An Owned and Lit Fiber Infrastructure for Research and Education: Needs & Feasibility

1. An Owned and Lit Fiber Infrastructure for Research and Education: Needs & Feasibility Jacqueline Brown for Ron Johnson University of Washington, Pacific Wave, CENIC, N A T I O N A L L I G H T R A I L ronj@cac.washington.edu APAN meeting Fukuoka, Japan, 24 Jan. 2003

2. Main Cost Drivers for owned lit fiber: • Expertise & Administration • Fiber (long lines and ‘metro’) • Fiber ‘maintenance’ • Huts, Racks and Power & CoLo • Optronics incl. maintenance/sparing • NOC(s) & ‘remote hands’ • Local Loops/Laterals • MetaPoP capabilities (not unique to fiber) • Not cheap to create but low marginal costs for more ’ s. • Cooperation Essential !

3. Why Fiber? • The Capacity we’ll need for R&E & eScience isn’t otherwise affordable • The Capabilities our research & net. communities need are not available! • It is now Cheaper (in local and regional loop in the U.S.) than ‘carriers’ offerings • Business reasons - Owned Fiber provides: • Long Term Negotiating Leverage with ‘carriers’; • Insurance against new rounds of carrier Monopoly Behaviors; • Predictable/Stable Anchor Points & Transit to catalyze more investment in trans-regional nets.

4. Why Fiber? We are stuck in the past. • We need to be able to Innovate. We are in the research business and shared IP services with small packets is not the answer to everything • "Research can't be held hostage to what industry thinks the markets want.“ • ”Infrastructure investments of the past are getting in the way of real innovation.“ • "The situation is reminiscent of the telco infrastructure situation before ARPANET”. (Bob Kahn, CRA-Snowbird ‘02) • We have the Opportunity (albeit perishable) incl. current willingness of private sector for lit-fiber partnership.

5. We have important drivers and motivations, e.g., this Aubrey Bush NSF Slide :-) RESEARCH = Network research testbeds EXPERIMENTAL = Experimental network infrastructure OPERATIONAL = 24/7 operational high performance networks Chicago 5/DEC/01 Grand Challenges in e-Science Grand Challenges in e-Science

6. Plus, we are already doing it for R&E: • Extended Metro, e.g.: • Pacific NorthWest Gigapop in greater Seattle • MaX in D.C. • Many more in 1st stages or in the pipeline • Regional • I-Wire • Indiana • CENIC ONI • Network Virginia • More in the pipeline • And, increasing fiber from ‘gigapops’ to research oriented campuses, academic medical centers & labs • So we have key e2e building blocks

7. e.g. PACIFIC NORTHWEST GIGAPOP PN/W-GP Seattle Metro Fiber – in service U of Alaska ARSC Fairbanks Children’s Hospital Inst. for Systems Biology UW UWMC Microsoft Cellular Sciences Inst. Fred Hutch & SCCA Level3 PoP KEXP Westin Bldg Carrier Hotel PN/W-GP & PLR Spokane ISP’s, Abilene, BBs, Pacific Wave (intl. connects/peerings) Harborview Research PN/W-GP & PLR Portland WA Dept. Information Services Fiber in Service UW Downtown

8. From Linda Winkler 8-02 e.g. I-WIRE Background NU / Starlight UIC IIT • State Funded Dark Fiber Optical Infrastructure to support Networking and Applications Research • $7.5M Total Funding • $4M FY00-01 (in hand) • $2.5M FY02 (approved 1-June-01) • Additional $0.5M in FY03, FY04 • Application Driven • Access Grid: Telepresence & Media • Computational Grids: Internet Computing • Data Grids: Information Analysis • New Technologies Proving Ground • Optical Switching • Dense Wave Division Multiplexing • Advanced middleware infrastructure ANL ICN UC NCSA/UIUC For more information see www.iwire.org

9. CalREN Optical

10. Northern California

11. Southern California

12. Industry Windows of Opportunity: • Optronics kit manufacturers (some now with LAN PHY, and enterprise network mgmt etc). • Wave Vendors?, but will competition continue? – recent rising prices and lessened competition in some markets. Wave deals have short lifespan, must re-do in new market. • Fiber Owners – but is ‘firesale’ over? • Critical Mass in R&E community - Existing metro, regional (&linked!) & now interregional/national efforts.

13. N A T I O N A L L I G H T R A I L • Connecting the dots of opportunity and need • Owned and lit Dark Fiber National footprint • Prime Goal = Serve very high-end Experimental and Research Applications • >= 4 x 10GB Wavelengths initially • Expand to 40 10Gb wavelengths • Partnership model

14. NLR Goals • Research! (including Network Research) • Experimentation in networking and in education • Regional fiber/  efforts in edu & research sectors • Education • Academic Med. Center driven clinical activities • Development & implementation of network & computing technologies not otherwise likely to be generally available commercially as early as needed in R&E. • Enabling deterministic and other e2e bandwidth/ ’s, dark fiber and conduit for Grid, eScience etc. & for ‘Regionals’ etc.

15. Governance • LLC - Equity Partner model • Joint Research Council • Joint Technology Council • Push envelope wrt Distributed Network Operations • Waves/subdivisions governed by various groups

16. NLR ‘Service’ offerings • Waves!!! • ‘MetaPoP’ capabilities • Dedicated OC-192c’s or 10GE’s (No wave can interfere with others) • Many potential services/uses done by others or in partnership with NLR, e.g. • Shared experimental 10gbs IP service • Must be able to tolerate outages • Supports experimental code/packet size etc • Subdivided waves for dedicated uses • Probably delivered as gigabit Ethernet

17. National LightRail: cost-effective owned lit R&E fiber fabric Initial footprint 6/03 Leading-Edge e2e services & experimental network facilitiesvia MetaPoPs and inter-gigapop linksfor research & next gen. tech., arch., grids, DTF expansion, content, sensors, apparatus … Up to 40 dedicated 10 gigabit waves with up to hundreds of dedicated gigabit links system-wide. Canarie fabric SEA 10 gbs Tycom IEEAF donation BOS CLV? CHI 10 gbs Tycom IEEAF Donation NY SUN PIT DC DEN Raleigh LA ATL MetaPoPs & Core Nodes ADM sites Desired Expansion PoPs/ADM National LightRail” (NLR) International Broadband Metro/WAN owned Fiber ‘Rings' connecting strategic R&E endpoints. 10/14/02

18. NLR Footprint and Layer 1 Topology SEA POR SAC BOS NYC CHI OGD DEN SVL CLE WDC PIT FRE KAN RAL NAS STR LAX PHO WAL ATL SDG OLG DAL

19. Lit National NLR Core Fabric Fiber on Level(3) footprint A. Starting footprint - operational by Jne 2003. 5,207 miles A. B. Multi-Loop core for owned fiber R&E net - June 2004? B. 11,000 miles Owned lit fiber on a L3 footprint core [Note: overlayed on lighter colored full L3 fiber footprint] Dashed lines for regional not costed 7-28-02 ronj

20. Lit National NLR Core Fabric Fiber (on a Level(3) fiber core) Core, L3 Core, Williams Access, L3 Access, Williams C. ‘A.’ stepwise evolution with NY & Atlanta segments. D. Double Loop NLR core interim step alternative 9,342 miles C. D. E. Triple Loop core w/Williams NY/Bost segment. F. Triple Loop core plus sample regional access loops. E. F. 7-28-02 ronj

21. N A T I O N A L L I G H T R A I L For more information, contact: Ron Johnson ronj@cac.washington.edu Tom West twest@cenic.org 8-11-02