[LINK] AARNET, 80 wavelengths of 100Gbps
stephen at melbpc.org.au
stephen at melbpc.org.au
Thu Jun 30 00:24:12 AEST 2011
AARNet aims for 100Gbps network within 12 months
by Chloe Herrick 29 June, 2011 09:14
<http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/391839>
Australias Academic and Research Network (AARNET) will convert its
network to 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps) within 12 months following a
successful 40Gbps trial on its East Coast optical network.
AARNets chief operating officer, Don Robertson, told Computerworld
Australia the trial, which began on 2 May this year, was a step toward
becoming a 100Gbps network.
"Thats the plan; the only reason weve done this at 40Gbps is because
its the same technology so proving it at 40Gbps means it will work at
100Gbps. And as soon as the 100Gbps equipment, which is a little way off
from Cisco some months perhaps becomes available we will actually go
straight to 100Gbps," Robertson said.
Our plan in the next 12 months is to be rolling out 100Gbps
infrastructure, 80 wavelengths of 100Gbps; well be an eight Terabit
[Tbps] network in total.
"The total capacity on our East Coast optical network is will go from
320Gbps to 8Tbps.
The trial set out to determine whether the network was able to
support 'big science' projects, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
project, should Australia be selected to host the science project in 2012.
The trial connected three CSIRO facilities including the Parkes Radio
Telescope or The Dish in central west New South Wales, Narrabri
Observatory in northwest New South Wales and the CSIROs main radio
astronomy headquarters in Marsfield, Sydney encompassing a distance of
1300 kilometres in total.
We thought if were going to set this up lets include the two big radio
telescopes The Dish at Parkes and another instrument at Narrabri and
we can conduct our test to ensure it works on our network, its reliable
and it meets specifications, he said. It did all that and we ran it for
three days continuously at 40Gbps to prove that.
From AARNets perspective, it is to position us for the big science and
growth in our network and in particular with big science the Square
Kilometre Array and the Pathfinder projects of the SKA.
To facilitate the trial the organisation upgraded part of its network
infrastructure using the existing Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Transport
Platform (MSTP) and installing 40Gbps muxponders onto its backbone,
enabling it to transmit parallel wavelengths greater distances without
regeneration.
According to Robertson, including the two instruments at Parkes and
Narrabri meant they could kill two birds with the one stone enabling
the scientists at CSIRO to use the capacity and test how they might
utilise it.
Astronomy is certainly one of our biggest potential users of capacity on
the network, particularly with the new instruments coming online the
ASKAP [Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder] program will dwarf
the two telescopes I just mentioned.
Commenting on the trial, CSIRO SKA director, Dr Brian Boyle, said the
high bandwidth required for this sort of trial was an example of how
Australia's existing infrastructure can support the SKA's goal in a cost-
effective manner.
It also demonstrates that Australia will succeed in delivering
networking requirements for international initiatives that utilise very
high capacity to support extreme astronomy data set transfers.
The trial has also positioned AARNet to be able to support less
glamorous experiments, Robertson said everyday projects that utilise
the network and use up the networks existing 10Gbps capacity.
It also positions us for the more day-to-day bits and pieces that they
use with transferring large data sets, the high energy particle
physicists theyre heavy users of the network, and other even more
routine teaching and learning stuff using high-definition video to use up
the capacity, so were positioning ourselves to be able to meet that
demand as we move forward.
The network also recently pushed its storage-as-a-service offering,
CloudStor, into general availability for all members of AARNets network,
following a year-long alpha test.
The service was initially limited to file uploads of 55 gigabytes each,
but has since moved to limitations of more than 100 gigabytes for 100
recipients per file, at a time limit of 20 days.
Follow Chloe Herrick on Twitter: @chloe_CW
--
cheers
stephen
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