The State of the Research Networking World

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The State of the Research Networking World

• Thom Stone
• May 2002

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Topics

• Technology and HPRENs
• Areas
• North America
• Europe
• Asia
• South America
• Africa

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Technology Updates

• Wide area Ethernet
• Resilient Packet Ring
• Gig-E and 10 Gig Ethernet connections over
  wavelengths (SURFNET had a little Lambda)
• New NREN
• Distributed StarTAP
• StarLIGHT
• The great technology dying
• Western Europe and Asia/Pacific march ahead,
  South America takes some steps, Africa lags

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Beating the Standards

• Europe rolling out 10 Gig Ethernet over the wide
  area, Canada switches Lambda and US follows
• ATM and SONET are becoming passé
• Resilient Packet Ring Standard (RPR-802.17)
  brings protection, fast convergence
• RPR is IP centric
• Pure Lambda switching is next

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New NREN Backbone Up and Working

• OC-12 ATM core with some OC-3 tail circuits
• Connected to StarLIGHT (optical) in Chicago for
  international peering
• NREN and NPN share bandwidth - NREN for Network
  Research, NPN for application prototyping.
  Three-tier HPREN model (NISN, NPN, NREN)

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NREN Network Architecture
GRC
NGIX-Chi
NGIX-East
ARC/NGIX-West
GSFC
NASA WAN Testbed
HQ
JPL
MSFC
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Distributed StarTAP

• Allow for Non-US networks to terminate at coastal
  locations and use International Transit Service
  (ITN) to proxy peer via Abilene to STARTAP
• Thai network (UNINET) lands at L.A.,South
  American networks (AMPATH) land in Miami
• Abilene does not allow for FEDNET peering to ITN
  sites

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International HPRENs
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StarLIGHT

• New optical peering point in Chicago
• Experimental optical switching
• Very high speed connectionsGig-E or higher
• Will carry transit from StarTAP

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The Technology/Telecom Slump

• Global Crossing gone and other IRCs in danger.
  Do not know how this will affect AMPATH or other
  transoceanic connections
• Fiber switching, advanced routing, Wide/Metro
  area Ethernet companies all go into bankruptcy.
  Many established companies in trouble or pulling
  back

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CAnet4 the Optical Avatar

• Canarie is the leader in all optical networks and
  switching
• DWDM backbone
• New protocols such as Optical Border Gateway
  Protocol
• Provide transit for other networks

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Europe Does Gig

• TERENA - GEANT supercedes 10-155. 10 Gig-E
  Lambda backbone for Europe
• Dutch SURFNET lights the Atlantic
• 10 Gig-E IP over Lambda terrestrial backbone
• Connection to StarTAP at 622 Mb/sec (OC-12)
• Dual connection to StarLIGHT at GIG-E speed
• Teleglobe and Global Crossing

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SuperJanet - Rule Britannica

• Last month bought up two 2.5 Gig (OC-48 POS)
  links to US. Abilene, ESNET share one.
• Also OC-48 POS to GEANT

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Eastern Europe Attempts HPRENS

• CEENET Central and Eastern European Networking
  Association
• 26 Country networks
• Low-speed connections to the outside
• Russia - FASTnet connected to StarTAP at OC-3
  (Jan. 2002)

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Asia Pacific

• AARNET
• Current ATM backbone, going to 10 G-E in the near
  future
• Dual 155 Mb/sec (OC-3) SONET links to the US
• APAN
• Dual OC-12 circuits to Chicago. One POS one ATM
• Singapore (SINGAREN)
• ATM National backbone 27 Mb/sec ATM to
  ABILENE/StarTAP
• Malaysia (TEMAN)
• ATM backbone -Satellite Link to US networks
• Thailand (UNINET)
• ATM backbone- 17 Mb/sec connection to Abilene ITN
  at L.A.

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More Asia Pacific

• Philippine Research, Education, Government
  Information Network (PREGINET)
• ATM network In planning- Connects now via APAN
• CERNET- China Research and Education Network-
  OC-48 POS backbone connects to other China
  Academic networks
• Networks for HK, Taiwan, Korea, etc.

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AMPATH - HPRENS for South America

• Florida International University, Global
  Crossing, Cisco team to bring High Speed
  connectivity to networks in South America
• DS-3 ATM links, routers in a ring around South
  America
• Eleven connections now up
• What will the demise of Global Crossing do?

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Africa Bleak Outlook

• UNEP satellite based network decommissioned this
  year
• National Library of Medicine network being
  redesigned
• Uninet, the South African network has no external
  connectivity
• The UN is going to hold sessions concerning the
  lack of Internet resources in Africa

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Conclusion

• High-speed connections are here. Applications and
  protocols may not be ready for them. TCP
  performance is limited on single flows.
• The current economic downturn could have a
  negative impact in the next period. New
  technologies may not emerge as fast as they have
  in the past.
• The problem of the have not areas must be
  addressed.