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Internet2 and NRENs in South East Asia

James Williams [williams@indiana.edu]

Principal Investigator – NSF TransPAC2 Project

Indiana University

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Presentation Outline

National and International Networks Today

Internet2 and other US domestic networks

TEIN2/3

APAN

South Asia – Special Interest Group

TransPAC2 and Pakistan

Thoughts about Future Networking Directions

Local Area Infrastructure

Mobile Infrastructure

Dynamic Circuit Infrastructure

Conclusions

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Internet2

Internet2 is a not-for-profit advanced networking consortium comprising more than 200 U.S. universities in cooperation with 70 leading corporations, 45 government agencies, laboratories and other institutions of higher learning.

Internet2 has formed peer-level relationships with organizations outside the U.S. who have projects similar to Internet2 in scope and objectives. Internet2 currently partners with over 50 such international organizations and networks. The complete list of current international partnerships is available at: http://www.internet2.edu/international/partners/.

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Internet2 Network - Layer 1Internet2 Network - Layer 1

Internet2 Network Optical Switching Node

Level3 Regen Site

Internet2 Redundant Drop/Add Site

ESnet Drop/Add Site

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Other US Domestic Networks

NLR – NLR is a second national US R/E network with a different ownership model than Internet2. See: http://www.nlr.net/

ESnet - ESnet, is a high-speed network serving thousands of Department of Energy researchers and collaborators in the US and worldwide. See: http://www.er.doe.gov/ascr/Facilities/ESnet.html

There are other “purpose built” networks in the US, for organizations such as NASA and DOD. One interesting web site is: http://www.nitrd.gov/subcommittee/lsn/jet/index.htm

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European Network Initiatives

The European Commission, acting through DANTE’ supports a number of international initiatives. The one most directly relevant to this group is the TEIN2 (becoming TEIN3) initiative.

TEIN2 (Trans-Eurasia Information Network) is the first large-scale research and education network for the Asia-Pacific. It connects ten countries in the region, and provides direct connectivity to Europe’s GÉANT2 network. See: http://www.tein2.net/

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Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN)

APAN (Asia-Pacific Advanced Network ) is a non-profit international consortium established on 3 June 1997. APAN is designed to be a high-performance network for research and development on advanced next generation applications and services. APAN provides an advanced networking environment for the research and education community in the Asia-Pacific region, and promotes global collaboration.  See: http://www.apan.net/

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South Asia - SIG

The Internet2 South Asia Special Interest Group (SA-SIG) provides a focus at Internet2 meetings for South Asia NRENs and other international and US parties to meet and discuss networking issues related to South Asia.

See: http://southasia.indiana.edu

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TransPAC2 and Pakistan

The TransPAC2 Project is a part of the US-NSF funded IRNC program. TransPAC2 provides high-performance network connectivity between the US and China/Japan/Korea with extensions to Hong Kong and Singapore. Recently, in partnership with the EC TEIN2 Project and the Pakistan HEC, TransPAC2 completed a link to Singapore.

See: http://www.transpac2.net

See http://pakistan.indiana.edu

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GlobalNOC @ Indiana University

Many of the networks mentioned previously (Internet2, NLR, TransPAC2) are managed from the same network operations center (NOC) at Indiana University.

Visit the GlobalNOC web page and take a tour at: http://globalnoc.iu.edu

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Futures – Local Area Networks

International bandwidth prices are decreasing (sometimes rapidly)

Backbone bandwidths are increasing (sometimes by huge amounts).

None of this helps a researcher in his/her lab!!!

In too many countries (the US included) bandwidth to the desktop is treated as “someone else’s problem”. Today effective research collaborations require end-to-end high-performance connectivity.

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Futures – Mobile and Sensor Networks

New technology users will be mobile users…

If your country has an “interesting” geographically distributed feature, researchers will want to install wireless remote sensors to measure it…(climate change, earthquakes, lake ecology).

Both these new networks raise issues of spectrum allocation and usage, management and support.

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Futures – Dynamic Circuit Networks

High performance applications and instruments which require or exchange massive amounts of data may require dedicated bandwidth. But, these applications/instruments may only be operational for a limited amount of time (a portion of a day; a few weeks). Easy to configure and activate dynamic circuits provide a cost effective solution to simply buying more bandwidth, which might be unused much of the time.

Also, some applications (HD video, CD audio) are sensitive to variations in network latency. Dedicated circuits, configured as needed, make applications such as shared musical performances possible.

But, there are complex engineering issues to be solved and security concerns to be addressed.

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Conclusion

Three questions:

1. If you are increasing bandwidth for your NREN national backbone, how will you extend that increased bandwidth to campuses and researchers who are the ultimate users?

2. How will your NREN manage the flood of mobile users wanting access to your resources (and bandwidth)? How will your NREN manage a widely-deployed sensor network?

3. How will your NREN manage the engineering and security aspects of a large dynamic circuit established between a researcher in your NREN and his/her research partner in the US?