GOVERNMENT

The eyes of the world were on Canadian technology Friday during a precedent-setting international demonstration with the Technological University of Catalonia (UPC) and the i2CAT Foundation for European Union eInfrastructure delegates. CANARIE's high performance research and education network, CA*net 4, provided the local conduit to demonstrate this first-of-its-kind user-controlled lightpath software between the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) lab in Ottawa and the Advanced Broadband Communications Centre (CCABA) lab of the UPC in Barcelona, Spain. The technology, created by CRC and the University of Ottawa, and later enhanced under collaboration with the Optical Communications Group (GCO) of the UPC, will accelerate research in bandwidth-hungry scientific fields, including medicine, genomics, weather monitoring and high-energy physics. "It is essential that network access never becomes a bottleneck for Canadian and international research," explains CANARIE President and CEO Andrew Bjerring. "We are delighted to have an opportunity to demonstrate the User-Controlled LightPath software - a world first for Canada. The demonstration requires connectivity between CA*net 4 and i2CAT through six other major high-speed networks between Ottawa and Barcelona, a testament to both international cooperation and the increasingly collaborative nature of research." EU eInfrastructure delegates attending a series of meetings in Ottawa hosted by CANARIE and CRC viewed the User-Controlled LightPath (UCLP) software demonstration following a visit to the CRC Broadband Applications and Demonstration Laboratory (BADLAB)TM. The UCLP software provides users with the freedom to connect optical networks via secure dedicated bandwidth with low latency. Users can establish end-to-end connections between two points on a direct peering path. "The visit of a European eInfrastructure delegation to North America provides an international forum to discuss our commons goals," says Bjerring. "It will lay the groundwork for future joint initiatives and activities. Canadians have every reason to be proud of our development of UCLP software that links the fastest networks in the world. This is the first time that two independent UCLP systems have been used to stitch an end-to-end connection across multiple optical network infrastructures." The UCLP software allows end users to control high-performance lightpath connections as if the link was a simple extension of their own local area network. The dedicated circuits with fixed bandwidth between any two points on an optical network were developed by Canadian researchers under the direction of CANARIE engineers. The open-source UCLP software empowers network users to create, subdivide and delete private sub-networks as needed. Since its launch two years ago, CA*net 4 has supported nearly two dozen permanent and temporary lightpaths. The European eInfrastructure delegation visited eInfrastructure-related sites in Washington, Virginia, Chicago and Ottawa this week. Delegates will analyze the impact of ongoing collaboration in the area of advanced large test-beds, national and regional research, education networks and backbones, and Grid infrastructure initiatives. The Ottawa visit was designed to promote international collaboration and examine expanding research efforts from regional into global co-operation.