The UK e-Science ESLEA (Exploitation of Switched Lightpaths for eScience Applications) project is a two-year EPSRC-funded project and collaboration among six leading UK research centers and two industrial partners (Cisco Systems and Boston Ltd).
The project has a remit to demonstrate the potential of circuit-switched optical networking to the UK e-Science community by running “proof of benefit” pilot applications in several data-intensive fields of academic endeavor, including particle physics, high-performance computing, radio astronomy and e-health.
The pilot applications demonstrated the feasibility and benefits of transferring data across the UKLight circuit-switched network. UKLight is an optical R&D network managed through UKERNA as a complement to the SuperJanet production network. It comprises a 10Gbps backbone to selected points in the UK and connects to global optical networks via 10Gbps links to Chicago (via StarLight) and Amsterdam (NetherLight).
Network protocol research and development of control mechanisms and interfaces by ESLEA have helped the pilot applications to exploit the UKLight network effectively.
ESLEA’s “SPICE: Simulated Pore Interactive Computing Experiment” demonstration at SC|05 won the HPC Analytics Challenge Award. Participants included University College London, University of Manchester, University of Edinburgh, Tufts University, TeraGrid, Nottingham University, NCSA/TeraGrid, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Argonne National Laboratory, and CCLRC Daresbury. http://sc05.supercomputing.org/news/press_releases_11172005.php
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Collaborators:
UK:
Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), UK Office of Science and Technology
Lancaster University
National e-Science Centre, Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
University College London
University of Manchester
Oxford University
USA:
Tufts University
National Center for Supercomputing Applications/TeraGrid
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Argonne National Laboratory
StarLight
