Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development

GLORIAD focuses on improving infrastructure for useful international S&E collaboration in the three organizing partner countries – and with their partners. By working in partnership with other advanced networks, GLORIAD aims to help realize:

1. connecting the U.S., Russian and Chinese S&E networks with advanced services;
2. attending other national and regional connectivity interests of the three organizing partners;
3. addressing broader interregional interests and connectivity goals; and
4. serving the broadest interests of building a coherent, rational global S&E network architecture.

These goals - and plans for achieving them - are described below.

Connecting the U.S., Russian, and Chinese S&E Networks.

The GLORIAD team achieved the goal of implementing a L3 IP service between the US, Russia and China when the “Little GLORIAD” network launched January 2004 , creating a routed IP service (at STM-1 capacity) between the US networks, the Russian RBnet, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences CSTnet. The primary change proposed for GLORIAD is increasing capacity with a wavelength service enabling the provision of switched ethernet services - and with a larger capacity dedicated to L3 traffic (1 GbE initially) reflecting growing demand and improving domestic S&E capacities in Russia and China. GLORIAD will continue to provide a reliable L3 service (with IPv4, IPv6, and multicast services) and L2 switched Ethernet (and possibility of STM-1/STM-4-type services) to special communities (ex: HEP, ITER/Fusion Energy), to users with particularly demanding applications (for specific periods of time), and as a network test bed for experimentation.

One of the most critical GLORIAD connection goals entails implementing the switched service in concert with other advanced networks so that VLANs can be scheduled and dynamically provisioned across GLORIAD and the other network management domains. In the US, partnership with the National LambdaRail, the DOE’s ESnet and other S&E networks deploying similar architecture will provide compatible functionality for their member institutions. GLORIAD will work with the GLIF consortium to address the infrastructure requirements to enable end-users to access and utilize the capability. The Russian GLORIAD leadership has committed to providing the same infrastructure improvements and end-user requirements across the Russian backbone S&E and regional networks. Training on use of the new capabilities will be conducted via the Russia-wide RELARN organization. These domestic improvements are already being addressed within the High Energy Physics and Fusion Energy communities. In China, the CNIC is deploying domestic infrastructure engineered precisely for this type of service. The CNIC will coordinate this for the nationwide Academy of Sciences institutions; they also will provide all training services related to use of advanced tools / networks services.

Other service goals not related to connectivity are described elsewhere. Achievement of these L2 and L3 goals is based on the deployment of compatibly engineered network exchange centers at StarLight, NetherLight, and at the facilities in Russia and China - all based on a similar service structure model - and including compatible hardware/software - optical termination equipment, ethernet switches and routing equipment.

Other National and Regional Interests of the Three Organizing Partners.

GLORIAD will deploy optical termination, routing, and switching equipment at the NetherLight facility in Amsterdam for expanded Russian connectivity with Europe via direct peering with Netherlight and with GEANT. The set of GLORIAD circuits available from the U.S. to Amsterdam will add to the set available via the GLIF scheduler to US-Europe collaborators. Establishment of the HKLight in Hong Kong by the CNIC will enable exchange of L3 traffic and L2 circuits with the broader Asian community connecting there. Further, GLORIAD will enable other opportunities in Asia due to the close partnership between the CNIC and the Korean KISTI and its KREOnet network which will provide the KoreaLight facility in Pusan – a “stop” along the GLORIAD ring.

The direct connectivity between Russia and China, across their shared border near Khabarovsk and Fuyuan, with STM-1 service for year one, STM-4 for year two, and a full wavelength (10G) by year three establishes an historic direct link between their S&E communities. The new service also will provide a better path into the Far East of Russia for the U.S. S&E communities - as well as an alternate path into the general Russian S&E network (i.e., transpacific instead of transatlantic). Finally, the special arrangement with CANARIE providing transit from New York City to Chicago will establish additional service paths between the U.S. and Canadian network.

Broader Interregional Interests and Connectivity Goals.

In addition to serving the interests of the three organizing countries, GLORIAD will serve broader interregional connectivity interests. The aforementioned Hong Kong, Pusan, Beijing link serves as one example. Central Asia is another example. As described under the GLORIAD program vision, the U.S. and Russian organizers have discussed with the government of Kyrgyzstan establishing an advanced service from Bishkek, the capital, to the Russian S&E backbone. The Kyrgyz government’s commitment to develop a Central Asian “ring” network connecting other local republics into GLORIAD would establish the first high capacity, fiber-based S&E service into this region.

Finally, the capacity available in year 3 from Amsterdam via Russia and China to Hong Kong will open up new opportunities for Eurasian transit services – providing a possibly preferable route for Europe-Asia traffic and a reduction in transit across the U.S. S&E networks for those services.

Broadest Interests of a Coherent, Rational Global S&E Network Architecture.

GLORIAD’s network is being designed and engineered in close cooperation with other major international efforts and with partners in the U.S. (StarLight/TransLight, ESnet, National Lambda Rail, in Europe (Netherlight in Amsterdam), in Asia (KREOnet in Korea), in Canada (CANARIE), and in South and Central America (WHREN). This shared engineering approach not only serves the immediate interests of the three partner countries; it contributes to a unified and cooperatively managed global architecture with useful extensions in Europe and Asia and a promising new service between Europe and Asia. The commonly engineered exchange points will facilitate not only the exchange of L3 traffic (and the deployment of associated services such as global NOC facilities, utilization monitoring, security and performance measurement infrastructures) but it will also enable both scheduled and on-demand provisioning of L2 circuits across the global core network and, where equipped, user-end to user-end.

A simple example may prove helpful. It is 2007, year three of the GLORIAD project; the wavelength service from Moscow to Beijing (across the Russia-China border) is operational and providing both L3 exchange and L2 circuits. A U.S. researcher in California needs a GbE service to a site in Europe for a few hours. There are no GbEs available at the moment across any of the more likely trans-Atlantic networks. So, the circuit allocation service simply procures a GbE from a trans-Pacific network (either GLORIAD or others) and then, via GLORIAD, across China, Russia and to Amsterdam, reaching the desired end-point. This scenario will be possible because GLORIAD will engineer its services in concert with the broader community so that underutilized capacities and services are available as openly as possible.