SCIENCE

Internet2 will donate bandwidth on its national backbone to support GENI subcontractors and the GENI Project Office. The GENI Project Office is located at Raytheon BBN Technologies in Cambridge, MA . Internet2’s connections will support the emerging GENI meso-scale prototype, which now spans over a dozen U.S campuses, with direct connections at ten backbone locations. 

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovations) is a virtual laboratory for exploring future internets at scale, now rapidly taking shape in prototype form across the United States. It supports experiments on a wide variety of advanced research in communications, networking, distributed systems, cyber security, networked services, and applications. GENI facilitates a smooth transition path from “innovative experiment” to useful service at significant scale. GENI will enable “at scale” experimentation for controlled and repeatable experiments to improve scientific understanding of complex, large-scale networks, and for “in the wild” trials of services that piggyback or connect to today’s Internet and engage large numbers of participants, along with instrumentation and data archival/analysis tools for both. 

This new “Phase 2” agreement builds on Internet2’s previous network investment in the GENI community and provides donated network resources through July 2012. Internet2 will contribute eight 10 gigabits per second and five one gigabits per second connections across its nationwide network. GENI subcontractors and developers will be able to access the network at every Internet2 connection point to enable nationwide collaboration to further design and development efforts on GENI meso-scale prototypes. 

“Internet2 congratulates the GENI community on its successful work thus far in developing transformative network technologies. As an organization dedicated to networking and research, we are delighted to continue to support the GENI community in its pioneering efforts to develop future Internet architectures. The GENI effort has great potential to transform the Internet as we know it today which we believe will lead to even greater impacts on science, education and society,” said chief technology officer, Randy Frank, Internet2. “This donation builds on Internet2’s significant investments in the GENI community and by leveraging our production network, helps to set the stage for even longer term use of Internet2 resources by the GENI community." 

“Internet2 is playing a critically important role in advancing NSF’s goals and the GENI project," said Chip Elliott, project director, GENI Project Office. “With their broad membership base that includes 300 major research institutions, their latest contribution will enable GENI researchers to continue to grow and further develop the GENI-prototype nationwide infrastructure suite that uniquely supports pioneering research leading to the next generation Internet.”