Optical Networking: Networking Architectures for Research and Education
International Task Force Meeting, Part II

Wednesday, April 9, 2003
Breakfast: 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Meeting: 8:30 to noon
Salon J/K
Crystal Gateway Marriot Hotel, Arlington, VA.

ITF meetings focus on bringing together information about how advanced networking organizations from around the world are addressing important issues in technology, organizational and applications development. The objective is to provide a forum where approaches can be compared and to identify areas where joint work might be undertaken between organizations working with similar approaches.

This session will aim at exploring the different approaches being taken to the deployment of "optical networks" in many parts of the world. A number of research and education networks - at metropolitan, regional and national levels - have been or are beginning to deploy networks by taking on a degree of "ownership" of fiber assets (as opposed to purchase of telecom services), which allows greater control of how those assets are equipped and used from a technology standpoint. In some cases, such networks based on control are used to provide shared-IP services that were previously provisioned over purchased telecom services. In other cases, networks are exploring new networking protocols and architectures - often referred to also as "optical networking" and sometimes more specifically as "lambda networking" - generally indicating utilization of non-shared, dedicated circuits. Following presentations from panelists, there will be a moderated discussion.

FINAL Agenda
If you have any questions, please contact Ana Preston <apreston@internet2.edu> or Heather Boyles <heather@internet2.edu>

7:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.	BREAKFAST
8:30 a.m.	Introduction and Overview Heather Boyles, Internet2 (US)
8:40 a.m.	Experimental Optical Networking: implementations and challenges Michael Stanton, RNP (Brazil) [ppt]
9:00 a.m.	Practical knowledge gained in the deployment of a 4000Km dark fibre and DWDM Research Network Randy Neals, ORION (Canada) [ppt] A brief oveview of our RAN deployment project in Ontario Canada, highlighting the challenges and signifigant issues we encountered during the project, and presented with the goal of helping others avoid challenges which may not be obvious to those just starting a project to build a dark fibre/DWDM network of this scale in their area.
9:20 a.m.	CERNet: Optical Networking in China Xing Li, CERNET (China) [ppt] NOTE: This presentation will be REMOTE China Education and Research Network (CERNET) is the largest academic Internet backbone in China. It was constructed in 1995 using 64Kbps leased lines, and the links were very congested. In 1997, a nationwide satellite network providing 3.7Mbps point-to-point links was employed for the CERNET backbone. After several months, the links were very congested again. In order to serve more and more universities in China, it is necessary to increase the link speed dramatically. In 1999, funded by the Minister of Education, CERNET got 20,000Km dark fiber and built its own DWDM transmission system.. This presentation will introduce the CERNET's DWDM system, including the design and operation. The management between DWDM transmission and IP networks will also be discussed. The CERNET's DWDM system provides the satisfied transmission service for the CERNET IP backbone. It also provides additional lambda for the next generation Internet testbed, for example, the native Ipv6 backbone. Currently, CERNET has GigaPops in 36 cities all over China including all the provincial capitals. There are more than 1,000 universities connected to CERNET, the total number of CERNET users is about 10 million. The future plan of the CERNET's next generation optical Internet backbone will also be discussed in this presentation.
9:40 a.m.	Q&A and Discussion Panel
10:00 a.m.	BREAK
10:30 a.m.	Customer Empowered Optical Network - CESNET's Approach Jan Gruntorad, Stanislav Sima, CESnet (Czech Republic) [ppt] Today IP networks for R&E are dependent on services provided by telecommunications operators. This applies to great majority of the European NRENs. This dependency should be according to our opinion avoided in current age of wide area fibre networks by means of fiber leasing or owning. This brings for designers freedom of development, e.g. possibility of speed upgrade only by changing equipment while the cost of using fiber infrastructure remains constant. The approach is sometimes called "Customer Empowered Networks". Some NRENs or Regional R&E Networks have used this new approach since year 2000 (e.g. ORAN, CESNET, I-wire, CalREN) and some others have leased or own fibers subsequently (e.g. SWITCH, POL-34, SANET, SURFnet). International fiber connection of NRENs works regularly between Slovakia and Austria. Traditionally, such networks use in-line optical amplification and/or optoelectronic regeneration. This devices are placed in field premises, usually provided by fiber lessor and directed remotely by line user along whole line monitoring. Fiber lessor provides on-demand local assistance and fiber maintenance and reparation. CESNET's two years experience shows, that reliability and availability of leased fiber lines is better, comparing with lambda services but is more cost effective. Since May 2002, CESNET has operated long distance (189 km) leased fiber line without any in-line equipment. This method is called Nothing-In-Line (NIL) approach and is subsequently used for other CESNET's gigabit lines (for lengths up to 270-290 km and basic speed up to 2.5 Gb/s). Testing for 10 Gb/s and G.655 fibers is prepared. Contribution will also mention CESNET experience with using single fiber for duplex transmission in wide area network environment.
10:50 a.m.	CA*net4: International Grid Testbed Bill St Arnaud, CANARIE (Canada) [ppt] The computational, data, storage, and network requirements of grid experiments which are coming online in the next few years will place serious demands on our high speed optical networks. One such requirement is the bulk transfer of data over advanced high speed optical networks Recently, CANARIE in partnership with SURFnet, CERN, STAR LIGHT and the Canadian High Energy Physics community has participated in trials conducted to stress the feasibility of high speed bulk data transfer over an end-to-end lightpath, a dedicated point-to-point optical link. The results of this experiment and others has clearly established that a high speed global grid testbed is required for further research and experimentation. CANARIE with other international partners is exploring the establishment of a global grid testbed on top of the proposed Trans-Light facility which will be made available to researchers around the world to test out new high speed bulk transfer protocols, distributing, processing and storing low level trigger data off of CERN instrumentation and new concepts in large scale distributed backplanes using RDMA ( Remote Direct Memory Access) over IP.
11:10 a.m.	TransLight Tom DeFanti, UIC (US) [ppt] Trans-Light is a proposed LambdaGrid of electronically and optically switched (Layer 2) circuits and advanced grid services. StarLight in Chicago and NetherLight in Amsterdam, in cooperation with CERN, CA*Net4, and TransPAC, will host Trans-Light, an interconnection of the first international-scale LambdaGrids by operating O-E-O (optic-electronic-optic) switching at the highest experimental levels, as well as providing experimental O-O-O (optic-optic optic) switching. At recent NSF Workshops, e-scientists requested high-bandwidth connectivity “…with known and knowable characteristics.” We believe that Trans-Light is the way to support prototypes of the many aggressive e-science applications coming this decade. Trans-Light will provide high-performance capabilities that complement, but do not replace, production international high-performance Internet services.
11:30 a.m.	Q&A and Discussion Panel
12:00 p.m.	Closing/Adjourn

Last updated: 04/07/03 by Ana Preston <apreston@internet2.edu>