Impact of “application empowered” networks

1. Question 3 Impact of “application empowered” networks • The semi-conductor revolution reduced CAPEX and OPEX costs for main frame computer • But its biggest impact was not on main frame computer but allowing the creation of mini-computers, PCs, mobile phones, etc • In the 1960’s computing was a “service” like telecom is today • Large mainframes leased by companies like IBM • It was inconceivable that an individual could own a computer • The same revolution may be about to happen to optical networking as with semi-conductor because of low cost optics • Yes it will make networks cheaper for carriers to operate • But the real revolution is in allowing us to think of new network models and architectures e.g • Application empowered networks, customer controlled networks, overlay networks, etc

2. Question 3 CA*net 4 is NOT an optical network • CA*net 4 is made up of many parallel application empowered or customer empowered specific networks eg: • Computer back planes (Westgrid) • High energy physics network • It extends the Internet 2 architecture of GigaPOPs connecting a small number of R&E institutions to a much finer scale with many parallel “application empowered” Internet 2 like networks connecting individual researchers and/or applications • With added feature that the application or user can dynamically manage their own IP network topology • Application empowered networks peer with each other at GigaPOPs and at optical switches which provides for greater reliability • The CA*net 4 wavelengths and switches are partitioned such that application empowered networks can control their own partition and incorporate alarms, topology and discovery into their IP network • New ITU draft standard – Y.1312 - Layer 1 VPNs

3. Drivers for application empowered networks -1 Question 1 • Distributed back planes between HPC Grid centers • Westgrid 1 GbE moving to 10 GbE • SHARCnet 10 GbE • Distributed Single Mount file systems – Yotta, Yotta - SGI • Needs very consistent performance and throughput to truly act as a back plane • Frequent topology changes to meet needs of specific applications • Canada ATLAS – 980 Gbytes FCAL data once a month from CERN to Carleton U, UoAlberta, UoArizona, etc • Will significantly increase to Terabytes when production runs start • Would take over 80 days on IP R&E network

4. Drivers for application empowered networks - 2 • CERN Low level trigger data to UoAlberta with GARDEN • Initially streaming data rates 1 Gbps moving to 10Gbps later in the year • Canadian virtual observatory • .5 Tbyte per day to UoToronto and UoHawaii • 250 Mbps continuous streaming from CCD devices • Neptune – Canada (and US?) under sea laboratory – multiple HDTV cameras and sensors on sea floor • Canada Light Source Synchrotron – remote streaming of data acquisition to UoAlberta • 2 to 5 Gbps continuously • Canadian remote Nano and micro electronics laboratories

5. Question 3 A VPN alternative to GMPLSLayer 1 VPNs • Allows customer to create “customer owned and managed” networks with resource heterogeneity • Integration of wavelengths and dark fiber from different carriers • Customers can manage their own restoral and protection schemes • Customer can create daughter VPNs and offer to other users • Customer can autonomously connect VPNs with other third parties

6. Question 3 Enables new network architectures • Eliminate expensive high end routers and replace them with partial mesh of lightpaths between edge routers and servers • But circuits are NOT intended to replace packet networks • Extend the Internet end to end principle to the topology layer • The success of the Internet is largely attributable to the classic e2e principle where control is at the edge • Users can now control topology as well as applications • Allowed development of exciting new applications or services • Many exciting new overlay networks • Knowledgeplane • Oceanstore, Chord • PlanetLab • Application empowered networks allow overlay network to optimized “underlay” topology

7. Abilene Question 3 The GigaPOP concept University University Commodity Internet GigaPOP GigaPOP University University vBNS University University

8. Abilene Question 3 Question 4 CA*net 4 == Internet 3? University Dept UltraLight CERN Commodity Internet University University vBNS GigaPOP GigaPOP University University eVBLI

9. Question 3 Hypothetical UltraLight Config CERN User controlled topology UltraLight GigaPOP GigaPOP Caltech

10. Question 4 Gov’t Funding • Governments are increasingly unlikely to fund general purpose IP research networks • General purpose IP research networks are large vectors for DOS attacks and music/video file sharing • They want to see a stronger coupling between the network and specific research activity • Many new research applications have data flows that dwarf the general purpose IP R&E network • Application empowered networks will be discipline or application specific e.g. Ultralight, e-VBLI