News for and about the Internet2 community

[Lauren Rotman <>]

Internet2 Launches New ION Service
New Production-Class Dynamic Circuit Network Service To Support  
Leading Edge Research by the Internet2 Community

ANN ARBOR, Mich - October 9, 2009 – Internet2 this week announced a  
new production network service that allows researchers the ability to  
easily create dedicated, customized circuits on demand. Internet2 ION  
allows users to provision bandwidth when they need it to meet their  
applications’ specific time and capacity requirements. Using a simple  
web interface, dedicated circuits can be created instantly or reserved  
in advance and can be provisioned on the Internet2 Network across  
partner networks like the Department of Energy’s ESnet to provide  
guaranteed network resources for the most demanding of scientific  
experiments.

“Researchers in a wide range of disciplines including high energy  
physics, radio astronomy and climate research are eager to have  
predictable capabilities and capacities for the intense requirements  
of their science. Internet2 ION provides researchers that require  
reliable dedicated network resources to support their work and to  
ensure new scientific discovery is only limited by imagination and not  
by network resources,” said Rob Vietzke, Internet2 executive director  
of network services. “We look forward to working with our regional  
network partners to roll out this service and to make it useful to our  
community across the country.”

Internet2 ION is built on technology developed in collaboration with  
key partners including GÉANT and ESnet. The service leverages OSCARS  
technology, developed in collaboration with ESnet in part through  
funding by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The service  
also leverages DRAGON technology, developed in part through National  
Science Foundation funding by MAX, USC ISI East, and George Mason  
University.

By leveraging these technologies, which are designed using widely  
deployed protocols, Internet2 ION is able to dynamically create  
circuits across the Internet2 Network and into partner regional,  
national and international networks, connecting researchers with their  
colleagues worldwide. For many distributed users and applications of  
today, this is an absolute requirement.

“The Internet2 ION service opens up a whole new range of options for  
High-Energy Physicists using the network. Using ION initiated  
connections will allow us to optimize our transport of high-priority  
data without having to worry about potentially disruptive protocols  
interfering with other users,” said Shawn McKee, research scientist at  
the University of Michigan. “In addition, having the ability to create  
circuits via ION will provide us with the possibility of prioritizing  
and protecting the most critical data flows within our globally  
distributed infrastructure.  As such, ION should help us expedite the  
anticipated scientific discoveries as part of the Large Hadron  
Collider research.”

To create a circuit, the user signs into a simple, secure, web  
interface and follows a wizard-like, six-step process, setting start  
and end points, start and end times, bandwidth (available in 50Mbps  
increments up to 10Gbps) and other parameters. Reasonable default  
settings and helpful widgets speed the process, and context-sensitive  
help appears on screen. Users can also view sortable lists of current  
and past circuit reservations, create favorites, cancel reservations  
or modify start and end times, even jump-start a new circuit  
reservation by cloning an existing one.

Monitoring screens and maps are also provided, allowing users to  
review their circuit status and usage statistics—the up/down state of  
optical and Ethernet links, utilization, dropped packets, discarded  
packets and errored packets for ingress and egress points.

The research prototype version of the service was first known as DCN  
(Dynamic Circuit Network), but that term now refers to the underlying  
technology that enables services like Internet2 ION. The service's  
release signals the launch of a leading-edge production service, which  
represents the Internet2 community’s gateway to realizing the vision  
of dynamic circuit networking.

“ION brings to fruition the vision of dynamic circuit networking that  
has been developed through a community-based network research  
initiative over the past five years,” said George Loftus, president of  
OSHEAN and chair of the Internet2 Architecture and Operations Advisory  
Council. “We are confident that Internet2 members who need to deliver  
the most cutting edge services to researchers will find the ION  
service invaluable.”

Both the Internet2 AOAC, which advises on operations and architecture  
of the Internet2 Network, and the Research Advisory Council (RAC),  
which advises on network-focused research, have provided guidance on  
the development of the service and have endorsed its capabilities for  
the Internet2 community.

ABOUT INTERNET2
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:www.internet2.edu

Media Contact:
Lauren Rotman

202.331.5345