Page II: Forget Internet2. The National LambdaRail is the most ambitious network research project going. But can it save the optical networking industry?
Since the telecommunications bubble burst, hundreds of these companies have gone bankrupt, and "optical" has become a dirty word in the networking world. A final accounting of the damage may not be over even yet: Corning, one of the largest makers of optical fiber, cable and photonics products, on Thursday said it will record US$2.8 billion to US$2.9 billion in noncash charges in its third quarter related to its telecommunications business.
Given the current climate, the advent of NLR and the research possibilities it is opening up are already being hailed as a godsend for the beleaguered sector.
"I think that NLR has definitely raised the consciousness of optical technology," Colburn said. "As a networking guy, a year ago I didn't have to know a lot about optical networking, but now I do."
Experts have called NLR the most important network project since ARPAnet and NSFnet, both precursors to the commercial Internet.
1969: ARPAnet was commissioned by the Department of Defense.
1974: TCP was specified.
1978: TCP was split from IP.
1983: The world's first name server was deployed at the University of Wisconsin. Users were no longer required to know the exact path to other systems. Desktops with IP software began to be widely deployed.
1986: NSFnet was created by the National Science Foundation. Its backbone speed was 56kbps.
1990: ARPAnet disappeared.
1991: The World Wide Web was released.
1994: Internet shopping malls were introduced, and radio stations began broadcasting over the Net.
1996: Internet2 was officially created.
1999: IBM became the first corporate partner with Internet2 access. Internet2's Abilene network reached across the Atlantic Ocean to NORDUnet and SURFnet. Napster, a music file-sharing service, launched.
2000: A massive denial-of-service attack occured against major Web sites, including Yahoo, Amazon.com, and eBay. Internet2 began deploying some IPv6 technology.
2001: The first high schools gained access to Internet2. Napster suspended service due to legal threats.
2002: Internet2's Abilene network deployed native IPv6.
2003: The last Abilene link upgraded to 10gbps. The first National LambdaRail link was lit. The recording industry sued 261 individuals for illegally distributing copyright music.
2004: The first phase of the National LambdaRail infrastructure was completed.
Source: Hobbes' Internet time line
Internet evolution
"By nature, the research and education community will always be a few steps ahead of the commercial market," said John Verduzco, sales director for research and education at Level 3. "Our work with the researchers involved in the NLR project should theoretically pay dividends in the future. It's possible some of the research could spawn offshoots that we productise later."
A new kind of research network
Like fiber networks laid in the late 1990s, NLR relies on technology called dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) that splits light on a fiber into hundreds of wavelengths.
That not only dramatically expands bandwidth capacity; it allows multiple dedicated links to be set up on the same infrastructure.
While Internet2 users share a single 10gbps network, NLR users can have their own dedicated 10gbps link to themselves. Experts say Abilene provides more than enough capacity to run most next-generation applications, such as high-definition video, but that it doesn't offer enough capacity for some of the highest-performing supercomputing applications.
Because Internet2 is a shared network, researchers are constantly trying to tune the infrastructure to increase performance, measured by so-called Land Speed Record tests.
The last record was set in September, when scientists at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), the California Institute of Technology, Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco, Microsoft Research, Newisys and S2IO sent 859 gigabytes of data in less than 17 minutes at a rate of 6.63gbps -- a speed that equals the transfer of a full-length DVD movie in four seconds. The transfer experiment was done between Geneva, the home of CERN, and Pasadena, Calif., where Caltech is based, or a distance of approximately 15,766 kilometers.
In theory, researchers using a dedicated 10gbps wavelength, or "lambda," from NLR should be able to transmit hundreds of gigabytes of data at 10gbps without much problem. While most researchers don't yet need that kind of capacity, some are already looking forward to applications that could take advantage of a high-speed, dedicated network.
For example, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, researchers are developing new climate models that incorporate more complex chemical interactions, extensions into the stratosphere, and biogeochemical processes.
Verification of these processes involves a comparison with observational data, which may not be stored at NCAR. Researchers plan to use NLR to access remote computing and data resources, said Jeff Kiehl, chairman of the Community Climate System Model Scientific Steering Committee for NCAR.
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, which was the first research group to connect to LambdaRail in November 2003, is using the LambdaRail infrastructure instead of a connection from a commercial provider to connect to the National Science Foundation's Teragrid facility in Chicago.
Wendy Huntoon, assistant director of networking at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, said researchers at the centre have already submitted proposals to study the effects of packet size on network performance.
"The main reason we went with NLR is because it provided additional flexibility that couldn't be matched from the commercial carriers," Huntoon said. "For example, if our researchers wanted to change the backbone for any reason, they could without having to renegotiate a contract."
Creating partnerships
NLR currently has 18 members consisting of universities and research groups around the country. Each member has pledged to contribute US$5 million over the next five years to the project. Internet2 holds two memberships and has pledged US$10 million.
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