Pacific Wave: Networking Fundamentals and Preparing for the Future
In the mid-1990s, leading Internet professionals at the University of Washington correctly predicted an impending and unprecedented growth of research and education networks globally. They determined that a new network component would be essential to a) facilitating the interconnect of these like-minded networks around the globe; b) significantly increasing performance to support video conferencing, and data exchange; c) establishing academic and research independence by dissociating critical aspects of R&E networks from the rigid and slow-moving commercial Internet vendors; and d) at the same time saving costs on Internet services that were running at US$1,500/Mbps at the time. In 1996, the Pacific Wave predecessor, the Seattle-to-Seattle Network Access Point, was conceived and deployed in Seattle as a state-of-the-art R&E peering exchange point.
At the heart of this peering facility was a rigorously engineered, redundant architecture of switches located in the premier, carrier-grade telecommunications facility in downtown Seattle. The service was easily accessible via interconnects in the building's meet-me-room. The premise of this facility was that all interconnects would be made via ethernet (an "ATM-free" zone), and all peerings would would be bilateral (there would be no requirement for multilateral peering). Bilateral peerings could be established between the networks without intervention by Pacific Wave engineers/staff. The facility put control of the data flows further into the hands of the network operators themselves and removed 'the middlemen'.
Seattle-region high-tech and medical luminaries--Microsoft Corporation, Boeing Research, AtHome, Abilene, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center--were the first to discover the many advantages of Pacific Wave. Pacific Wave was heralded as a facility that reduced latency, reduced costs, and enhanced security (e.g., by minimizing the exposure of sensitive medical data on commercial networks and through passing traffic selectively to specific peers). These early successes quickly generated expanded interest and it wasn't long before a flurry of international (CA*Net, AARNet) and federal networks (DREN, ESNet, NOAA) joined as well.
Expanding International Participation
A new awareness of international interconnectivity and the value of layer2 exchanges was growing within the research and education communities. Based in Chicago, StarTAP had successfully filled an interconnect role for various global networks in the past. But the technologies used there were complicated and access to Chicago was expensive, thereby limiting those who could productively participate there. Groups throughout the Pacific Rim were now discovering that they could reach the same networks offered at StarTAP by connecting at Pacific Wave in Seattle and by doing so would avoid the enormously expensive circuits from their Pacific landing points to Chicago.
The other driver in the expansion of Pacific Wave was the enormous cost of commercial Internet services in many Pacific Rim countries. Many found it more cost effective to buy a private circuit across the Pacific and exchange their R&E traffic at the newly christened Pacific Wave facility rather than have that R&E traffic. And in many cases, they also bought commercial Internet services here as well.
By 2003, networks including those from Taiwan, Japan, Singapore joined with the Australians and the Canadians to make Pacific Wave a truly international research and education exchange facility.
Pacific Wave Expansion
While Seattle's Pacific Wave was by all accounts very successful, the advent of National LambdaRail and the joint cooperative venture of CENIC and Pacific Northwest Gigapop opened a new opportunity.
In January 2004, the two groups jointly announced the deployment of a geographically extended facility--several nodes in Los Angeles would interconnect with the node in Seattle via a 10GbE connection from National LambdaRail. Groups from throughout the Pacific Rim, would now be able to bring their networks to any of several locations on the US Pacific Coast and implement their bilateral peering arrangements with other Pacific Wave participants, regardless of the node at which they were connected. The early desirable features of this expanded Pacific Wave--ethernet-only connections, and self-selected, self-implemented bilateral peerings--have been retained. The scope of network interconnect possibilities has multiplied enormously.
Getting connected to Pacific Wave is now much simpler than in the past: ALL major telecommunications facilities near US Pacific Ocean submarine cable landing stations would be in close proximity to a Pacific Wave node. There would be no more need for extensive backhaul or long-haul services to get to the exchange.
Pacific Wave: Summer 2004
The synergistic relationship between CENIC and Pacific Northwest Gigapop has manifested itself at several layers to-date: visionary, management, engineering, and operations. All of these facets of cooperation are the foundations upon which National LambdaRail and the new, extended Pacific Wave are being built and grown.
The fundamental engineering components of the Pacific Wave nodes (three in Los Angeles, one in Seattle, one in Sunnyvale, one in Palo Alto and other locations) are: 10GbE/1GbE/FE capable switch, accessibility to the switch via a fiber-meet-me-room connections, 10GbE connection between all nodes.
Peering services will be implemented via a VLAN connectivity schema. At the most basic level, there are three categories of vlans: local (intranode traffic exchange), external vlans (for connecting other exchanges, such as PAIX), and Inter-Site vlans (for internode peerings). This configuration allows for broadcast domain isolation as well as service type and location identification. IPv4 and IPv6 addresses will be provided out of a dedicated Pacific Wave block of addresses.
Pacific Wave services will be based on pricing and service contracts that are consistent across all nodes. Network Operations Center services will be handled by Pacific Northwest Gigapop as the primary point of contact with tight integration with the CENIC NOC. Under development are tools that will allow full visibility to devices and circuits from both NOCs; automatic NOC failover service (in the event of a disaster); shared Pacific Wave participant database; and fully-integrated escalation procedures incorporating engineers and managers at both locations.
In addition, the two groups are working together to build and implement tools that will allow timely and accurate data collection of Participant connections and traffic flows, as well as traffic flows on individual Pacific Wave components and the various 10GbE interconnects.
TransLight/Pacific Wave Partnerships and Participants: 2004-2010
The TransLight proposal takes the Pacific Wave extension to the next logical step. By working with our colleagues at StarLight in Chicago and establishing a 10GbE connection from Seattle to Chicago, there is every expectation that peering exchange services between Pacific Wave and StarLight can be further extended and expanded.
We firmly believe that the full implementation of these services and procedures in summer of 2004 will lay the foundation needed to build future Pacific Wave nodes at appropriate locations throughout the Pacific US, as well as open opportunities to explore interconnection with facilities in Japan, Hawaii, and Australia as well as Chicago.
In addition to the groups already connected at Pacific Wave, we are in conversations already with groups in Hong Kong & mainland China, Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand, Russia, and as far West (or is that now East?) as the Arab states. We will be working cooperatively with our close partner WIDE in the integration and interconnect of T-LEX in Tokyo.
Above and beyond the peering and exchange services, TransLight, via partnerships and facilities of Pacific Wave and Starlight, will offer the global networking community the access and control they need to make networks the powerful tools that science and research need to reach the next paradigm. Pacific Wave is already partnering with WIDE in Tokyo to implement a GLIF configurable network over the IEEAF trans-Pacific OC-192. This, in conjunction with our assets and participation in NLR, will make it possible ot add additional 10Gbps circuits allowing us to rapidly configure and expand the network when needed. We are fully prepared to offer a full-range of new, state-of-the-network Layer1/Layer2/Layer3 services that will help to propel global networking and the researchers served by these networks with tools unimaginable only three years ago.
TransLight/PW in conjunction with TransLight/SL will drive global networking opportunities in ways that will open doors to research and education networks by facilitating the next gigantic leaps in data transmissions, real-time video-conferencing, Quality of Service, real-time global data collection for oceanography, medicine (infectious diseases), atmospheric sciences, astronomy, physics, and so very much more. This is truly an opportunity to redefine our scientific horizons and open the door to a new way of looking at the world and universe around us.
1996
- SNNAP (Seattle Network to Network Access Point) & LAAP (Los Angeles Access Point) regional peering exchanges created.
- Microsoft, Boeing, regional R&E networks, and others connect to SNNAP.
- University of Southern California (USC) and Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS) interconnect their switches and add Los Nettos, Genuity, UUnet and others to the LAAP exchange
- Abilene/Internet2 connects. First international connection?Canada?s CA*Net3.
- US Federal Agencies (ESNet and DREN) connect.
- LAAP interconnects their exchange with Telehouse's LAIIX
- LAIIX participants KDDI, Powered.com, and WIDE begin peering with LAAP participants.
- AARNet (Australia) and TANet (Taiwan) connect.
- Seattle exchange officially changed from Seattle Network to Network Point (SNNAP) to Pacific Wave.
- LAAP upgrades their exchange infrastructure to 10GbE. Upgrades participants from FE to GbE.
- Upgraded Seattle switches to 10GbE capability.
- Internet2/Abilene upgrades to 10GbE. GEMNET (Japan) and SingAREN (Singapore) connect.
- Pacific Wave becomes a joint project between CENIC and PNWGP to create first geographically extensible peering exchange. The extended exchange between SEATTLE and LOS ANGELES uses National LambdaRail fiber facilities, CENIC infrastructure and USC's LAAP exchange.
- KREONet (Korea) and Qatar Foundation (Qatar) connect. Abilene adds connection in Los Angeles.
- Pacific Wave facility is one network component used in several noteworthy research and science efforts including a new Internet2 land speed record, Data Reservoir Experiment, and Huygens Probe Data Transfer.
- TransLight/Pacific Wave recipient of International Research Network Connections (IRNC) NSF grant.
- Sunnyvale, California node added.
- TWAREN (Taiwain), NII/Sinet(Japan), TransPAC (Japan), MIMOS Berhad (Malaysia) added.
- KREONet and GEMNET each upgrade to 10GbE.