April 20, 2023

Supporting advanced networking needs of the global research, teaching and learning community:  National Research and Education Networks and global collaboration

Heather BoylesDirector, International RelationsInternet2heather@internet2.edu

Internet2 Yesterday and Today

Launched October 1996• 34 US universities• Formally incorporated as not-for-profit corporation September 1997

• Abilene backbone network announced April 1998

Today• 208 US universities; 60+ corporate members, 40+ affiliates, 45 international partners

• 2nd Generation Abilene backbone network; Internet2 Commons, Shibboleth, InCommon, NLR, QUILT, Arts & Humanities program, etc.

Internet2 Today and Tomorrow

Motivate Enable

End-to-end

End-to-end

Perform

anceP

erformanceNetworksNetworks

MiddlewareMiddleware

ApplicationsApplications

ServicesServices

Securit

Securit

yy

April 20, 2023

Internet2 international partnerships: an overview

Internet2: Partnerships

Partnerships are key to Internet2International partners are of strategic importance to Internet2

• Ensure global interoperability –of the next generation of Internet technologies and

applications

• Enable global collaboration –in research and education providing/promoting the

development of an advanced networking environment internationally

International Partner Program

Build effective partnerships in other countries With organizations of similar goals/objectives and similar constituencies

Mechanism: Memoranda of Understanding• Provide/promote interconnectivity between communities• Collaborate on technology development and deployment• Facilitate collaboration between members on applications

Engagement to:• Establish leading, high-performance network infrastructures in

support of science, teaching and learning• Ensure global coordination and end-to-end performance in

support of our communities

Current International Partners Asia-PacificAAIREP (Australia)APAN (Asia-Pacific)APAN-KR (Korea)CERNET/CSTNET/ NSFCNET (China)JAIRC (Japan)JUCC (Hong Kong)NECTEC/UNINET (Thailand)NG-NZ (New Zealand)SingAREN (Singapore)TANet2 (Taiwan)

AmericasCANARIE (Canada)CEDIA (Ecuador)CLARA (Latin America & Caribbean)CUDI (Mexico)CNTI (Venezuela)CR2NET (Costa Rica)REUNA (Chile)RETINA (Argentina)RNP (Brazil)SENACYT (Panama)

Europe-Middle EastARNES (Slovenia)BELNET (Belgium)CARNET (Croatia)CESnet (Czech Republic)DANTE (Europe)DFN-Verein (Germany)GIP RENATER (France)GRNET (Greece)HEAnet (Ireland)HUNGARNET (Hungary)INFN-GARR (Italy)Israel-IUCC (Israel)NORDUnet (Nordic Countries)POL-34 (Poland)Qatar Foundation (Qatar)FCCN (Portugal)RedIRIS (Spain)RESTENA (Luxembourg)RIPN (Russia)SANET (Slovakia)Stichting SURF (Netherlands)SWITCH (Switzerland)TERENA (Europe)JISC, UKERNA (United Kingdom)

As of September 2004

Related partnerships

APRU (Asia/Pacific)IEEAF

April 20, 2023

A general overview of NRENs and international connectivity around the world

NRENs in general

The idea of national research (and education) networks (NRNs or NRENS) continues to be popular

• New NRENs in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Mediterranean, Middle East – Pakistan, New Zealand, Jordan

Many of these NRENs incorporate government research lab as well as university connectivity (and sometimes other education institutions)

Regional (continental-scale) backbone growthContinuum from commercial Internet access, to

reliable-leading-edge (production) to experimental to network research facilitating networks

• But locus of most effort on supporting the high-performance, leading-edge needs of high-end science (UK e-Science, US CyberInfrastructure) and other high-end research, education, clinical needs

A picture of where NRENs exist

Related Efforts in FormationRelated Efforts in Formation

Current MoU PartnersCurrent MoU Partners

Developing PartnershipsDeveloping Partnerships

International connectivity from/to the US

Internet2 backbone networks generally exist within the borders of US

Links between the US and other countries funded through various sources

• Outside the US: many of our partners procure and operate links from their country to the US

• US-funded: US NSF provides funding through IRNC (was HPIIS) program for some links

– DOE provides some funding for CERN-procured and operated links to US

• Donations: IEEAF has garnered donations from Tyco Telecom of international links

How do Internet2 networks connect with these international links?

International exchange points around borders (including north and south borders of US)

• Peculiar challenge in US of connecting with multiple national-scale networks in US (Abilene, ESnet, NREN/NISN, DREN, NLR-based networks (e.g. HOPI), etc.)

Exchange points• Pacific Wave exchange point (West Coast – Seattle/LA)• (UTEP link to CUDI (El Paso – Ciudad Juarez))• AMPATH exchange point (Miami)• Emerging: Atlantic Wave (East Coast – Miami/New York)• MAN LAN (New York)• Star Light (Chicago)

Some direction connections• e.g. to Abilene core router (GEANT in Washington, DC)

Last updated: 21 September 2004

Abilene International Peering

In addition to physical network interconnectivity

Moving toward ‘interconnecting’ and ‘peering’ these infrastructures too

• Performance Measurement and Monitoring Infrastructures– NLANR/MNA measurement infrastructure

• Wide international deployment– Internet2 piPEs environment

• Joint development work of Internet2 and GEANT2• PMP deployments in APAN, Brazil, Europe, US

– Abilene considering adding measurement infrastructure to international Interconnection Agreements

• Authentication and Authorization Infrastructures– Cotswolds meeting – Australia, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United

Kingdom, United States (also CERN) attending– e.g. InCommon trust federation in US (hosted by Internet2),

SWITCHAAI, UK legacy ATHENS, planned Shibboleth-based federation, etc.

Performance Measurement: Current piPEs Deployment

Italy

Poland

Israel

In ProgressAbileneUS Govt. Labs

US UniversitiesGEANTAPAN

National Federations for Inter-institutional authentication and authorization

National federations of institutions• Agreeing to interconnect their respective

authentication and authorization schemes• To support inter-institutional collaboration

Interconnect these national federations• ‘League of Federations’• To support inter-institutional collaborations

internationally• E.g. virtual organizations of researchers –

international ‘grid’ projects• E.g. authenticated video-conferencing• E.g. access to performance/measurement data for

network engineers across domains

AAI

eVLBI - Very Long Baseline Interferometry

Astronomers collect data about a star from many different earth based antennae and send the data to a specialized computer for analysis on a 24x7 basis.

VLBI is not as concerned with data loss as they are with long term stability.

The end goal is to send data at 1Gb/s from over 20 antennae that are located around the globe.

Interesting:eVLBI sites in US and Europe recently tracked and confirmed landing of Huygens probe to one of Saturns’ moons, Titan

http://web.haystack.mit.edu/e-vlbi/meeting.html

Astronomy- Arecibo

Arecibo is the largest

single-dish radio-telescope in the world

Can gather data at 40 MBytes per second

Advanced network connection allows: • Remote observation• Real-time control• Ability to provide researchers access to over 800

TBytes of data collected by the antenna

HENP

High Energy and Nuclear

Physics

Physicists has traditionally been one of the “power users” of all networks

Generating Terabytes (1x1012) of data per experiment from the CERN lab in Switzerland

They are working on bulk data transfers that are extremely resistant to data loss

VRVS, a video conferencing tool, was developed by the physics community

Distance Education/Learning

Tele-presence environments

•Real-time interactions with very high quality audio and MPEG-2 video

• as needed “meetings” connecting faculty and staff across the ocean

Music instruction

Language/cultural Exchanges

Learning foreign languages through cultural exchanges and problem based experiential learning

For more information:

http://www.internet2.edu

Or contact me:• Heather Boyles• heather@internet2.edu