MRI: CRON: Development of a Cyberinfrastructure Reconfigurable Optical Network for Large-Scale Scientific Discovery

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In this proposal, we propose to develop a Cyberinfrastructure for Reconfigurable Optical Networks (CRON). With supercomputing facilities and storage resources geographically dispersed across the US and around the globe, the success of scientific applications and collaborations relies increasingly on high-speed optical networks. The development and deployment of national and international optical networks and regional networks make it possible for more scientists, research and educational institutes to connect and collaborate at previously unachievable levels.However, there is a critical gap between the research projects and the deployed high speed networks, caused by the following problems: (1) Limited physical resource ? e.g., the expensive resource of the LONI network has limitations on the number of simultaneous users, and there are many research and/or educational institutions in Louisiana that cannot access the networks due to the last mile problem.; (2) Unmodifiable environment - because the currently deployed networks are used for production as well as research, individual users cannot impose on other users by modifying environmental parameters, such as network protocol stacks and operating systems; and (3) Partial environment ? applications or protocols developed for one specific high speed network should work correctly over all kinds of different networks, irrespective of different network bandwidths and delays. However, each deployed physical network has one physical characteristic, such as bandwidth and delay.The goal of this project is to bridge the gap between physical networks and research by developing a virtual networking and computing cyberinfrastructure, CRON, that provides integrated and automated access to diverse networking environments. To provide the virtual environments, CRON consists of two components: hardwares including a switch, optical fibers, network emulators and softwares automatically reconfiguring the hardwares based on users? demands. CRON resolves the critical issues by achieving three key objectives: (i) Unlimited virtual networking resource CRON will enable researchers to explore new network technologies and rapidly assess their impact on applications irrespective of physical limitation and allow educators to introduce the state-of-art networking environment to students who cannot access those physical networks. (ii) Reconfigurability CRON will allow researchers and educators to modify the virtual environments without interfering with others who share CRON. (iii) Complete environment CRON will provide all kinds of networking environments, including regional networks and global transoceanic optical networks.