Abilene project connects universities through fiber optics

By ROBERT PEASE

U.S. Vice President Al Gore recently unveiled the Abilene research and education network project, a fiber-optic native Internet protocol (IP) backbone network for Internet2 member universities. The Abilene network is being developed by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (ucaid), home of the Internet2 project. Qwest Communications (Denver, CO) has donated $500 million of capacity on its nationwide fiber-optic network to the project. Cisco Systems Inc. (San Jose, CA) also will supply its gsr-12000 switch routers to the project, while Nortel (Brampton, ON, Canada) will provide OC-48 (2.5-Gbit/sec) transport equipment technology.

The Abilene project joins the calren2 project as the second higher-education organization to use the Qwest fiber-optic network as its backbone. Abilene`s initial operation is expected to begin before the end of this year, with full deployment completed by the end of 1999.

Initially, the Abilene Project will consist of a national backbone using IP packet-over-sonet (Synchronous Optical Network) technology. The network will operate at OC-48, with OC-12 (622-Mbit/sec) or OC-3 (155-Mbit/sec) connections from the Abilene backbone to university gigabit-per-second points of presence (gigaPoPs--regional network aggregation points) or to individual institutions. However, the Abilene team expects to increase the backbone capacity to OC-192 (10 Gbits/sec), a goal that will become more important as Abilene is more broadly deployed during 1999. Advanced services, such as multicasting and quality of service (QoS), are also planned during 1999.

Broad geographic coverage is another important characteristic of the Abilene network. It will offer access PoPs very close to almost all of the anticipated university gigaPoPs, thereby minimizing the cost of network connections.

In addition to Abilene, ucaid supports member access to other advanced networks, such as the National Science Foundation`s Very High Performance Backbone Network Service (vbns) provided by mci (see Lightwave, November 1997, page 18). Not only will the support continue, but ucaid plans to ensure that Abilene provides access to the vbns, other high-performance networks, and federal research networks. ucaid also will collaborate with the providers of these networks to provide advanced QoS capabilities across multiple interconnected networks.

Supporting Internet2

The Abilene project`s primary goal is to support and encourage the development of advanced applications by ucaid university members and to support Internet2. It will contribute significantly to the Internet2 applications objectives in both technical and structural ways. Technically, it will dramatically increase available bandwidth and reduce network delays. The increased bandwidth will enable a greater number of applications to be employed. For higher education, this equates to virtually eliminating the barrier to reliability caused by network congestion and delays. The real dividends, however, will be realized on the structural side. This long-term initiative gives confidence to application developers whose advanced applications could be deployed by the network platform.

For example, Abilene promises to support the development of applications involving "tele-immersion." These shared virtual reality environments would enable people hundreds of miles apart to interact naturally, as if in the same room and with access to the same information. In one such application, the University of Illinois--Chicago has developed the Virtual Temporal Bone, an immersive simulation of the intricate anatomy of the middle and inner ear. A faculty otolaryngologist at a major research hospital can use this application to instruct resident physicians and students at remote locations by sharing and interacting with an accurate three-dimensional model of the temporal bone, the portion of the human skull that houses the organs of hearing and balance. Just as Web-enabling applications are used today, such immersion-enabling applications are projected for the next decade.

Abilene`s contribution to Internet2 will enable researchers and educators to develop the advanced applications critical to the mission of higher education, according to Douglas E. Van Houweling, ucaid`s president and CEO.

"Abilene is the newest backbone network for Internet2," says Houweling, "which exists to enable a new generation of applications to help people work together. It exists to reinforce leading-edge network capabilities needed by the university community, and to transfer resulting experience into the global production Internet through a partnership with government and industry."

The Internet2 project, begun about two years ago, joined universities with government and industry partners to build on the tremendous success of the last 10 years in generalizing and adapting research Internet technology to academic needs. Internet2 aims to develop a new family of advanced applications to meet emerging academic requirements for research, teaching, and learning. More than 120 U.S. universities are involved in the project. The Internet2 network will not be accessible to the general public. However, Internet2 technology, along with some of its applications, may eventually find its way to the global Internet.

Abilene also will work with other advanced research and education networking efforts, such as the federal government`s Next Generation Internet (ngi) initiative. ngi is a multi-agency research and development program that is developing advanced networking technologies and demonstrating their capabilities on test beds that are 100 to 1000 times faster end-to-end than today`s Internet.

As Gore put it, "This investment may enable the best medical specialist to give advice to patients in rural hospitals, scientists to use remote supercomputers to predict tornadoes, and adults to get new skills through distance-learning. We will end the days when the World Wide Web is referred to by some as the World Wide Wait." q