News for and about the Internet2 community

["Lauren Rotman" <>]

Internet2 Community Showcases Advanced Networking Capabilities at SC|06

Breakthrough 100 Gigabit Ethernet, Advanced Network Performance, and Hybrid
Optical and Packet Networking Demonstrations Take Centerstage at Internet2
Booth 1451

TAMPA, Fla. - November 13, 2006 - This year at SC|06, the Internet2 booth
(#1451) will showcase an impressive roster of showfloor demonstrations in
partnership with several of its members and other leading research
collaborators. Exhibits will include: a first-ever 100 Gigabit Ethernet
demonstration, advanced network performance technology demos, as well as
several first-time experiments with dynamic hybrid optical and packet
networking which serves as the basis for Internet2's next-generation network
under deployment this year. These demonstrations will run continuously at
the Internet2 booth no. 1451 from November 13th - 16th at the Tampa
Convention Center. For more information on Internet2 at SC|06, visit:
http://events.internet2.edu/2006/sc2006/

Breakthrough 100 Gigabit Ethernet Demonstration
A team of leading research and industry collaborators from Infinera in
collaboration with Finisar, Internet2, Level 3 Communications, and the
University of California at Santa Cruz have created the first-ever
demonstration of 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE) technology. The system
successfully transmitted a 100 GbE signal over 4000 km from Tampa, Florida
to Houston, Texas, and back again, over ten 10 Gb/s channels through the
Level 3 network. This is the first time a 100 GbE signal has been
successfully transmitted through a live production network. The 100 GbE
system will be on display from November 13th through the 16th at the
Infinera booth (Booth no. 1157). The system will be transmitting a 100 GbE
signal to the Internet2 booth (Booth no. 1451) during the show. The
Internet2 and Infinera booths will also be linked using an advanced
videoconferencing application.

"The research and education community continues to be the key driver for the
development of extreme bandwidth services like 100GbE," said Steve Cotter,
Internet2's director of network services, "We are very interested in
investigating this breakthrough technology, in collaboration with our
network partners, to ensure that our network not only keeps pace but also
anticipates the future demands of our members as they pursue increasingly
bandwidth-intensive applications, from telemedicine to high-energy physics
to high-performance grid computing, among many others."

DRAGON: Integrating Hybrid Network Services with Cyber Resources
On-demand lightpaths will be a key component to creating Internet2's new
advanced network. Critical to offering these capabilities is the ability to
provision optical circuits across multiple network administrative domains to
enable predictable and deterministic end-to-end network transport services.
The Internet2 community has been closely collaborating with the NSF-funded
DRAGON (Dynamic Resource Allocation via GMPLS Optical Networks) project to
examine the requirements and test these dynamic capabilities. 

At SC|06, DRAGON in cooperation with Internet2, NASA, ADVA Optical
Networking, Xnet, and NICT will showcase several different demonstrations
that focus on the integration of hybrid network services with scientific
instruments, computation and storage facilities, high resolution video and
visualization environments, and other cyber resources to create powerful new
concepts in globally distributed applications. 

Utilizing technology developed by DRAGON and its collaborating partners,
this demonstration shows how application-specific networks can be
established dynamically and on demand, combining hybrid network
infrastructure from the US, Japan, and Europe. GMPLS network control
software and middleware have been developed by DRAGON to meet the needs of
applications in such areas as electronic very long baseline interferometry
(eVLBI), grid computing, and high resolution video distribution.
DRAGON-developed technology is helping to drive the deployment of dedicated
circuit services on the new Internet2 Network. 

"These demonstrations at SC|06 provide a glimpse into how hybrid networks,
dynamic inter-domain provisioning, and advanced concepts in large scale
distributed applications can create dramatic new service models for both the
e-science community as well as the commercial sector. Internet2 has been an
important collaborative partner with DRAGON in deploying and refining these
technologies for the broader R&E community. The results of the investment by
both NSF and Internet2 in experimental and applied research in these areas
are evidenced in the new dynamic hybrid services being rolled out on the
Internet2 Network," said Jerry Sobieski, director of research initiatives
for the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) and principle investigator for the
DRAGON Project. "Through the use of new control plane technologies developed
by DRAGON in cooperation with the international research and education
community, we hope to facilitate a new era of advanced applications and
services."

End-to End-Performance Technologies for Advanced Networking
As the research and academic community's need for reliable, high
performance, high capacity data transfer continues to grow, the Internet2
community has sought to develop solutions to network performance problems.
It's long been understood that TCP/IP is not adequate for the transfer of
very large sets of data on shared network infrastructures. This year at
SC|06, Internet2 will demonstrate two leading end-to-end performance
prototype technologies that leverage existing network protocols and
technologies providing a seamless solution for end-users. These include:

VFER: High-Performance Transport in User Space
VFER is a portable, user-space tool for improving high-performance data
transport. VFER enables the use of advanced congestion control within the
data transport application eliminating the administrative and technical
burdens of making operating system modifications for improved performance.
VFER uses advanced TCP-friendly congestion control that more rapidly than
TCP recovers from non-congestive packet loss without disrupting other
network traffic. Two modes of use are supported: stand-alone file transfer
tool and use as a library for multimedia and other complex applications that
currently use simple UDP. The stand-alone file transfer tool uses normal SSH
credentials users already have. The "V" in VFER stands for 'velocity' and
'FER' is from the Latin "fero," which appears in words about movement (e.g.,
transfer). 

Phoebus: High-Performance Data Transfer for Hybrid Optical/Packet Networks
Phoebus is an environment for high-performance optical networks that
seamlessly creates various adaptation points in the network to maximize
performance. By splitting the network path into distinct segments, Phoebus
minimizes the impact of packet loss and latency by leveraging the best
performance attributes of each network segment. Using an end-to-end session
protocol, transport and signaling adaptation points can be controlled and
better performance is possible. In addition, the Phoebus adaptation library
allows existing applications to take advantage of advanced networks with
little or no modification. The Phoebus project aims to help bridge the
performance gap by bringing revolutionary networks like Internet2's Hybrid
Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) testbed to users. Many applications
can begin to utilize HOPI with no modification by being transparently
authenticated and redirected to the circuit network via a Phoebus service
node.

Martin Swany, assistant professor, Department of Computer and Information
Sciences, University of Delaware and Internet2 faculty fellow explained,
"Due to the huge success and growth of the Internet, it has been difficult
to deploy disruptive technologies broadly. Phoebus builds on standard
Internet infrastructure at the edge of the network, while creating a bridge
to advanced optical and packet networks like the new Internet2 network
enabling application communities like bioinformatics and satellite or
telescope data to benefit from hybrid networking in the short term. In the
longer term, Phoebus represents an architectural evolution of the Internet
in which commercial network providers can offer a richer set of services to
their users because they will no longer be constrained by the performance
limitations of TCP."

Both VFER and Phoebus will leverage the Internet2 Abilene Network to enter
the SC Bandwidth Challenge.
 
SC|06 is an international conference on high-performance computing,
networking, storage and analysis and takes place November 11-17th at the
Tampa Convention Center. Internet2 staff and collaborators will be on site
at booth 1451 to answer questions about the demos and provide additional
background on the new advanced Internet2 network. For more information on
Internet2 at SC|06, visit: http://events.internet2.edu/2006/sc2006/

About Internet2(R)
Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium. Led by the
research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes the missions
of its members by providing both leading-edge network capabilities and
unique partnership opportunities that together facilitate the development,
deployment and use of revolutionary Internet technologies. Internet2 brings
the U.S. research and academic community together with technology leaders
from industry, government and the international community to undertake
collaborative efforts that have a fundamental impact on tomorrow's Internet.

For more information: http://www.internet2.edu

Media contact:
Lauren Rotman

202.331.5345

###