Internet2 and Abilene Advanced Networking in Higher Education Greg Wood Director of Communications

Internet2 Project Goals Enable new generation of applications Re-create leading edge R&E network capability Transfer capability to the global production Internet

Commercialization Privatization Research and Development Partnerships 21st Century Interoperable Networking High Performance SprintLink Research &Education MCI/Worldcom US Govt Networks Networks ANS ARPAnet Active NSFNET gigabit Nets testbeds Broadband Wireless Abilene, vBNS Quality of Service Advanced US Govt Networks (QoS) Research and Development Partnerships Source: Ivan Moura Campos

Current Internet2 Priorities Identify and develop first phase applications Establish nationwide high performance end-to-end connectivity Facilitate middleware implementation Support network research Build international collaboration opportunities

Internet2 Universities 133 as of September 1998 University of Puerto Rico not shown

Internet2 Corporate Partners 3Com Advanced Network & Services, Inc. AT&T Cabletron Systems Cisco Systems FORE IBM Lucent Technologies MCI Worldcom Newbridge Networks Nortel Networks Qwest Communications StarBurst Communications

Internet2 Corporate Sponsors Bell South Packet Engines SBC Technology Resources StorageTek Torrent Technologies

Internet2 Corporate Members Alcatel Telecom Ameritech Apple Computers AppliedTheory Bell Atlantic Bellcore British Telecom Deutsche Telekom GTE Internetworking Hitachi IXC Communications KDD Nexabit Networks Nokia Research Center Novell Pacific Bell RR Donnelley Siemens Sprint StorageTek Sun Microsystems Sylvan Learning Telebeam Williams Communications

Advanced Internet Benefits Richer content through higher bandwidth Video, audio Virtual reality Dynamic, not static More interactivity via minimal delay Reliable content delivery through quality of service (QoS) model

Internet2 Applications Deliver qualitative and quantitative improvements in the conduct of: Research Teaching Learning Require advanced networking

Many Disciplines and Contexts Sciences Arts Humanities Health care Business/Law Administration … Instruction Collaboration Streaming video Distributed computation Data mining Virtual reality Digital libraries … The first column shows that Internet2 applications can be used in various academic disciplines. The second column highlights the different functions of advanced applications...

Application Attributes Interactive research collaboration and instruction Real-time access to remote scientific instruments Here are pictures of various applications aready in use: 1) the Upper Atmosphere research Collaboratory (UARC) developed at the University of Michigan--allows researchers access to data from instruments in Greenland w/o having to travel there, and allows them to discuss and interact in real time. This applications allows access to broader audience, including the second-order affect of enabling graduate students (who would never have been able to go to Greenland) to look in on research. 2&3) Pictures of a the output from a scanning electron microscope--allows access to expenisive, specialized equipment by students--allows them to control in the microscope and see the output as if they were in the same room --These both require advanced network capabilities to work--either don’t work, or won’t work well on today’s internet. Images courtesy of the University of Michigan

Attributes, cont. Large-scale, multi-site computation and database processing Shared virtual reality Any combination of the above Move mouse over the top and bottom images to show animations of: 1) Cheasapeake Bay visualization--combines and visualizes huge amounts of data from a variety of sources--allow data to be more than just numbers 2&3) Images courtesy of Old Dominion University and Univ of Illinois-Chicago

Middleware Challenges Identify technologies that are scalable and interoperable Increase deployment of middleware technologies as part of a pre-commercial production environment Examples: Quality of Service Multicast Audio/Video Frameworks

Recent Initiatives Qbone I2-DVN I2-DSI DoGBone Quality of service testbed I2-DVN Internet2 Digital Video Network I2-DSI Internet2 Distributed Storage Infrastructure DoGBone Digital video over GigaPoP

Applications and Engineering Motivate Enables Engineering

Engineering Objectives Deploy a production network to support applications R&D Establish quality of service (QoS) Support native multicast Establish gigaPoPs as effective service points

Network Architecture I2 Interconnect Cloud GigaPoP One GigaPoP Two I2 Interconnect Cloud GigaPoP Three GigaPoP Four “Gigabit capacity point of presence” an aggregation point for regional connectivity

GigaPoPs, cont. I2 Interconnect Cloud Commodity Internet Connections University A GigaPoP One Commodity Internet Connections Regional Network University B University C

GigaPoPs Variety of services and styles Technical and organizational differences Mixture of technologies Some things must be the same IP as common bearer service Inter-gigaPoP routing policy and design Measurement Trouble tickets among network operations centers

Internet2 GigaPoPs

Interconnect vBNS (very high speed Backbone Network Service) NSF and MCI cooperative agreement Operating at OC12 Peers with other federally sponsored networks www.vbns.net Abilene Network (January 1999)

Abilene Project Goals Support Internet2 applications development Demonstrate next generation networking capabilities Create facilities for network research

Abilene Project Participants UCAID Qwest Communications Cisco Systems Nortel Networks Indiana University

Abilene Project Timeline April 1998: Project Announced September 1998: Prototype demonstration January 1999: Operations begin

Abilene Network January 1999 Seattle Cleveland New York Sacramento Denver Indianapolis Kansas City Los Angeles Atlanta Abilene Router Node Abilene Access Node Operational January 1999 Planned 1999 Houston

Abilene Characteristics 2.4 Gbps (OC48) among gigaPoPs, increasing to 9.6 Gbps (OC192) Connections at 622 Mbps (OC12) or 155 Mbps (OC3) IP over Sonet technology Access PoPs very close to university gigaPoPs

For more information... On the Web Internet2 Applications www.internet2.edu Internet2 Applications apps.internet2.edu Abilene Project www.ucaid.edu/abilene/ Questions? ghwood@internet2.edu