1 The Quilt Wendy Huntoon Executive Director, The Quilt I2 Members Meeting May 8, 2002

2 Outline What is the Quilt? Overview of Current Projects –Commodity Internet Service –Measurement –Other Projects Future Plans

3 What is The Quilt ? Collaboration of 19 leading advanced regional networking organizations in the U.S. Aim is to promote consistent, reliable, interoperable and efficient advanced networking services that extends to the broadest possible community

4 Goals Assist participants in providing a broad range of networking services to constituents Facilitate innovative and successful technical projects Promote end-to-end continuity and delivery of advanced network services

5 Organization Organized under UCAID Independent project within UCAID, parallel to I2 and Abilene. Base support is provided by UCAID - all Quilt projects must be self-supporting. Reports up through Steve Corbato.

6 Participation Requirements Participation in The Quilt is open to: –Non-profit network aggregators –Committed to advancing networking services in the U.S. –Serve 4 or more attachments to Internet2 regular members –Other organizations invited by the Quilt Steering Committee –Must demonstrate on-going interest, support, commitment and leadership to advanced networking activities

7 Timeline Informal Meetings started in June formally organized –Hired Exec. Director in Sept 01 –Began first projects Oct 2001 –Kick off meeting –Formation of additional projects

Current Participants CENICCorporation for Education Network Initiative in California FRGPFront Range Gigapop GPNGreat Plains Network MAXMid-Atlantic Crossroads MeritMerit Network, Inc. MRENMetropolitan Research and Education Network North Carolina GigapopNorth Carolina Gigapop NetWork VirginiaNetWork Virginia NorthernLightsNorthern Lights Gigapop NoXNorthern Crossroads NYSERNetNYSERNet OARnetOARnet Oregon GigapopOregon Gigapop PNWGPPacific Northwest Gigapop Pittsburgh GigapopPittsburgh Gigapop SoXSouthern Crossroads TexasGigapopTexas Gigapop SURASoutheastern Research Universities Association EDUCAUSEEDUCAUSE

The Quilt Network

10 What do they have in common? Survey done of all the participants –Results are for 15 Gigapops Part of the Documentation project –Lead by NYSERnet Goal –Get a basic understanding of the composition, services, goals of the participants.

11 Survey Results 13 out of 15 provide both Commodity and Research network access. At least 13 are or plan to use dark fiber for some or all of their infrastructure. Funding for the Gigapops comes from the underlying member or user fees. Aggregated budgets are over $80M.

12 Who they serve Constituent TypeGigaPops K1211 College & UniversitiesAll Community Colleges11 Tribal Colleges9 Historically Black Colleges and Universities3 Hospitals/Healthcare10 Libraries and Museums12 Not-for-Profit Research Labs12 Government Agencies12 For-Profit Corporations6 EPSCoR States6

13 Additional Services ServicesGigapops Multicast14 IPv612 Research and Development11 Vendor Neutral Co-location7 Video over IP7 Voice over IP5 Access to 3rd Party Content4 Centralized Data Storage3

14 What does the Quilt do? Identify and support projects and interest groups of common interest to the participants. –Projects are supported by staff from participating organizations. –Exec. Director is the only employee. Projects reviewed on a yearly basis. –New ones added, old completed.

15 Projects to date Main projects: –Commodity Internet Service –Regional Optical Networking –Measurement –Documentation - nearing completion One joint I2/Quilt Project –K20 Interest Groups –Vendor Relations –IPv6 –PBS

16 Project Update Commodity Internet Service –Brenda Lesko, OARnet Measurement Project –Rick Summerhill, GPN Other Projects –Fiber Initiative –K20 –Vendor Relations

17 Commodity Internet Service

18 Measurement

19 Regional Optical Network Regional optical network coordination project –Phase I - lead by Ron Hutchins (SoX) and Gary Crane (SURA) Understand technologies and business practices associated with implementing fiber optic network infrastructure. Developing best practices, facilitate meetings with vendors. Focused on Metropolitan, Regional and National fiber projects. Collaborated with SURA on the SURA Optical Networking Cookbook. ( –Phase II - lead by Peter O’Neil (FRGP) Focused on commonalities in the way Quilt participants are deploying, using fiber infrastructure.

20 Regional Optical Networking Summaries of what each group is doing with fiber infrastructure. –15 of the 17 GigaPoP have optical networking plans or projects. –Majority of the projects include MAN infrastructure. –Regional fiber infrastructure, less common. GigaPoPs that cover wide geographic areas. –National infrastructure - early stages.

21 Regional Optical Networking -MAN –Provides cost-effective way to support local loop infrastructure. –Cost-recovery models exist. –Point-to-point fiber links are the most prevelant. –DWDM is beginning to appear. –Technology Issues PoS, GigE, 10 GigE Interoperability

22 Examples -NYSERnet –Number of MAN fiber projects in development. –Largest project is New York City based project. Connect Hospitals, Universities, Muesums, etc. Overall footprint is small, but will connect a large group of users and researchers. Expect total cost to be close to that for existing local loops. Main issue is building entry.

23 Examples - NCRENIII NCNI/NCREN Implementing fiber-based optical networking infrastructure to support both research and commodity traffic. Three pairs of fiber connecting six sites in the Research Triangle metro area in a ring configuration. –Ring diameter is 100 miles. –Services include: Wave Division Multiplexing (dWDM), SONET, ATM, and IP Five locations on the ring have Gigabit Ethernet connections to the routers (Duke, MCNC, NCSU, UNC-CH, and the Raleigh POP).

24 Quilt/I2 K20 Project Joint project between the Quilt and I2 K20 project. –Project Leads Myron Lowe, George Loftus (Quilt) Louis Fox (I2) –Currently in the formation stage. –Leverage existing K20 activities for both groups. –Focus on SEPG’s Resources Cross-SEGP projects Applications and Demonstration projects. –16 out of the 22 SEGP’s are affiliated with a Quilt Participant.

25 Other Activities Vendor maintenance agreements –Lead: Marla Meehl (FRGP) Aggregate and leverage buying power of Quilt participants to get best value, lowest pricing and best service on vendor projects. –Progress to date Survey Quilt for current Cisco maintenance coverage Initial contact with Cisco has been made –Currently dormant project Will probably migrate into a Vendor Relationship project. Focus on support, technology as well as maintenance and products.

26 Other Activities PBS –Lead by MaryFran Yafchak (SURA) Formation stage Expect activities to begin in the summer. –Build upon existing relationship between Gigapops, their constituents and PBS affiliates. Realization that a signficant number of Quilt participants had existing relationships with PBS. –Identify demonstration projects.

27 Contact Information WWW site: Acknowledgement: Annimations by Rasha El-Jaroudi