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Transatlantic 10GE Technology Demo’ed

November 17, 2003 Transatlantic 10-Gigabit Ethernet Technology Demonstrated CANARIE and SURFnet in partnership with Carleton University and CERN have succeeded in creating the first transatlantic connection using native 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology. Spanning more than 10,000 kilometers and two continents, recent tests have validated the viability of 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology running over long-haul networking infrastructure. Demonstrated during the recent ITU Telecom World 2003 exhibition, the first transatlantic native 10 Gigabit Ethernet marks the emergence of Ethernet into the traditional world of telecommunications. At 10 Gigabits per second, the point to point lightpath is 100 to 1,000 times faster than everyday networks used to interconnect computers in businesses, schools and homes. This opens the possibility of directly connecting scientists and researchers with remote instruments, data and computational resources an ocean away in unprecedented ways. The network consists of a SURFnet optical circuit between CERN and the StarLight facility in Chicago via Amsterdam and another optical circuit between StarLight and Carleton University in Ottawa provided by CANARIE and ORANO. The assembly of these circuits forms an end-to-end lightpath, a point-to-point optical link, between CERN and Carleton University. 10 Gigabit Ethernet devices were directly attached at the two end points of the lightpath to create the first inter-continental native 10 Gigabit Ethernet connection, effectively extending the span of an Ethernet network across countries and continents. Gerald Oakham, professor of physics at Carleton University commented, “This demonstration of an operating 10 GbE lightpath between CERN and Carleton University is an important step in establishing the technology for global Grid computing. Future experiments in particle physics such as ATLAS, with its demand for global computing and high data transfer rates will be a direct beneficiary of these efforts.” “The data rates for the ATLAS experiment will be unprecedented in the natural sciences with the collaboration spread around the globe,” noted Dr. Patricia Kalyniak, chair of the Department of Physics at Carleton University. “Transfer of the data, about 1 Petabyte annually, equivalent to nearly 1.5 million data CDs, to all participants would not be viable without pushing the frontier of networking technology.” Copyright 2002-2003 GRIDtoday. Redistribution of this article is forbidden by law without the express written consent of the publisher. For a subscription to GRIDtoday, send e-mail to gridfree @ gridtoday.com