[CAnet - news] National LambdaRail President explains research focus

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 [From an article in www.gridtoday.com -- BSA]
  
  I have been asked: Why is National LamdbaRail (NLR) focusing so much 
  on facilitating network research and "big" science applications as its 
  core mission? Is it not as important to give equal or greater 
  attention to the networking needs of the broader research and 
  education (R&E) community?
  
  In answering these questions, permit me to draw a comparison to the 
  historical development and evolution of the great cities around the 
  world.
  
  When investing in real estate today, you are told that the principle 
  focus should be on Location! Location! Location! The root of this 
  principle is evident in the development and evolution of the major 
  cities and regions around the globe. In most instances, the selection 
  of the location for each of these cities was based on such strategic 
  factors as: safety and security; access to basic necessities and 
  resources; transportation; and, the potential to develop commerce. As 
  each city's core developed and prospered, the community grew and 
  expanded geographically. Over time, each great city not only evolves, 
  but also periodically reinvents its core in order to stay vibrant and 
  respond to the changing needs of the society. The cycle, never ending, 
  continues to repeat itself as new needs drive evolutions.
  
  From my perspective, the development and evolution of networking in 
  our R&E community has followed a similar cyclic path over the past 
  four decades with the start of each cycle focused on Research! 
  Research! Research!
  
  In the late 60s, the revolutionary developments in packet networks and 
  related technologies came from university researchers. Combined with 
  DARPA's funding and deployment of the ARPAnet, these innovations 
  created the initial core technologies and seminal implementation for 
  the Internet. From that era forward, both research inventions and the 
  specific needs of the researchers have been the core drivers for the 
  major advances in networking for the general R&E community as well as 
  for society at large.
  
  Inspired by the pioneering researcher-driven development of APRAnet, 
  the beginning network needs of the broader university and lab 
  community were addressed by a major expansion and evolution of the 
  ARPAnet and by the implementations of BITNET and CSnet. Together these 
  efforts were able to bring much larger numbers of institutions online 
  enabling broad use by researchers, educators, students and even 
  administrators. By leveraging additional platforms (in BITNET's case 
  via what were often institutional IBM mainframes reconfigured by 
  computer center folks to enable a few forms of network capabilities) 
  and funding sources, these much larger numbers established fertile 
  ground for creating and deriving the benefits of what Metcalf came to 
  call "network effects."
  
  In the late-1980s, the cycle renewed itself with the research 
  community-driven convergence on the increasingly evolved core Internet 
  protocols of the ARPAnet. Our research community created related 
  usable network capabilities and applications like broadly usable 
  email, ftp and listserv. And, to meet the growing needs of 
  researchers, the use of networks in R&E became a key driver in the 
  creation and rapid expansion, evolution and extension of the Internet 
  protocol-based networks such as NSFnet, ESnet and DREN. As a companion 
  to and major enabler of the NSFnet, regional research and education 
  networks (the NSF Regionals) were developed as the most powerful means 
  for extending the reach of, democratizing access to, and sustaining 
  R&E networks by explicitly recognizing and addressing the diverse 
  geographical and demographic realties of networks.
  
  Advanced networking for the researchers and our larger R&E community 
  suffered a serious setback in the early 1990's when NSFnet became a 
  victim of its own success and was 'privatized' and the program 
  discontinued. This came during a cycle in which many of the regional 
  R&E networks and research community-based Internet providers were spun 
  off, and either became or were sold off to the emerging commercial 
  ISP's. While this helped enable the worldwide Internet revolution, it 
  unfortunately left most of the R&E community without either a voice in 
  (let alone control over) network capabilities and services, or direct 
  access to innovating with (or configuring around) underlying network 
  technology. The good news was that "our" Internet had become 
  pervasive. The bad news was that we had lost nearly all control and 
  were reduced to buying one-size-fits-all capabilities that were being 
  evolved for mass market rather than research, education and clinical 
  needs. And our network researchers had lost the ability to do network 
  and network-based research and to innovate in those areas in big ways.
  
  With the discontinuation of the NSFnet, the NSF sought to address the 
  high-end advanced networking infrastructure needs and opportunities of 
  the researchers with support for the vBNS program. This initiative, 
  combined with the CoREN and other activities of the surviving 
  Regionals, sustained the continuing regionals and stimulated their and 
  other regional group's evolution into GigaPops. The GigaPops, in turn, 
  worked for the creation of UCAID (the corporate entity underlying 
  Internet2) and the development of the Abilene Network in a partnership 
  with Qwest and Nortel. With this new cycle, our community enabled the 
  formation of a state-of-the-commercial-art, packet-over-SONET shared 
  layer 3 service and the ability to control bandwidth and topology. 
  During this period, state/regional networks and GigaPops grew and 
  developed rapidly to meet the burgeoning educational needs throughout 
  the community.
  
  Shortly after the beginning of this century, three new drivers emerged 
  that called for a major leap forward in advanced networking to meet 
  the needs of the researchers in the community and the community at 
  large. These included:
  
  Need One: More and more manageable bandwidth for "big" or specialized 
  applications' research
  
  
  * High-end science needs terabits and petabytes
  
  
  * Predictable quality interconnect
  
  
  * Immersive (i.e. often high-resolution and low latency) presence
  
  
  * Deterministic control loops
  
  
  * Bit rate of reality-10 gigabits soon to be 40 gigabits, but more 
  importantly given the realities of the instruments and cluster 
  computers and storage systems many parallel 10 gigabits
  
  Need Two: Breakable and researcher-controlled networks including waves 
  for network research
  
  
  * New protocols
  
  
  * New devices
  
  
  * New architectures
  
  Need Three: Underlying owned fiber
  
  
  * Ensuring that the limitations on what our communities can pursue are 
  based on what we can imagine and afford, rather than what services 
  telecommunications companies are willing to sell us and the conditions 
  under which they are willing to sell them
  
  
  * Enabling partnering in truly new optical domains
  
  
  * Keeping prices from providers low
  
  The result, National LambdaRail (NLR), has been the implementation of 
  a fully operational national networking physical infrastructure based 
  upon owned and lit fiber. This fiber is linked with multiple Regional 
  Optical Network (RON) physical infrastructures that are RON-owned. By 
  enabling the implementation of multiple networks, both experimental 
  and production, to facilitate technology innovation, discovery and 
  sharing of new knowledge, this new networking collaboratory is 
  providing for the concurrent advancement of:
  
  
  * Network research;
  
  
  * Next generation network-based research applications in science, 
  engineering, medicine and other disciplines; and,
  
  
  * Education program delivery at all levels -- K through 20.
  
  By focusing on facilitating Research! Research! Research!, NLR, in 
  partnership with the RONs, continues the network innovation cycle and 
  ensures that all the participants in the research and education 
  community reap the benefits of big, fast, customizable networks. The 
  reality is that researchers are the innovators -- the folks who think 
  big and drive myriad ways to create the networks of the future today. 
  We in the R&E community can effectively learn from them and extend and 
  recreate these innovative networks for universities, labs, the greater 
  educational community as well as our society at large.
  
  The cycle continues. What are the next drivers? Let's all learn 
  together by serving and studying Research! Research! Research!
  
  -----
  
  Tom West is President and Chief Executive Officer of National 
  LambdaRail, a major initiative of U.S. research universities and 
  private sector technology companies to provide a national scale 
  infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking 
  technologies and applications. Over the years, West has served as an 
  advisor and consultant to a number of higher education institutions 
  and systems, private corporations and state governments. West has been 
  actively involved in national research and education networking in the 
  United States for nearly two decades. 




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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.


  

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