wavelengths in metro locations and support efficient 400GE interconnect over native 400G wavelengths between Internet2 points-of-presence system-wide.

Ciena said Internet2’s deployment will reduce the overall space and power footprint of the current optical add-drop locations by as much as two-thirds, contributing to a lower cost and greener network that supports substantially more capacity. Internet2 will be able to tune, control and dynamically adjust optical capacity across any path using Ciena’s Liquid Spectrum ™ analytics software. Additionally, Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan domain controller will help improve network management and operations.
Executive Comments:

“Ciena put forth a great proposal that met Internet2’s objectives to efficiently increase capacity, increase optical reach, and support open line system use cases. Together with superior coherent modems and a proven support system, the openness, flexibility and greener profile of this network will play a key role in our ability to accelerate discoveries in the research and education community. We are delighted to have Ciena as a partner in tackling the great research and education challenges of the next decade,” stated Howard Pfeffer, President and CEO, Internet2.

“Internet2 is a trailblazer in the R&E community. They are also leaders in developing collaborative environments that are shaping how future high performance, high capacity networks will be created to fuel the digital society. Ciena worked with Internet2 to establish America’s first nationwide 100G R&E network and this latest initiative will significantly enhance Internet2’s services,” said Rod Wilson, Chief Technologist for Research Networks, Ciena.

https://www.internet2.edu/news/detail/17395/

Read More

NSF to fund E-CAS cloud projects via Internet2

Internet2 announced a new partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to coordinate the use of commercial cloud platforms for scientific computing research needs.

Internet2 will serve as the coordinator, facilitator and administrator of the Exploring Clouds for Acceleration of Science (E-CAS) project, which will investigate the viability of commercial clouds as an option for leading-edge research computing and computational science supporting a range of academic disciplines.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud are named as the initial providers supporting the project.

Proposals will be selected from two categories:

• Time-to-science: to achieve the best time-to-solution for scientific application and workflows that may be time or situation sensitive; and
• Innovation: to explore innovative use of heterogeneous hardware resources, serverless applications and/or machine learning to support and extend application workflows.

“We are very excited to partner with NSF and work in collaboration with leading cloud providers to support a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines and help provide digital research platforms to a wider range of scientific endeavors,” said Howard Pfeffer, president and CEO of Internet2, and principal investigator on the E-CAS project. “For over 20 years, Internet2 has served to connect researchers who work together to solve common technology challenges, and to develop innovative solutions in support of their educational, research, and community service missions. This partnership is an extension of our commitment to supporting researchers and diversifying technology solutions for the benefit of the research and education community.”

"Since its inception, Google Cloud has been advancing state-of-the-art modern computing infrastructures, and today's scientific computing infrastructure provides a vast set of resources for researchers to leverage," said Kevin Kells, Director of Google for Education. "In this partnership with Internet2 and the National Science Foundation, we are encouraging the research community to accelerate scientific discovery by developing innovative applications that harness the global-scale services provided by Google Cloud."

http://www.internet2.edu/ecas

Read More

CENIC, Pacific Northwest Gigapop, and Internet2 renew agreement

CENIC, the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP), and Internet2 will renew their collaboration to provide networking capabilities across the entire West Coast of the United States.

The agreement will extend high-bandwidth connectivity to the academic community using CENIC and PNWGP fiber-optic cable and Internet2’s Ciena optical system.

This supports the West Coast portion of Internet2’s nationwide backbone network. It also supports other CENIC and PNWGP networks and network initiatives, including the West Coast backbone of the Pacific Wave International Exchange, as well as the underlying infrastructure for the core of the National Science Foundation-funded Pacific Research Platform (PRP).

The term of the renewal is five years (2017 – 2022) with additional extensions possible.

Pacific Wave connects twenty-seven networks representing more than 40 countries throughout the Pacific Rim, the Americas, and the Middle East. Pacific Wave has access nodes in Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, Denver, Albuquerque, and El Paso and is directly connected to the StarLight International Exchange in Chicago, providing connectivity to all major European R&E networks. Additional new nodes of Pacific Wave are planned for December 2017 in Texas and Oklahoma.

“This is a significant collaboration with Internet2, one of several, which enables network interconnection and transit capabilities for our U.S. and international research partners in order to achieve the performance and service capabilities required by researchers who depend heavily on high-speed access to large datasets, remote scientific instruments, multi-institutional collaborations, and computing resources,” noted Louis Fox, president and CEO of CENIC.

Read More

Internet2 Deploys ONOS to Provision Virtual Nets

Internet2 has deployed the Open source SDN Network Operating System (ONOS) on its nationwide research and education (R&E) network.

Five higher education institutions — Duke University, Florida International University, the Indiana GigaPoP, MAX and the University of Maryland – College Park, and the University of Utah — are connected to a virtual slice of the Internet2 nation-wide network that is piloting this next-generation advanced network technology.

Internet2 said it is using the capabilities of its SDN substrate to provision virtual networks based on FlowSpace Firewall. An ONOS cluster is deployed in a virtual network slice on the Internet2 network, controlling 38 OpenFlow-enabled Brocade and Juniper switches. The SDN-IP Peering application deployed atop ONOS peers with other, traditional networks. An SDN-based network like Internet2 provides benefits such as network programmability, lower TCO and removal of vendor lock-in. In this particular case, the centralized control plane leads to significant improvements in network operation efficiency for the Internet2 network.

“We worked closely together in a lab environment to prepare ONOS for production deployment on the Internet2 Network, providing many valuable insights on production deployment of SDN-controlled virtual networks in a multi-tenant environment,” said Luke Fowler, director of software and systems for the GlobalNOC.

“A primary feature of the Internet2 Network is its ability to serve as a ‘playground’ for piloting new advanced networking capabilities in a real-world environment with demanding users and advanced applications capabilities,” said Vietzke. “The ONOS and SDN-IP peering deployment is another demonstration of how Internet2 and the academic community continue to be a large scale platform in which pre-market innovations can be prototyped at scale.”

"ON.Lab, the ONOS Project and Internet2 have a very synergistic collaboration. At ON.Lab we develop interesting open source SDN platforms and Internet2 is a keen early adopter bringing new capabilities to its customers,” said Bill Snow, vice president of Engineering for ON.Lab. “With the deployment of ONOS on Internet2’s nationwide network, we get to validate and demonstrate ONOS’s scalability, performance and high availability in a production setting and learn from this experience to make ONOS better.”

http://www.internet2.edu/news/detail/8664/

Read More

Research Community Activates North Atlantic 100 Gbps Ring

Internet2, NORDUnet, CANARIE and SURFnet announced the completion of a collaborative advanced network, called ANA-200G, that spans the North Atlantic.

ANA-200G is a redundant 100 Gbps ring between four open exchange points: MAN LAN in New York City, WIX in Washington, D.C., NetherLight in Amsterdam, and GÉANT Open in London.  The network enables clear channel 100 Gbps data transfers for R&E between researchers in the United States and Northern Europe.

Demonstrations of ANA-200G will take place this week at SuperComputing (SC14) in New Orleans.

"Research and education are worldwide endeavors, with teams collaborating on single ‘big science’ projects across the globe. Likewise, leading R&E networks from around the world also partner on a global scale to jointly advance the state of the art for the benefit of the networks’ users. With this major milestone in ANA-200G, we deliver on an important pathfinder for a novel Global Network Architecture for R&E that is just as robust as each of our domestic capabilities," stated Dave Lambert, President and CEO of Internet2.

http://www.internet2.edu
http://www.nordu.net
http://www.canarie.ca
http://www.surfnet.nl/en

Read More

Internet2 Launches Full-Production OpenFlow Capability

The Internet2 last week marked a major milestone in its network architecture by demonstrating the first nationwide, multi-tenant SDN-powered virtualized network capability.

The announcement was made at the 2014 Technology Exchange held last week in Indianapolis.

Conceptually, the virtualization enables the physical Internet2 Network to operate in isolated “slices” by leveraging innovations native to the Internet2 Network, including its 100G interfaces. The new SDN capability is driven by “FlowSpace Firewall” software installed in the Internet2 production network.  This allows slices of OpenFlow capabilities to be partitioned across nearly forty 100G-attached access nodes throughout the country. The software protects each network slice from overconsumption of resources by other slices.

The Internet2 says this first-in-class capability is now available to support the important work of the research and education (R&E) community’s data-intensive science and academic operations.

During the 2014 Technology Exchange conference, several initiatives were announced to build large-scale production cloud computing, next-generation IP and peering fabrics in virtual slices of the Internet2 Network.

These include two $10 million projects, called Chameleon and CloudLab, underwritten by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“By connecting CloudLab to Internet2's nationwide SDN network, we can give researchers a level of end-to-end network programmability that is unprecedented in a cloud platform, said Robert Ricci, a research assistant professor of computer science at the University of Utah and principal investigator of CloudLab. Having this level of control, programmability, and visibility into the network will enable the research community to push the boundaries of cloud networking and explore the future of network architectures for the cloud.

http://www.internet2.edu/news/detail/7257/

More on FlowSpace Firewall:
http://globalnoc.iu.edu/software/sdn.html

Read More

Research Networks Test Trans-Atlantic 100G Connection for LHC

Leading research networks supporting CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland are testing a 100G trans-Atlantic link for transporting the massive data sets associated with the project. Currently, up to fifteen 10G links over different paths are used in concert to move the data.

In March, the Department of Energy’s ESnet, Internet2, CANARIE, GÉANT, NORDUnet and SURFnet began testing a leased  100 Gbps connection between Amsterdam (Netherlight Open Exchange) and New York. The four-week test was conducted in collaboration with LHCONE, the LHC Open Network Environment.

ESnet reports positive results from the Advanced North Atlantic 100G Pilot. A saturation test over 10 minutes yielded a 99.9 percent utilization with no loss, no errors.  A 24 hour test at 50 Gbps, carried over 540 terabytes of data with no loss and no errors.

http://es.net/news-and-publications/esnet-news/2014/100-gbps-test-link-sets-pace-for-faster-trans-atlantic-data-transfers/

https://blog.surfnet.nl/?p=1952

Read More

University of Florida Deploys Brocade 100 GbE Core Routers

The University of Florida is deploying Brocade MLXe Core Routers with 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) blades and Brocade ICX Switches in its core network connecting the institution's HiPerGator supercomputer and external research networks, such as Internet2. In the newly opened data center, the University of Florida consolidated three primary Campus Research Network (CRN) sites to two, resulting in a 200 GbE triangle configuration connection between the two sites and the gateway to Internet2.

"All high-energy physics researchers in the southeast United States use the University of Florida's network as a resource and all of the data flows through Brocade routers," said Erik Deumens, Ph.D., Director of Research Computing at the University of Florida. "The 100 GbE Brocade MLXe routers enable us to keep up with demands and are also what the campus needed to develop a clear technology roadmap supportive of software-defined networking (SDN)."

In addition to the 100 GbE network, the University of Florida is participating in an early field trial of the recently announced Brocade MLXe 40 GbE module and connecting the Brocade MLXe Core Routers with high-density Brocade ICX 6650 Switches that provide 40/10 GbE performance. Brocade said the resulting solution positions the university as a leading example of a campus deploying an SDN-ready 100 GbE network core with 40 GbE connectivity to the aggregation layer.

http://www.brocade.com

Read More

Ciena Collaborates with Research Nets on Software-defined Packet/Optical

Ciena is collaborating with CANARIE, Internet2 and StarLight to build a software-defined wide-area network that leverages OpenFlow across both the packet and transport layers.  The network features an open architecture carrier-scale controller and intrinsic multi-layer operation.

The network initially connects Ciena’s corporate headquarters in Hanover, Maryland, USA with Ciena’s largest R&D center in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. International connectivity is achieved with Internet2 through the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange in Chicago and CANARIE, Canada's national optical fiber based advanced R&E network.

Ciena solutions included in the testbed:

• OpenFlow v1.3-enabled 4Tb/s core switches, featuring 400G packet blades;
• Transport – Layer 0 and Layer 1 OTN – network elements from Ciena’s industry-leading 6500 and 5400 converged packet-optical product families, configurable under extended OpenFlow protocol control;
• A prototype open, modular and modifiable control software system that leverages open source components and is suitable for large-scale and geographically-distributed network control;
• Multi-layer provisioning and control, driven by an abstracted northbound API;
• Real-time analytics software designed to enable multi-layer resource optimization and dynamic network service pricing for revenue optimization.

"Going above and beyond a simple testbed, this live, fully functional network will drive continued innovation and demonstrate how a truly OPn network architecture can unleash the full power of SDN in the WAN. By building the industry’s first fully-featured, fully-open and fully-operational, end-to-end and multi-layer SDN-powered WAN, we can offer a real-world experience for customers and researchers to trial, refine and prove SDN concepts and technologies in both the network and the back office – without having to build a unique infrastructure for every use case," stated Steve Alexander, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Ciena.

http://www.ciena.com

Read More

CENIC Establishes Five 100G Interconnects with Internet2

The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) has established five new 100 Gbps links between the California Research and Education Network (CalREN) and Internet2.

Two new 100G connections in Los Angeles will support a variety of research purposes, along with a third 100G connection at Sunnyvale that will also connect to Internet2’s Advanced Layer 2 Services. Along with these, two connections between CalREN and Internet2’s TR-CPS national peering infrastructure will be upgraded to 20G and can scale to 100G.

“Networks all over the world are seeing enormous growth in recent traffic as new scientific instruments come online, cloud computing hits its stride, and collaborative research and education begins to assume a level of bandwidth that would have been unthinkable only a few short years ago,” said Louis Fox, President and Chief Executive Officer of CENIC. “Some projections point to a saturation of existing networks in less than a decade, and not as an outlying possibility. 100G connections like these between the CENIC and Internet2 backbones are absolutely vital to ensure that the pace of global innovation continues to accelerate in California, the US, and the world as well.”

http://www.cenic.org
http://www.internet2.edu

Read More

Internet2 Offers Cash Prizes for SDN Research Apps

Internet2, in conjunction with Juniper Networks, Ciena, and Brocade, is offering cash awards for winning open source, data movement, software-defined networking (SDN) enabled, end user applications, which benefit the research and education (R&E) community, implemented on the nation’s first open, national-scale SDN platform -- the Internet2 Network.

The new Internet2 Network is the first open, national-scale 100G network that employs SDN and OpenFlow standards. It includes equipment from Juniper Networks, Ciena, and Brocade.

“The new Internet2 Network can advance global research collaboration in previously unimaginable ways," said Rob Vietzke, vice president of Network Services, Internet2. “Leveraging our new 100G, SDN-enabled network, we're on the hunt for the most innovative applications that help to accelerate and transform discovery in big data sciences."

More info is posted here:

http://www.internet2.edu/network/innovative-application-awards.html

Read More

Reporter Notes from ONS 2013: NTT Com, Internet 2, Google

By James E. Carroll, Editor
NTT Communications was among the first Service Providers to see the potential of OpenFlow and SDN for transforming its operations, said Yukio Ito, Senior VP Service Infrastructure, NTT Communications.  Some notes from his keynote at the Open Networking Summit 2013 in Santa Clara, California:

• NTT Com's reasons for pursuing SDN include shorter time to market, service differentiation, and reduced CAPEX/OPEX.
• NTT Communications has a Global Cloud Vision encompassing many of its enterprise services and all self-managed under an integrated cloud portal.
• The company launched its SDN-enabled Enterprise Service in 2012, including the self-provisioning portal website.
• OpenFlow is being used for inter-data center back-ups between NTT Communications' Global Data Centers.  The service allows bandwidth can be boosted on-demand using the OpenFlow controller.
• The results of using OpenFlow/SDN for the Enterprise Cloud service have been good, including better service automation, a topology-free design, an the overcoming the 4K VLAN limitation that the network would otherwise face.  There have been some issues.  The OpenFlow v1.0 specification did not meet requirements for redundancy, current silicon has meant a "flow table shortage", and the network has generally been less programmable than NTT Communications expects.  The company is working to overcome these issues.
• NTT Com is working on its SDN architecture that will provide a common framework for northbound and southbound interfaces.  The company will use vendors and/or open source if they meet its criteria.
• NTT Com is very interested in extending SDN to the optical transport layer. The ONF's Optical Transport WG is expected to accelerate this discussion.
• One additional challenge is that the interconnection between a data center network and an MPLS-VPN is not currently automated.  The company is developing a "Big Boss" SDN controller to address this challenge.

INTERNET2

The experimentation with Software Defined Networking underway in Internet2 in many ways parallels the birth of the commercial Internet, said Dave Lambert, President and CEO of Internet2.  Many U.S. companies, in fact, have their roots in academia, such as Cisco (Stanford), Sun (Berkeley and Stanford), Google (Stanford), Arbor ( U.of Michigan), Akamai (MIT), etc.

Some notes from his presentation:

• It's time for a change. Most of the network paradigm was created 35 to 40 years ago, when Ethernet and IP emerged despite strong technical objections.
• Will we fight re-centralization of an open control plane and hybridization to a potentially post-IP, SDN-based packet environment? This is like the packet-circuit debate with IBM's SNA group back in the day.
• Getting bandwidth limitations out of the way for the academic community is a key objective.
• Bandwidth and openness are imagination enablers.  An open networking stack is risky but is among the most exciting things.
• Data intensive science in genomics and physics really do demand flexibility to handle massive data flows.
• 29 major universities are committed to the Innovation Platform Program.  This entails (1) 100 GigE connectivity to their campus and across their campus (2) support and access Intenet2's Layer 2 OpenFlow-based service (3) Invest in developing applications that run across this network.
• The U.S. academic is admittedly on the cutting edge. 

SDN @ GOOGLE

Google's software defined WAN, which is the basis its internal network between data centers, is real, it works, and has met the company's expectations in terms of scalability and reliability, said Amin Vahdat, Distinguished Engineer at Google.  Some notes from his presentation:

• It's been a year since Google announced that its internal backbone had been migrated to SDN.
• Growth in bandwidth continues unabated.   Google's internal backbone actually carries more traffic than its public-facing network.
• Planning, building and provisioning bandwidth at Google scale had been a major headache, hence the interest in SDN. Over-provisioning costs were also a major driver to adopt SDN.  Slow convergence time in the event on an outage was another factor.
• Google wanted to go with  logically centralized network control instead of the decentralized paradigm of the Internet.  This centralized approach leads to a network that is more deterministic, more efficient and more fault tolerant, according to Vahdat.
• B4 is the name of Google's software defined WAN.  Vahdat describes it as a warehouse-scale-computer (WSC) network.  It links data centers around the world  (a map shows 12 nodes across Asia, North America and Europe) . So far this network is successful, so the next step may be to run some Internet user-facing traffic across this same backbone.
  
• The B4 network runs OpenFlow. Google built its own network hardware using merchant silicon. The are 100s of ports of non-blocking 10GE.
• Google uses Quagga for BGP and IS-IS.  A hybrid SDN architecture is used to bridge sites that are fully under SDN control and legacy sites. This means that SDN can be deployed incrementally.  You don't have it deploy it everyone on Day 1.
• Traffic engineering is the first application on the SDN WAN. This was implemented about a year ago.  It takes into account current network demand and application priority.
• Google has been adding capabilities pretty quickly through frequent software releases. 

http://www.opennetsummit.org

Read More

Super Computing's XSEDE Connects to Internet2's 100GbE Backbone

XSEDE, which is a National Science Foundation-supported project that brings together 17 supercomputers, visualization and data analysis engines, and data storage resources, has migrated and upgraded its network backbone infrastructure to the Internet2 Network.

This enables XSEDE to use Internet2’s new 100 GbE optical network, platform, services and technologies.

Internet2 and the XSEDEnet networking group will work together to configure a private network between the XSEDE service provider sites across the shared backbone. A majority of sites will connect to the nearest Internet2 Advanced Layer 2 Service node at 10G and share bandwidth across a 100G backbone with other participants. Initially, Indiana University and Purdue University will have 100G connections.

"This is an extremely important milestone that advances the strategic alignment between the high performance computing and Internet2 communities," said Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie. "Having the massive computational capabilities of XSEDE coupled directly to the most advanced network capabilities with the broadest reach among the U.S. and global research communities is of critical importance to the success of XSEDE."

https://www.xsede.org/

Read More

Internet2 Deploys Brocade for National-Scale, 100GbE SDN

Internet2 is using Brocade's MLXe Core Routers as an integral component of its 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE)  network.

"Networking infrastructure is being transformed by SDN into an open platform for innovation. We are excited that Brocade 100 GbE and true Hybrid-Mode OpenFlow technologies are part of the new Internet2 Network. By working with Internet2 and its members, Brocade will build upon its pioneering work on high-speed software-defined networks," said Ken Cheng, vice president of the Routing, Application Delivery and Software Networking Group at Brocade.

The Brocade MLXe 100 GbE routers enable programmatic control of the network infrastructure to deliver massive scale and intelligent service delivery capabilities.  Notably, Brocade is offering support for OpenFlow in Hybrid Mode, enabling the 10 GbE and 100 GbE Brocade MLXe solutions to integrate SDN with existing IP/MPLS networks. Brocade said this unique capability enables network operators such as Internet2 to integrate OpenFlow into existing networks, giving them the programmatic control offered by SDN for specific flows while the remaining traffic is handled as before.

http://www.broacade.com
http://www.internet2.edu.

Read More

Internet2's 100G Backbone Open for SDN

Internet2's new 100G-enabled and 8.8 Terabit per second optical network is now operational for member institutions.

The new capabilities now available on the Internet2 Network include:

• An upgraded Advanced Layer 3 Service, that will provide extraordinary broadband capabilities for science, medicine and education not only to the higher education community, but also to hundreds of thousands of community anchor institutions through partnerships with regional networks and Internet2's United States Unified Community Anchor Network (U.S. UCAN) project.
  
• A nationwide 100 Gbps Software Defined Network offering both production services like the Layer-2 Open Science, Scholarship and Service Exchange built in partnership with Indiana University and support of new network innovations through software defined networking support.
  
• Over 8.8 Tbps of optical network capacity through 88, 100 Gbps-waves that are delivered in a unique partnership, between Internet2 and the Department of Energy's Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) that will share this capacity and operations of the infrastructure to advance national programs.

"We are excited about officially launching the new capabilities of the nation's first 100G open, national-scale, software-defined network through massive collaboration with our partners in government and business that will be used by Internet2 members to help solve practical, far-reaching problems that benefit society," said Internet2 CEO and President H. David Lambert. "We look forward to seeing the collaboration of our community using this dynamic network to advance education, transform university business models, and accelerate global Big Data collaborative research outcomes. When we equip the research and education community with great technology and no barriers to innovation, that's when they start creating the future."

http://www.internet2.edu

• Earlier this year, Internet2 formed partnerships with 16 leading technology companies to provide cloud services to college campuses across the U.S.
• 
• Cloud partners include Aastra; Adobe; Box; CENIC; Dell; Desire2Learn; Duo Security; DuraSpace; Evogh; HP; Level 3 Communications; Merit Network, Inc.; Microsoft; Savvis, a CenturyLink Company; SHI International; and The Solution Design Group.
  
  "These major cloud service partnerships are customized to meet the needs of the Internet2 community and these offerings range in stages from incubator, proof-of-concept, early adopter and general availability," said Dave Lambert, Internet2 CEO and president. "No other organization in the United States is able to offer this level of collaboration between higher education and the technology industry to launch these strategic cloud services to effectively and efficiently advance research, innovation and the education mission of our nation's leading universities."

Read More

Internet2 NET+ Services and CENIC Establish Purchasing Program for Amazon Web Services

Internet2 and CENIC, California’s advanced networking consortium, will offer a new purchasing program for Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make it easier for research and education community institutions to take advantage of the AWS cloud. This includes Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2), Amazon CloudFront CDN, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Simple Storage Services (S3), and other cloud services.

A community-friendly self-service portal created and managed by AWS solution provider, Datapipe, provides discounts on eligible AWS services. Expanded payment options include invoicing and grant-friendly pre-payment services, as well as traditional credit card payment services.
http://www.internet.edu

Read More