GigaportNG to heavily rely on Grid computing

Utrecht 12 May 2003 The next generation of Gigaport/Surfnet, the high-speed network of The Netherlands, will rely on Grid services as an important new infrastructure layer. Gigaport/Surfnet claims to be the best and fastest research network in the world. Details of the plans were presented by Gigaport chair Paul 't Hoen at a conference in Utrecht to Froggy, a Virtual Reality frog that appeared on the display screen.

The current Dutch research network Surfnet/Gigaport is currently running a back-bone in day-to-day operation at 10 Gbit/s transporting a 1000 Terabyte of data per month. This is, as Paul 't Hoen claims, the fastest network on Earth. The network innovation costs are financed by Gigaport with a government grant and the member institutions are responsible for the exploitation costs. Surfnet is operating the network.

Apart from the network infrastructure itself, GigaPort has also spent a lot of effort in applications. The goal was to build a network and show that it worked on advanced applications. One of the highlights of the latter was the co-organisation of iGrid2002 in Amsterdam, that showcased a lot of these.

In network technology, work is underway for the next generation of interconnects, based on Lambda switches.

The next generation of GigaPort, called GigaPortNG - a not innovative name - will work with the same model as GigaPort: build an infrastructure and run innovative applications on it. This to learn by doing.

The network will be build in five layers:

  1. Industry applications
  2. Generic application services
  3. Grid services
  4. Network infrastructure
  5. Civil infrastructure

New is the Grid services layer. It is not yet main-stream infrastructure. Hence GigaPortNG expects that there is development needed in that area. But it is common enough that it can be used as a basis for the application layer.

The application layer will focus on two streams: one for e-Science and one for e-Business. The e-Science will mainly focus on Virtual Lab applications. For e-Business, there are no concrete plans yet. The usual round of business areas is mentioned, including amusement, automotive (there is not much of an automitive industry left in The Netherlands), financing and engineering.

In networking, GigaportNG expects to do research on the integration of Lambda and IP networks, 40 Gbit/s Lambda's, roaming and international collaboration.

With all the wireless access and other mobile technologies, do we need a fiber based network like GigaPort/Surfnet? Yes, according to 't Hoen, Wireless is nice for access. But for transport you need fiber.

In GigaPortNG, projects and services will be given to consortia that will have to tender. According to 't Hoen that worked fine in the old GigaPort. Probably, but it leaves no room for small Dutch companies to participate and develop.

Ad Emmen

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