Southeastern Universities Research Association Regional Vision and Strategy Should be the Driver Wrap-up Session SURA SE Networking Summit Meeting February 21, 2007 Atlanta Don Riley SURA IT Fellow

Southeastern Universities Research Association Going back to yesterday’s “But” talk by Ron Johnson, What were the key messages? Backbones have been important, but...

Southeastern Universities Research Association Backbones have been important, but today the most important things seem to be: 1) testbeds/research/R&D; 2) infilling the regionals with owned-lit, high function, alternate-pathed, multi-homed connectivity; 3) interconnecting the neighboring regionals and rationalizing their sharable infrastructures and services to reduce costs (e.g. commodity/exchange); and 4) leveraging the results to enable benefits to largest community: including K12, economic development,.com partnerships, state based health care(as that is how it is licensed), etc.

Southeastern Universities Research Association SURA, its members, and RONs should continue to pursue the long-range RII vision -- work hard and together to: establish owned-lit based local *loops* (RONs) for each state; create an interconnecting, regional level, owned-lit ringed/looped fabric with alternate-paths for all participants throughout the entire southeast; consolidate region hub nodes in strategic locations (DC, ATL, HOU, for example) -to get maximum bandwidth at lowest cost -to get maximum layer 1, 2, 3 interconnect/interoperate capabilities -for interacting with all R&E and international backbones as well as the core commodity internet exchange and transit infrastructure (e.g. extended TransitRail); Extend/distribute the super-regional gigapop fabric to include full function extended/distributed gigapop locations at state and sub- state levels.

Southeastern Universities Research Association SURA RII We started back around 2000 to conceptualize what was needed and to see what was possible –We plotted locations of SURA region institutions, federal labs and key computational resource centers –Then we started “drawing lines” - to conceptualize what we’d like to achieve –And we said “a great starting point would be if we could create a backbone thru the region” - and then start connecting things to that backbone….

(1) (2) (3) (4)(6) (5) (8) (7) (9) (12) (11) (10) (15) (14) (13) SURA Member Locations

(1) (2) (3) (4)(6) (5) (8) (7) (9) (12) (11) (10) (15) (14) (13) = SURA member. = National Laboratory. = SURA HPC sites (CASC member). = SURA Medical Research sites. = SURA Grid computing sites. = SURA member in SCOOP. = CASC member (non-SURA). SURA Members, Nat’l Labs and CASC Locations

AWG Conceptual Regional Infrastructure August 2001

SURA Region Map

Southeastern Universities Research Association Update Today We’ve got a backbone We’ve got some regional networks (RONs) But –There are gaps: states without RONs, places RONs don’t yet reach, etc. –And we’ve got another backbone coming that we’re trying to sort out how to deal with We’re not done, we need to stick to, but revise/update, the vision –Recognizing that things have changed and we need to think differently than we were in 2001 And we need to keep on working to make the lines we draw real…. To extend the “core” benefits and opportunities throughout the region.

Southeastern Universities Research Association SURA Region Fiber-based RON Map (as it exists today - from Quilt map)

Southeastern Universities Research Association SURA Region Fiber-based Connectivity (the goal - concept) Fill the gaps - even more “lines” are needed…..

Southeastern Universities Research Association Design to Aggregate thru Natural Nodes SERON design/develop a plan for the region that would –Leverage existing investment in NLR backbone and available waves/services for backhaul, etc. –extend access/services throughout the region to the RONs –Provide redundancy/resiliency –Minimize connection fees in aggregate –Meet needs of each RON, while lowering cost, and providing “burst capacity” to everyone SERON as a group could contract with Internet2 for n (2 or 3 or more) connections for the region We could think of this conceptually as similar to what we did with A-Wave for international connectivity -- using NLR waves to create a peering/transit fabric to extend access to international networks thoughout the region.

Southeastern Universities Research Association And…. This was just rough, quick conceptualization based upon Ron Johnson’s talk and SURA RII history Plus -- our discussions in Atlanta and Larry Conrad’s Next Steps presentation But…. There are gaps and details to fill in and more to write And… you have to help write it and fill in the gaps….