ACADEMIA
Internet2, GEANT2, and ESnet Demonstrate Phoebus at SC07
Internet2, GEANT2, and ESnet today announced at SC07, the annual international conference on high performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis, a major demonstration of the Phoebus performance framework which allows applications to seamlessly set up dynamic lightpaths regardless of the user's edge network access method. In doing so, Phoebus provides a bridge to enable a broader segment of users to take advantage of the performance and reliability of optical circuit networks such as the Internet2 Dynamic Circuit (DC) Network, ESnet Science Data Network (SDN) and the GEANT2 pan-European research network. 
"TCP is currently the standard protocol for applications to access national backbone networks. Because of this, new disruptive network technologies like dynamic circuit networks need a simple method for users to implement at the edge of the network to enable their broad use. By leveraging standard Internet technologies at the edge of the network, Phoebus provides an on-ramp for any type of application to access these revolutionary new types of networks enabling more users to benefit immediately," explained Martin Swany, assistant professor, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware and Internet2 faculty fellow. "In the longer term, Phoebus will enable network providers to offer a richer set of services to their users because they will no longer be constrained by the performance limitations of TCP in high-bandwidth networks." At SC07, ESnet, GEANT2, and Internet2 together with co-collaborators from GRNET, the national research and education network for Greece; HEAnet, the national research and education network for Ireland, and PIONIER, the national research and education network for Poland, will showcase the set up of a one Gigabit per second (Gbps) dynamic circuit using standard video transfer and file transfer applications. The applications will be initiated from the Internet2 SC booth and will leverage the Phoebus framework to access, and then dynamically set up, a separate point-to-point circuit between Reno, Nevada across the Internet2 DC network and the ESnet network, to the GEANT2 network in Europe and then to the GRNET, HEAnet and PIONIER networks respectively. The applications are anticipated to transfer approximately seven gigabytes of data, the amount of data stored on a standard movie DVD, in one minute. "As a result of our work on dynamic provisioning of user-requested network circuits within GEANT2, our AutoBAHN (Automated Bandwidth Allocation across Heterogeneous Networks) architecture is capable of setting up on-demand dedicated circuits, spanning multiple countries and multiple networks" said Afrodite Sevasti, Activity Leader for GEANT2 AutoBAHN and GRNET Network Services Development Manager. "AutoBAHN has enabled the first Trans-Atlantic demonstration of the Phoebus performance framework, by allowing the provisioning of up to 10Gbps circuits from Internet2 and/or ESnet to GEANT2 and the European NRENs, within a few minutes." As a framework and protocol for high-performance optical networks, Phoebus works to transparently split the end-to-end network path into distinct segments at specific adaption points, typically located at backbone ingress and egress points. Phoebus then works to minimize the impact of packet loss and latency by finding and creating the best network path for the specific application from each adaption point. Because of its architecture, many applications can begin to utilize Phoebus and the DC Network with no modification because of its ability to transparently authenticate and redirect the application to the circuit network via a Phoebus Gateway. "The ability to create and manage dynamic virtual circuits across multiple independent domains is essential to enabling the science ESnet is tasked to support," said Joe Burrescia, ESnet General Manager. "The interoperability of the Phoebus framework and ESnet's internal On-demand Secured Circuits and Advanced Reservation System (OSCARS) as exhibited in this multi-national network production demonstration is right on track with our vision of how networks, including ESnet's SDN, will used by our scientific customers in the near future." Because of its inherent ability to find and enable the best possible end to end network path, Phoebus will be used in a SC07 Bandwidth Challenge submission to showcase its ability to maximize the performance of a 10 Gbps connection between Reno and CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The challenge submission will use data related to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experimentation to showcase how Phoebus can support researchers utilizing high speed networks to participate in this bandwidth-intensive worldwide project. Phoebus will work to split the network path into distinct segments at specific adaptation points to optimize the performance of each segment thereby maximizing performance on the entire end to end path. Results of the Bandwidth Challenge will be announced on Thursday, November 15, 2007.
"TCP is currently the standard protocol for applications to access national backbone networks. Because of this, new disruptive network technologies like dynamic circuit networks need a simple method for users to implement at the edge of the network to enable their broad use. By leveraging standard Internet technologies at the edge of the network, Phoebus provides an on-ramp for any type of application to access these revolutionary new types of networks enabling more users to benefit immediately," explained Martin Swany, assistant professor, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Delaware and Internet2 faculty fellow. "In the longer term, Phoebus will enable network providers to offer a richer set of services to their users because they will no longer be constrained by the performance limitations of TCP in high-bandwidth networks." At SC07, ESnet, GEANT2, and Internet2 together with co-collaborators from GRNET, the national research and education network for Greece; HEAnet, the national research and education network for Ireland, and PIONIER, the national research and education network for Poland, will showcase the set up of a one Gigabit per second (Gbps) dynamic circuit using standard video transfer and file transfer applications. The applications will be initiated from the Internet2 SC booth and will leverage the Phoebus framework to access, and then dynamically set up, a separate point-to-point circuit between Reno, Nevada across the Internet2 DC network and the ESnet network, to the GEANT2 network in Europe and then to the GRNET, HEAnet and PIONIER networks respectively. The applications are anticipated to transfer approximately seven gigabytes of data, the amount of data stored on a standard movie DVD, in one minute. "As a result of our work on dynamic provisioning of user-requested network circuits within GEANT2, our AutoBAHN (Automated Bandwidth Allocation across Heterogeneous Networks) architecture is capable of setting up on-demand dedicated circuits, spanning multiple countries and multiple networks" said Afrodite Sevasti, Activity Leader for GEANT2 AutoBAHN and GRNET Network Services Development Manager. "AutoBAHN has enabled the first Trans-Atlantic demonstration of the Phoebus performance framework, by allowing the provisioning of up to 10Gbps circuits from Internet2 and/or ESnet to GEANT2 and the European NRENs, within a few minutes." As a framework and protocol for high-performance optical networks, Phoebus works to transparently split the end-to-end network path into distinct segments at specific adaption points, typically located at backbone ingress and egress points. Phoebus then works to minimize the impact of packet loss and latency by finding and creating the best network path for the specific application from each adaption point. Because of its architecture, many applications can begin to utilize Phoebus and the DC Network with no modification because of its ability to transparently authenticate and redirect the application to the circuit network via a Phoebus Gateway. "The ability to create and manage dynamic virtual circuits across multiple independent domains is essential to enabling the science ESnet is tasked to support," said Joe Burrescia, ESnet General Manager. "The interoperability of the Phoebus framework and ESnet's internal On-demand Secured Circuits and Advanced Reservation System (OSCARS) as exhibited in this multi-national network production demonstration is right on track with our vision of how networks, including ESnet's SDN, will used by our scientific customers in the near future." Because of its inherent ability to find and enable the best possible end to end network path, Phoebus will be used in a SC07 Bandwidth Challenge submission to showcase its ability to maximize the performance of a 10 Gbps connection between Reno and CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The challenge submission will use data related to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experimentation to showcase how Phoebus can support researchers utilizing high speed networks to participate in this bandwidth-intensive worldwide project. Phoebus will work to split the network path into distinct segments at specific adaptation points to optimize the performance of each segment thereby maximizing performance on the entire end to end path. Results of the Bandwidth Challenge will be announced on Thursday, November 15, 2007.