The network is no longer the bottleneck for the Grid - it is the applicationAmsterdam 11 October 2002 At iGrid2002, more than 30 Gbits/s bandwidth was available to connect to the outside world, including the USA. This allowed for streaming HDTV over the ocean, applications distributed over three continents and connected collaborating Caves. The demanding applications could not fill the available bandwidth. According to SURFnet director Kees Neggers, this shows connectivity is not the problem for Grid applications anymore. SURFnet, the Dutch research network organisation was one of the organisers of iGrid. It will continue to exploit a large part of the network that was laid out for the iGrid2002 conference as part of its high-end backbone.
The iGrid2002 Conference was a collaboration of SURFnet, the WCTW, Gigaport and the Visualisation lab of the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The network connections for iGrid had several advanced features which one cannot currently find on the Internet.
There was a 2.5G lambda to StarLight in Chicago that was connected via Cisco ONS15454 optical multiplexers. Even faster 10G lambda connections where provided by Level3 to Chicago and Tyco to Abilene in New York. These two were router-router connections. In the future, the 10G connections will be linked through low-level multiplexers. This will provide more flexibility for the network owners. The connection to Chicago will be ready next December and the
Tyco connection will follow in the Spring of 2003.
The network was also capable of handling both iPV4 and iPV6 IP-adresses. iPV6 provides for much more IP adresses than is currently possible on the Internet. Usage is, however, still much in
the pilot phase where mixed networks are evaluated.
At this advanced stage, one cannot just buy the network connectivity. One just has to build it from scratch, according to Kees Neggers. Two dozen of people from SURFnet, the WTCW and from abroad needed about a week to get the network up. Phone-calls (the "I am sending a packet
now, can you see it arriving?" type of conversations) are still indispensable to get it all up and running.
The technologies used at iGrid 2002 are not new to SURFnet. SURFnet5 has been built with lambdas from BT based on Marconi DWDM equipment. The routers have been delivered by Cisco. SURFnet has used Cisco DWDM equipment for the managed dark fiber connection between Amsterdam and Dwingelo.
All of the network connections installed between Amsterdam and the US for iGrid2002, will continue to be used with exception of the 2.5G lambda to Chicago, which has been replaced by a 10G on October 1, 2002. Until the end of November, after the SC2002 Conference in Baltimore, the 10G will be a router-router connection and afterwards will be transformed into a lower level connection. The Tyco connection will remain router-router coupled one till next Spring. Then it will be replaced by a connection via Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands.
These high 10+ Gbit/s networks are feasible today, no doubt about it. What is, however, a real challenge for the next period, according to Kees Neggers, is to make them scalable and maintainable. New protocols and standards are needed for that. Within the IETF, work is going on, to make this possible.
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