GLORIAD aims to better integrate, with an advanced network infrastructure, the science and education (S&E) communities of the United States of America (US), the Russian Federation (Russia), and the People’s Republic of China (China) – and with partners in the Republic of Korea (Korea), the Netherlands, as well as broader Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
GLORIAD currently maintains OC3 (155 Mbps) circuits from Chicago to Moscow and from Chicago to Beijing. But its planned upgrade (in late 2004/early 2005) includes (1) a jointly managed, hybrid circuit-switched and routed network designed in a ring topology around the northern hemisphere with 2.5 Gbps service from Chicago to Moscow, Chicago to Beijing and 155 Mbps from Moscow to Beijing; and (2) services to support increased S&E cooperation for both general and highly advanced user communities. By year 3 of GLORIAD, the network will provide a 10 Gbps service around the entire northern hemisphere.
Global Impact.
GLORIAD provides much more than a network; it provides a stable, persistent, non-threatening means of facilitating dialog and increased cooperation between three nations who, throughout the 20th century, have often been at odds. Consequently, they have not benefited from the level of S&E cooperation that each separately has enjoyed with other science communities. These three countries have much to gain by expanding their S&E collaborations through GLORIAD – and too much to lose by not seizing this opportunity afforded by recent geopolitical changes. The jointly developed network, while highly practical, symbolizes the three countries’ shared commitment in this new century towards an era of increased engagement and cooperation beginning with their scientists, educators, and young people.The idea of the US, Russia and China encouraging such broad cooperation across a shared network ringing the entire northern hemisphere – and which they jointly build and operate across their territories (and the continents and oceans in between) – was unthinkable only a few years ago. But in fact, a smaller version of the network (with STM-1 circuits) between the three countries operates today. This network, “Little GLORIAD,” grew from the success of GLORIAD’s predecessor, the US NSF and Russian Ministry of Science-funded NaukaNet, which on January 9, 2004 extended its reach to China, was formally launched in Beijing, China on January 12, 2004 – and during June 2004 will cross the Russia-China border to complete the ring around the northern hemisphere. This network already enables reasonably high capacity exchange between the three S&E communities. The same team that now proposes the expanded GLORIAD network proposed, built and now jointly operates “Little GLORIAD.”
The US team at the NCSA and its US-Russia activity has received very favorable ratings for its work during two NSF program reviews (at years three and six); its new “Little GLORIAD” program was a featured “tools” project in the NSF 2005 budget request to Congress. It has demonstrated its ability to develop and manage international programs and advanced network infrastructure successfully in an often-charged and changing political environment and maintained steady progress over many years with its committed international partners.
These partners in both Russia and China provide extraordinarily senior and determined support for the program – and ability to gain unprecedented government, financial and science community support that has prompted critical domestic infrastructure improvements, as well. For example, GLORIAD has provided the impetus for current efforts in Russia to provision a 10G wavelength across its entire territory – improving capacity by more than two orders of magnitude to important science communities in the Russian Far East. Indeed, as stated by the Russian leader, Academician Evgeny P. Velikhov (EPV), “[GLORIAD] has indeed become the very backbone of Russia’s domestic S&E network plan.”
As one of Russia’s most senior scientists, EP Velikhov is President of the prestigious nationwide national laboratory "Kurchatov Institute", and Academician-Secretary (functionally, Vice President) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Ras)(responsible for IT and cyberinfrastructure programs), he leads the GLORIAD consortium in Russia – comprising the most senior science and government organizations in the country. These range from the Russian Academy of Science to the Ministry of Education and Science, agencies of Communications and Atomic Energy, and to his own Kurchatov Institute, among others. Dr. Velikhov is widely recognized as a most consistent and effective promoter of improved US-Soviet/now-Russian S&E ties for 40+ years. He has been the international organizer and leader of the effort to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a $5 billion effort that points toward future supply of clean energy from fusion-based reactors (and DOE’s number one science priority for 2004).
China provides equally senior level support. Dr. Mianheng Jiang leads the GLORIAD effort for the China Academy of Sciences (CAS) where he serves as Vice President responsible for computing, networking and IT issues. He is occasionally referenced as "China’s Prince of IT" for his work developing China’s telecommunications and IT industries and national infrastructures. Dr. Baoping Yan directs the 360 staff of the China-wide Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) and is responsible for the development of the CAS network, CSTnet, and E-Science program across China, as well as the operation, support and use of GLORIAD within China.
The importance of this level of support in both Russia and China cannot be overemphasized. Without it, no amount of desire, intelligent engineering or financial support can bridge the barriers of trust, understanding and approval necessary to create and fund this shared infrastructure. With it, a remarkable opportunity is opened for the US S&E community to build not just a shared infrastructure but unprecedented opportunities for active engagement in a large range of disciplines.
Partners.
While focused on the three partner countries, GLORIAD aims to be a good global citizen – fostering direct partnership with other S&E networking efforts and national science communities. It features close partnerships with the StarLight (SL) and TransLight (TL) projects in Chicago –sister NSF HPIIS programs (predecessor to the IRNC) as well as the TransLight/PacificWave (PW) project at CENIC and the University of Washington. Promising partnerships have also developed with the Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI) and its advanced KREOnet national network, which will connect on the GLORIAD ring between Hong Kong and Beijing and with the SURFnet/Netherlight team, which will provide the European connection point in Amsterdam. It also features active partnerships with other advanced networks in North America (CANARIE/Canada) , the US DOE’s ESnet , the National LambdaRail (NLR)), South and Central America (WHREN/FIU) , and broader Asia (via the GLORIAD presence in Hong Kong). GLORIAD partners in Russia and China also maintain peering agreements with Internet2’s Abilene network. GLORIAD also features a close communications service and research partnership with VSNL International and Cisco Networks, Inc., which has provided substantial equipment and technical services towards GLORIAD’s development and its work with IP telephony.GLORIAD’s partners lead development of the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF). The partnership with these and other advanced networking efforts will provide interoperability for essential L3 services and for a developing global circuit-switched infrastructure, which will enable global L2 (and eventually L1) circuit provisioning for end-users. Close cooperation with its partner networks will enable GLORIAD to serve not only its primary communities, but also to make its circuits and services available to the global S&E community for advanced applications, network experimentation and for network backup and protection.
The Ring.
The proposed GLORIAD “ring” transits the main GLORIAD network centers – all based on the StarLight/Netherlight model. From a US vantage point, the ring begins in Chicago at the StarLight facility where NCSA maintains the US GLORIAD equipment. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean (via CANARIE and Tyco Global Networks (TGN)) to the Netherlight facility in Amsterdam, to the CentralRussiaLight in Moscow, and through the European part of Russia to the SiberLight in Novosibirsk. The ring continues across Siberia to the FarEastLight in Khabarovsk, and continues across the Russia-China border to the ChinaLight in Beijing to the KoreaLight facility in Pusan and then to Hong Kong (HKLight). From Hong Kong, the ring crosses the Pacific Ocean (via TGN) to Seattle to GLORIAD’s Point of Presence (PoP) at the TransLight/PW facility, and then, via the TransLight network, back to Chicago/SL.
Technology.
All segments of the ring will be provisioned as 2.5G (STM-16) wavelengths in year one except for the Moscow-Beijing portion, which is expected to be STM-1 (155 Mbps) and STM-4 (622 Mbps) for years one and two. The entire network will be expanded to 10G capacity no later than year three – with anticipated support for multiple 10G - 40G wavelengths by year five. During years one and two, the trans-oceanic segments (from TGN) will include full layer-1, separate-path protection service. This protection service on the 10G circuits should no longer be required by year three, as shared protection services become available with partners.Using optical termination devices (such as Cisco ONS 15454s) and Ethernet switches, the wavelength network will provide VLAN services over 1G, 100M and 10M Ethernet links with the ability to offer non-Ethernet circuits if needed. The switched services will enable both scheduled and dynamic allocation of various capacity VLANs across the core networks and, for those advanced users appropriately equipped, end-to-end. VLANs over GbE circuits will be utilized initially to provide the essential L3 routed service (supporting IPv4, IPv6, and multicast) between Chicago-Moscow, Seattle-Beijing, Moscow-Amsterdam, Beijing-Amsterdam (and by year three, Moscow-Beijing) – with the remaining capacities available to high-end user applications requiring, for example, GbE or FastE throughput and for backup and protection services. GLORIAD’s ring topology (particularly by year three when the 10G wavelength ring is operational) will enable backup and alternate routes for L2 transit (eventually, L1 transit as well) - not only for the GLORIAD organizers but also for other compatibly-designed networks. For example, a US-European network service interruption for any reason could be remedied by temporarily re-routing the affected circuit across the Pacific, Asian and Siberian segments of GLORIAD and to Europe.
GLORIAD addresses three general areas of need - 1) general S&E applications – needs of which can be met by a “best effort” routed network (managed for minimal packet loss); 2) communities and scientists needing dedicated high-capacity (ex. 100/1000 Mbps Ethernet or greater), quality, and reliable network service (which, if networks such as GLORIAD and its partners do not provide, they must build themselves); 3) a network research test bed for experimentation with new protocols that cannot be run on a general routed infrastructure and for applications such as the wavelength disk drive (WDD), with whom GLORIAD proposes experimentation and development.
Science Community Beneficiaries.
The many science communities and applications requiring such committed services (and more completely documented in the letters of commitment and at the GLORIAD web site include the network-intensive fields of high energy and fusion energy physics, the international THORPEX program developing more accurate models for improved weather forecasting, atmospheric scientists tracking global climate changes, the International Virtual Observatory (IVO), large radio interferometry programs, the International Square Kilometer Array (SKA) construction, and projects in the geological sciences related to seismic monitoring and earthquake prediction.GLORIAD will enhance the ability of materials scientists in the partner countries to better collaborate - both by the proposed network access given to the Spallation Neuron Source (SNS) being constructed in Oak Ridge (involving many Russian and Chinese scientists) and through various nanomaterials centers. There is interest among the medical communities in the three countries to cooperate in various joint telemedical applications and practices. GLORIAD will also support cooperative programs in Arctic and Antarctic research, human genomics and broader bioinformatics and bioengineering efforts, and various environmental programs. Finally, GLORIAD already supports programs related to US-Russia national and international security - including network support for the past six years for US-Russian programs in nuclear weapons disposal, nuclear materials protection, accounting and control and active discussions between US and Russian leaders (via videoconferences over the network) on combating terrorist threats.
These are a small sample of the literally hundreds of active collaborations that will be served by both the general and advanced network services provided. Many of these are well understood because of the nine+ years the investigators have worked in the area of advanced network applications with the Russian team - and now over three years of joint network operation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Network Extensions.
Just as the predecessor MIRnet/NaukaNet program promised (and delivered) the opening of scientists and institutions in Russia to the US S&E community, GLORIAD proposes to do so on a wider scale by extending 10 Gbps network capacity across the expanse of Russia (thus, changing the way networking is delivered in this important and remote part of the world), but also in the even more remote (to US) region of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. As noted by GLORIAD team member, geologist Eric Frost, this region is a “geologist’s Disneyland” but not yet accessible in any sense (but travel) to the US community. As the letters from Kyrgyz leaders attest, they are committed to building the necessary infrastructure to connect to and utilize GLORIAD – not only for development of a Kyrgyz service, but also of a Central Asia “ring” network connecting other republics in this region. Much of the fiber optic infrastructure exists today; GLORIAD provides the motivation to provision the capacities for S&E. Similarly, efforts in Belarus have begun with discussions of a spur connecting Belarus-Moscow, thus increasing the opportunities for Eastern Europe and US scientific exchanges. Whether for the large science communities in Siberia, Far East Russia and previously inaccessible locations in China – or in other countries of the former Soviet Union – GLORIAD promises to open new opportunities for US scientists and educators. The science and geopolitical possibilities/benefits are difficult to overstate.
Network Contributions.
With its own experience of the past six years – and now working with its Starlight, TransLight, Netherlight, CANARIE, KREOnet, WHREN, and GLIF consortium partners, GLORIAD is experienced technically in developing and delivering an advanced network service. The ring topology of GLORIAD will provide enhanced reliability and an interesting space for experimentation for technology advancements such as the CANARIE WDD (section 6.5).The GLORIAD team’s experience cooperatively managing and monitoring international networks has yielded a utilization monitoring hardware/software system, MADAS ,giving the GLORIAD team detailed knowledge about its customer base, the general applications used, as well as basic performance measures. This is being supplemented in the larger GLORIAD program with an increased emphasis on end-to-end performance monitoring (with NLANR MNA, San Diego) and new experimentation with more detailed network monitoring systems to gauge reall applications performance.
GLORIAD will provide a useful and innovative set of Network Operations Center (NOC) tools to integrate its several monitoring tools with its own developed trouble ticketing system (Sect. 5.3). GLORIAD also proposes the development of a collaboration infrastructure - addressing the still difficult problem of holding online “meetings” with current video conferencing tools. This program is being developed with the High Energy Physics VRVS effort, and via an infrastructure being developed in partnership with Cisco, which is donating $75K equipment for the purpose of deploying a useful IP telephony service for GLORIAD.
Education and Outreach.
GLORIAD does not approach education and outreach as an “add-on” activity. It includes a thorough Internet-based service for maintaining and presenting a curated repository of useful information describing science resources, applications, success stories, technology solutions, etc. – as well as a means of targeting new information to subscribers based on their own specific interests (called the Current Awareness service). Such information-based “community building” tools have been used successfully by the US Investigators in their work with US-Russia and US-China for more than 10 years. Other programs described briefly in this proposal include the EduCultural Channel (a 24/7 broadcast and on-demand video service - making “science” accessible), the large Virtual Science Museum of China the Russia-developed "Simple Words" global essagy contest, and a special partnership with International Junior Achievement – enabling young people in the US, Russia, and China to engage in joint civics education, as well as practice skills for developing domestic and international businesses. While each of these programs merits its own funding source (and the GLORIAD team is committed to pursuing such), they will all be developed and piloted within the GLORIAD framework using advanced networking technologies. In the US, we are working with Alabama Public Schools to partner with GLORIAD and model activities system-wide.
Benefits to the US S&E community.
GLORIAD builds a specialized infrastructure for high-end US science communities that, without the network, face limits in their engagement with Chinese and Russian colleagues. The US science community will have access to previously inaccessible facilities - both via the network infrastructure and by the political support of this project in Russia and China in opening up science cooperation. Assuming success of efforts extending access to Central Asia and in the former Soviet countries of Belarus and other Eurasian countries, GLORIAD will provide an advanced network access to these regions of the world that simply does not exist today - opening access to major research facilities such as the Bishkek Geologic Proving Ground that hold real promise for US scientists. GLORIAD lends additional support to the development of the GLIF and consortium member networks, all of which are being developed to meet advanced application requirements of the global science community. Through its partnership with the National LambdaRail and with CANARIE, GLORIAD supports the development of necessary national infrastructures in the US and Canada.The unique global ring topology of GLORIAD holds promise of providing additional reliability for US networking across Asia and Europe due to the Eurasian segment of GLORIAD crossing Russia and China. Due to hard-won political and networking support for this program in Russia and China, GLORIAD provides the US with a seat at the table in both countries for keeping networking and broader cyberinfrastructure developments aligned - and with commitment to common standards and engineering approaches.
