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The Quilt

Wendy Huntoon

Executive Director, The Quilt

I2 Members Meeting

May 8, 2002

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Outline

• What is the Quilt?

• Overview of Current Projects– Commodity Internet Service– Measurement– Other Projects

• Future Plans

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What is The Quilt ?

• Collaboration of 19 leading advanced regional networking organizations in the U.S.

• Aim is to promote consistent, reliable, interoperable and efficient advanced networking services that extends to the broadest possible community

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Goals

• Assist participants in providing a broad range of networking services to constituents

• Facilitate innovative and successful technical projects

• Promote end-to-end continuity and delivery of advanced network services

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Organization

• Organized under UCAID• Independent project within UCAID, parallel to I2 and

Abilene.

• Base support is provided by UCAID - all Quilt projects must be self-supporting.

• Reports up through Steve Corbato.

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Participation Requirements

• Participation in The Quilt is open to:– Non-profit network aggregators

– Committed to advancing networking services in the U.S.

– Serve 4 or more attachments to Internet2 regular members

– Other organizations invited by the Quilt Steering Committee

– Must demonstrate on-going interest, support, commitment and leadership to advanced networking activities

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Timeline

• Informal Meetings started in 2000.

• June 2001 - formally organized– Hired Exec. Director in Sept 01– Began first projects

• Oct 2001– Kick off meeting– Formation of additional projects

Current Participants• CENIC Corporation for Education Network Initiative in California• FRGP Front Range Gigapop• GPN Great Plains Network• MAX Mid-Atlantic Crossroads• Merit Merit Network, Inc.• MREN Metropolitan Research and Education Network• North Carolina Gigapop North Carolina Gigapop• NetWork Virginia NetWork Virginia• NorthernLights Northern Lights Gigapop• NoX Northern Crossroads• NYSERNet NYSERNet• OARnet OARnet• Oregon Gigapop Oregon Gigapop• PNWGP Pacific Northwest Gigapop• Pittsburgh Gigapop Pittsburgh Gigapop• SoX Southern Crossroads• Texas Gigapop Texas Gigapop• SURA Southeastern Research Universities Association

• EDUCAUSE EDUCAUSE

The Quilt Network

SOX(AL)

(AZ)

GPN(AR)

Cenic(CA)

FRGP(CO)

(CT)

(FL)

SOX(GA)

MREN(IL)

(IN)

(IA)

GPN(KS)

Texas(LA)

NoX

(MA)

Merit(MI)

GPN(MO)

Texas(MS)

GPN(NE)

Cenic(NV)

(NH)

(NJ)

(NM)

NYSERnet(NY)

NC Giga(NC)

NorthernLights(ND)

OARnet(OH)

(OK)

OREGON(OR)

PSC(PA)

SOX (SC)

NorthernLights(SD)

SOX(TN)

Texas Gigapop(TX)

(UT)

(VT)

MREN(WI)

FRGP(WY)

PNWGP(WA)

PSC(WV)

NorthernLights(MN)

Net.VirgSoX(KY)

PNWGP(MO)

PNWGP(ID)

MAX(MD)

(AK)NET.Virg (KY)

N. Lights (ND, SD, MN)

NoX(ME,NH,VT,MA,CT,RI)

NWV (VI)

NYSERnet (NY)

OARnet (OH)

OREGON (OR)

PNWGP (WA,ID,MO) PSC (PS,WV)

SOX (TN,AL,GA,SC) Texas (TX,LA,MS)

MREN (WI, IL)

GPN (NE, KS, AR, IA)

MAX (MD, VI)

Merit (MI)

FRGP (CO, WY)

Cenic (CA, NV)

NC Giga (NC)

MAXNWV(VI)

(RI)

(DE)

(HI)

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What do they have in common?

• Survey done of all the participants– Results are for 15 Gigapops

• Part of the Documentation project– Lead by NYSERnet

• Goal– Get a basic understanding of the composition,

services, goals of the participants.

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Survey Results

• 13 out of 15 provide both Commodity and Research network access.

• At least 13 are or plan to use dark fiber for some or all of their infrastructure.

• Funding for the Gigapops comes from the underlying member or user fees.

• Aggregated budgets are over $80M.

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Who they serve

Constituent Type GigaPops

K12 11

College & Universities All

Community Colleges 11

Tribal Colleges 9

Historically Black Colleges and Universities 3

Hospitals/Healthcare 10

Libraries and Museums 12

Not-for-Profit Research Labs 12

Government Agencies 12

For-Profit Corporations 6

EPSCoR States 6

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Additional Services

Services Gigapops

Multicast 14

IPv6 12

Research and Development 11

Vendor Neutral Co-location 7

Video over IP 7

Voice over IP 5

Access to 3rd Party Content 4

Centralized Data Storage 3

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What does the Quilt do?

• Identify and support projects and interest groups of common interest to the participants.– Projects are supported by staff from participating

organizations.– Exec. Director is the only employee.

• Projects reviewed on a yearly basis.– New ones added, old completed.

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Projects to date

• Main projects:– Commodity Internet Service– Regional Optical Networking– Measurement– Documentation - nearing completion

• One joint I2/Quilt Project– K20

• Interest Groups– Vendor Relations– IPv6– PBS

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Project Update

• Commodity Internet Service– Brenda Lesko, OARnet

• Measurement Project– Rick Summerhill, GPN

• Other Projects– Fiber Initiative– K20– Vendor Relations

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Commodity Internet Service

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Measurement

1919

Regional Optical Network

• Regional optical network coordination project– Phase I - lead by Ron Hutchins (SoX) and Gary Crane

(SURA)• Understand technologies and business practices associated with

implementing fiber optic network infrastructure.

• Developing best practices, facilitate meetings with vendors.

• Focused on Metropolitan, Regional and National fiber projects.• Collaborated with SURA on the SURA Optical Networking

Cookbook. (http://www.theQuilt.net/private/proj-fiber/opcook_out.html)

– Phase II - lead by Peter O’Neil (FRGP)• Focused on commonalities in the way Quilt participants are

deploying, using fiber infrastructure.

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Regional Optical Networking

• Summaries of what each group is doing with fiber infrastructure.– 15 of the 17 GigaPoP have optical networking

plans or projects.– Majority of the projects include MAN

infrastructure.– Regional fiber infrastructure, less common.

• GigaPoPs that cover wide geographic areas.

– National infrastructure - early stages.

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Regional Optical Networking -MAN

– Provides cost-effective way to support local loop infrastructure.

– Cost-recovery models exist.– Point-to-point fiber links are the most prevelant.– DWDM is beginning to appear.– Technology Issues

• PoS, GigE, 10 GigE• Interoperability

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Examples -NYSERnet

– Number of MAN fiber projects in development.– Largest project is New York City based project.

• Connect Hospitals, Universities, Muesums, etc.

• Overall footprint is small, but will connect a large group of users and researchers.

• Expect total cost to be close to that for existing local loops.

• Main issue is building entry.

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Examples - NCRENIII

• NCNI/NCREN • Implementing fiber-based optical networking

infrastructure to support both research and commodity traffic.

• Three pairs of fiber connecting six sites in the Research Triangle metro area in a ring configuration.

– Ring diameter is 100 miles.

– Services include:• Wave Division Multiplexing (dWDM), SONET, ATM, and IP• Five locations on the ring have Gigabit Ethernet connections to the

routers (Duke, MCNC, NCSU, UNC-CH, and the Raleigh POP).

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Quilt/I2 K20 Project

• Joint project between the Quilt and I2 K20 project.– Project Leads

• Myron Lowe, George Loftus (Quilt)• Louis Fox (I2)

– Currently in the formation stage.– Leverage existing K20 activities for both groups.– Focus on SEPG’s

• Resources• Cross-SEGP projects• Applications and Demonstration projects.

– 16 out of the 22 SEGP’s are affiliated with a Quilt Participant.

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Other Activities

• Vendor maintenance agreements– Lead: Marla Meehl (FRGP)

• Aggregate and leverage buying power of Quilt participants to get best value, lowest pricing and best service on vendor projects.

– Progress to date• Survey Quilt for current Cisco maintenance coverage

• Initial contact with Cisco has been made

– Currently dormant project• Will probably migrate into a Vendor Relationship project.

• Focus on support, technology as well as maintenance and products.

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Other Activities

• PBS– Lead by MaryFran Yafchak (SURA)

• Formation stage

• Expect activities to begin in the summer.

– Build upon existing relationship between Gigapops, their constituents and PBS affiliates.

• Realization that a signficant number of Quilt participants had existing relationships with PBS.

– Identify demonstration projects.

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Contact Information

WWW site: http://www.theQuilt.net/

Info@theQuilt.net

huntoon@theQuilt.net

Acknowledgement:

Annimations by Rasha El-Jaroudi