Pacific Wave, a joint project of the Pacific Northwest Gigpop (PNWGP) and the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and partially supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, has opened what it asserts is the first 100-Gbps trans-Pacific research and education (R&E) network operating at 100-Gbps. The submarine network also features a related transit, peering, and exchange fabric.
The NSF-funded International Research Network Connections (IRNC) TransPAC4 project, led by Indiana University, will be the main customer, Pacific Wave says.
Pacific Wave recently received a five-year NSF IRNC award to serve as the U.S. Pacific Rim's open and distributed interconnection, peering, and exchange fabric, including software-defined exchange (SDX), software-defined networking (SDN), and research DMZ capabilities. The new fiber-optic network connection will provide a dedicated 100-Gbps wavelength between the Pacific Wave national R&E node in Seattle and Tokyo. The endpoints will feature 100-Gbps peering and routing fabrics using Brocade MLX routers. The network also will offer access and peering in Tokyo for Asian R&E networks at both the longstanding WIDE/T-REX/T-LEX Open Exchange Point, and at the newly established Pacific Wave node at 3-8-21 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-Ku.
The 100-Gbps connection in the U.S. has primary points of presence in Seattle, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles, as well as additional 100-Gbps access and peering at StarLight in Chicago. The Pacific Wave fabric also provides direct 100-Gbps connectivity with multiple interfaces to Internet2's Advanced Layer 2 and 3 Services (AL3S and AL2S), as well as 100-Gbps connectivity to ESnet, and 100-Gbps and/or 10-Gbps connections to nearly all the major Asia Pacific R&E networks, U.S. Department of Energy's ESnet, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration N-wave, and commercial cloud providers regularly used by national and international R&E communities, Pacific Wave adds.
"This milestone is great news. The world's hardest problems can only be solved through global collaboration, and 10-Gbps links will soon be insufficient to support large-scale science," said Greg Bell, director of the Scientific Networking Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and director of the Energy Science Network (ESnet). "Faster data almost always means faster discovery. More important than bandwidth, though, is a growing spirit of international cooperation in our community: multiple stakeholders are working together towards a common goal of open, fast, and safe research networking for the world."
Pacific Wave had created a 40-Gbps trans-Pacific connection in 2014 (see "Pacific Wave completes second 40G transpacific route").
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