CESNET CEF Workshop Praha CZ 31 May 2006 Hud Croasdale

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CESNET CEF WorkshopPraha CZ31 May 2006

• Hud Croasdale
• Executive Director
• The Quilt

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What is the Quilt?www.thequilt.net

• Project sponsored and supported (in part) by
  Internet 2 www.internet2.edu
• Consortium of 23 regionally based advanced
  networks, in the USA and Canada, serving the
  research and education community.
• Started as regional aggregators of I2s Abilene
  network connectors.
• Now, most are operating and/or developing optical
  networks.
• About 2/3 are also National LambdaRail node
  operators
• www.nlr.net

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• About Internet2, Internet2 is a consortium
  being led by 207 universities working in
  partnership with industry and government to
  develop and deploy advanced network applications
  and technologies, accelerating the creation of
  tomorrow's Internet.
• About National LambdaRail
• National LambdaRail is advancing the research,
  clinical, and educational goals of members and
  other institutions by establishing and
  maintaining a unique nationwide network
  infrastructure that is owned and controlled by
  the U.S. research community. Ownership of the
  underlying optical infrastructure ensures the
  research community unprecedented control and
  flexibility in meeting the requirements of the
  most advanced network applications and providing
  the resources demanded by cutting-edge network
  research.

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What Does The Quilt Do?

• Focus on regional network infrastructure
  development
• Provide Technical Workshops
• Engineering forum
• Build v. Buy
• Evaluate provider products
• Operational management
• Business case / financial discussions
• Member Services, lts, access to providers,
  support.
• Commodity Internet Services (CIS) contracts
• Vendor Partner Program (VPP)
• optical networking equipment, plus, routers,
  switches, etc

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Issues / Drivers

• Much broader spectrum of users
• Off campus users
• Super-computing centers
• Bandwidth demands
• Constant Issues (Network decisions influenced by
  more than just technology)
• Economics
• Capital/operating budgets, cash flow, allocation
  of scarce resources Staffing
• Politics
• Environment (legal, social, etc.)

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From Cees de Laat
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Higher Education Research Current Discussions

• Build v. Buy?
• Focus of workshops
• Facilities Based Network
• Managed Services
• Hybrid Model
• Metro Issues

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So Whats Happening?

• At least 26 RON projects in 40 states
• Nearly 30,000 miles of fiber collectively
• Providing
• Internet / Internet2 access
• Peering for RE and commodity
• Circuits (often gigabit Ethernet)
• Overlay networks
• Lots of learning the stuff the telcos know
• FIT values, TL-1, etc

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Why do we want to do this?

• The limitation of all purchased services is the
  lack of control!
• Underlying assumption that big science needs big
  performance
• Ever increasing importance of collaboration,
  particularly international
• Cost control/avoidance for commodity services
• Scaling
• Lambda envy

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Facilities-Based Regional Optical Networks
This map as of June 2, 2005 Current map
available here http//paintsquirrel.ucs.indiana.e
du/fiber_map.pdf
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What About Managed Services?

• Must facilitate end-to-end connectivity desired
  by users i.e. map to existing network services
• NLR Layer1, 2, 3
• Abilene
• Commodity Internet
• Should have well-defined points of demarcation
• Each providers responsibility to provide service
  should match its ability to deliver

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Model for Carrier Support of Advanced Networking

• Fundamental premise Total system ownership,
  control, and responsibility are neither the most
  cost-effective nor the optimum solution for
  higher educations optical networks
• Emerging optical networks offer new opportunities
  for carriers to provide services with potentially
  higher ROI
• Higher education is willing to assume much of the
  initial and ongoing capital costs in this model

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Virginia - Verizon Partnership - VORTEX

• Governor Heralds Advent of New Network
• On Monday, March 21st, in the Dome Room of the
  Rotunda, Governor Mark Warner announced the
  creation of VORTEX, a broadband optical fiber
  network that will connect participating Virginia
  universities to powerful external research
  networks. "VORTEX will provide Virginia's
  academic researchers with new cyber
  infrastructure tools, and will enable access to
  the fastest networks in the country," said
  Governor Warner. "These tools are essential if
  our schools are to compete for major science and
  engineering projects."

The network is being facilitated by Verizon
Virginia, and the increased broadband
connectivity can be made available for business
applications. Verizon will use spare capacity in
the system to offer new advanced broadband
services throughout the Commonwealth including
rural areas. Rather than building a single
purpose, state-owned fiber optic network solely
for research (the approach taken in the few other
leading states), Virginia is leveraging
NetworkVirginia to collaborate with Verizon and
other providers to build a new statewide Wave
Division Multiplexing-based (WDM) system to
support both research and economic development
interests. This public private partnership will
cost significantly less than a single purpose
system. "We'll be able to use this as another
tool in our economic development arsenal," said
the Governor.
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Southeastern RE Networks
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Some Key Challenges

• Sustainability
• Generating sufficient revenues to cover operating
  costs --- provide user institutions with an
  ongoing value proposition.
• Developing capital renewal/technology re-fresh
  capability.
• Doing more than keeping the lights on
• Grow staff resources to handle the work and avoid
  staff burn-out.
• Keeping at the leading edge --- knowledge,
  technology, services.
• Advancing innovation making a difference in the
  way in which research and learning is conducted.
• Meeting/Managing the expectations of diverse
  stakeholders, e.g.
• IT and CIO colleagues
• Institutional leaders, researchers, educators
• Governments, private sector partners.

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Questions?Hud Croasdale

• www.thequilt.net
• croasdale_at_vt.edu
• 804.986.2765 m