GOVERNMENT

San Jose and San Diego, Calif. and Chicago, Ill. -- Calient Networks, a leading global provider of intelligent all-optical switching systems and software, will team with the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology [Cal-(IT)2] and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) on development of the “OptIPuter,” a powerful distributed cyber-infrastructure project designed to support data-intensive scientific research and collaboration. UIC has awarded a major purchase of all-optical switches to Calient Networks, which will install them at facilities in the United States and the Netherlands. The OptIPuter program is funded by the National Science Foundation. OptIPuter is so named for its use of optical networking, Internet Protocol, as well as computer storage, processing and visualization technologies. It is a “virtual machine” that sits atop a LambdaGrid, an experimental network of optical fiber, where each fiber carries data on multiple wavelengths of light (lambdas) to connect distributed computing resources at speeds equivalent to internal PC bus speeds. Each lambda can transmit data at 1 to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps), and soon will achieve 40 Gbps and greater speeds. "We will be intensely exploring applications of lambda-switching, given the growth and functionality we anticipate over the next few years as part of the OptIPuter initiative," said Cal-(IT)2 Director Larry Smarr, principal investigator on the OptIPuter project and the Harry E. Gruber Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Jacobs School of Engineering. "Calient's DiamondWave platform will enable our OptIPuter vision of a highly flexible, cost-effective and future-proof all-optical core network." Calient switches installed at the StarLight site in Chicago and the NetherLight site in Amsterdam will make those facilities the most advanced 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps switch/router exchanges in the world. “Research and government networks are always the first to deploy the next generation of communications products and lead the way to wide scale commercial deployment,” said Charles Corbalis, president and CEO of Calient. “OptIPuter’s terabit switching demands make it an ideal application to leverage the reliability, transparency and scalability of our all-optical DiamondWave product. We look forward to supporting the continued growth and success of the Optical Networking Grid program.” DiamondWave is an advanced, field proven all-optical switch for telecom, research and government networks. It is the only photonic switch that scales to 256x256 ports in non-blocking fashion and supports advanced lambda control strategies. It will be used to prototype multi-Gigabit LambdaGrids with a 128x128 platform at StarLight, and a 64x64 platform at NetherLight. Both sites interconnect numerous 1Gbps and 10Gbps national and international backbone trunks, and the number of available computational and connection resources is growing. The benefit and simplicity of an all-optical switch in this high growth, dynamic environment lies in its ability to rapidly reconfigure 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps experiments. The StarLight and NetherLight sites are working with multiple 1 Gbps dedicated Layer 2 circuits that act like lambdas. Said Cees de Laat, associate professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Amsterdam: “An all-optical switch is one-tenth the cost of an electronic switch, which is one-tenth the cost of a router. We noticed that the most data intensive applications usually only involve a very limited number of end points and, therefore, can bypass expensive router infrastructure. So, not only is speed an issue, but cost as well.” Calient will also enable UIC’s evaluation of the newly standardized signaling protocol suite, Generalized Multiprotocol Lambda Switching (GMPLS), and its applicability to OptIPuter’s network provisioning, reservation and control systems. “Throughout our prospective vendor evaluations, we were highly impressed by DiamondWave’s innovative MEMS-based switching design, very high interconnection speed and optical transparency,” said Tom DeFanti, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at UIC. “These capabilities allow the system to rapidly switch any bit rate or protocol that exists today, or is anticipated. This is of particular importance as we prototype the OptIPuter over the 10 Gbps link to Amsterdam, with new networking protocols. We intend to build a global scale experimental network that provides the equivalent of ‘heavy freight hauling’, in parallel to the Internet’s zillions of ‘taxicabs’ of data. Optical switching is the core technology of this experiment.” According to John Bowers, chief technology officer at Calient, “The maturity and superior design of DiamondWave’s 3D MEMS switching system provide significant advantages for programs like OptIPuter. First, it’s truly transparent to bit rates and protocols. Together with the industry’s shortest path length through the switch, this means there’s minimal signal power loss and virtually no signal quality degradation or latency. Second, DiamondWave’s unique switching density and ability to scale to 256x256 in non-blocking fashion enable over 65,000 connection possibilities, effectively delivering wavelengths on demand. Third, we achieve very high yields in our manufacturing processes, making the system very reliable and affordable to customers.” Calient Networks’ DiamondWave provides connections where the data path is purely photonic, with no electrical components or conversions. It is based on a highly reliable single-crystal silicon 3D MEMS (Micro-ElectroMechanical Switch) design. The system’s protocol independence means that the switch does not need to be replaced as protocols change. DiamondWave works at existing (2.5 Gbps to 10 Gbps) as well as at future bit rates (10 Gbps to 40+ Gbps), making it ideal for OptIPuter’s phased network capacity upgrades. The system is equipped with Calient’s industry leading GMPLS networking software and is thus able to dynamically and rapidly provision, switch and protect trunk interconnections. It has successfully completed interoperability with a wide variety of peer networking elements.