1. National LambdaRail (NLR): Progress Report Steve Corbató, Internet2 corbato@internet2.edu for Tom West, NLR CEO Lightwave Networking Session EDUCAUSE - Anaheim 05 November 2003 Copyright Steve Corbato 2003. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non- commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

2. Many different perspectives “NLR… … aims to reenergize innovative R&D into next generation networking technologies, protocols, services, and apps.” … is a virtual laboratory.” … will contribute to the (NSF) Cyberinfrastructure that is critical to progress in every field of science & engineering.” … will help fuel the growth of the TeraGrid and computational science in general.” … motivates our planned regional optical network.” … is a hedge timed to hit the trough of the Internet/telecom economy.” … is both an experimental facility and a complex, multi- dimensional experiment in and of itself.” One conclusion after two long years of debate: ALL OF THE ABOVE!

3. NLR’s ‘Virtuous Circles’ and the Vital Role of Dark Fiber

4. Distinguishing features - I Largest higher-ed owned/managed optical networking & research facility in the world ~10,000 route-miles of dark fiber Four 10-Gbps ’s provisioned at outset First & foremost, an experimental platform for research Optical, switching & network layers Research committee (with 2 board seats) Advance reservation of capacity for research Experimental support center

5. Distinguishing features - II Use of high speed Ethernet for WAN transport 1O Gigabit Ethernet LAN PHY is primary interface Traditional OC-192 SONET available, too ‘Sparse backbone’ topology Each participant/node typically commits $5M Concurrent responsibility for developing optical networking capabilities and sustaining performance in nodal region

6. Distinguishing features - III Unprecedented level of self-capitalization for national networking initiative by higher ed participants ~$80M budget for full national backbone (CapEx + 5-yrs OpEx) Each contribution assumed to be ‘sunk cost’ Additional ’s (up to 40 on a given segment) can be provisioned with pricing tied to incremental cost

7. NLR organization NLR, Inc. has been established as a non- profit organization (Del. – May 2003) 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status being sought Board of Directors Tom West appointed as CEO Research Committee (Blumenthal & Barford) NOC/ESC selection (E. Blythe, Va. Tech) Other active efforts Engineering/operations (D. Richardson, PNW) Implementation (E. Smith, CENIC) Communications (M. Pollak, Internet2)

8. Current Members and Associates CENIC Pacific Northwest Gigapop Pittsburgh SC Duke Univ./NCLR MATP/Va. Tech Cisco Systems Internet2 Florida LambdaRail Georgia Tech CIC Pending: Texas University Consortium

9. NLR Board Members Tracy Futhey, Duke U/NCLR (chair) Paul Barford, U Wisconsin (Cisco-appointed researcher) Dan Blumenthal, UCSB (Cisco-appointed researcher) Erv Blythe, Va. Tech/MATP Larry Conrad, Florida State/FLR Steve Corbató, Internet2 (secretary/treasurer) Ron Hutchins, Georgia Tech Greg Jackson, U Chicago/CIC Ron Johnson, U Washington/PNWGP John Silvester, USC/CENIC Doug Van Houweling, Internet2 Tom West, CEO (ex officio)

10. How to get involved? Contact Tom West twest@cenic.org or any NLR board membertwest@cenic.org Then… Engage the relevant research communities on your campus and within your region Consider forming or utilizing an existing regional consortia to share costs (e.g., the CIC model) Start or enhance your regional optical network $51M of the $80M total for the full national build has been committed at this point Only {6-7} of 22 Quilt GigaPoPs are currently NLR members

11. Plea for peace and forward progress Despite last two years of debate, an incredible amount has been achieved: A novel, national, facilities-based optical network - NLR – has gained critical mass and is being deployed. A major corporate partner - Cisco - has made a substantial reinvestment and has encouraged us to reengage the researchers. USA Waves is on the verge of a major fiber donation and has given us a conceptual model for carrier-based, incremental pricing for ’s O(10k) miles of dark fiber have been acquired by the community for national and regional optical networks by CENIC, FiberCo, and others. The Abilene Network has been upgraded to a 10-Gbps backbone and supports the research university community through initiatives such as IPv6 deployment and the Observatory. Imagine what we can get done, once we really start moving ahead together!

12. NLR Phase 1 Implementation Status Dave Reese, CENIC The Quilt Fall Meeting Georgetown University 29 September 2003

14. NLR Project Schedule (as of 9/30/03 6:45 AM PDT) Chicago to Pittsburgh11/03 Sunnyvale to Seattle12/03 Pittsburgh to Washington DC1/04 Washington DC to Atlanta2/04 Atlanta to Jacksonville4/04 Seattle to Denver4/04 Denver to Chicago4/04

15. Connecting to NLR NLR equipment co-located at Level3 PoPs Dark fiber is best choice Co-location available via Quilt or NLR However, some spaces constrained Chicago, Washington DC, Salt Lake City, Ogden, Kansas City, Pittsburgh Contact Dave Reese to reserve space