ESnet turns to high-speed optical MANs

GERMANTOWN, MD. - The Energy Sciences Network is adding 10G Ethernet metropolitan-area networks in key U.S. cities in a move that could increase commercial development of this emerging technology.

ESnet is one of the fastest IP networks in the world and ranks with the university community's Internet2 and the U.S. Defense Department's Research and Engineering Network as a leader of network technology.

Run by the U.S. Department of Energy, ESnet supports thousands of government, industry and university scientists who conduct experiments in areas such as high-energy physics, human genomics and climate modeling. Scientists use ESnet to transmit massive data files, access remote computing and data resources, and collaborate in real time.

"ESnet is the most advanced civilian network that we support," says Jim Payne, senior vice president and general manager of Qwest Government Services Division, which provides ESnet's nationwide backbone, as well as its first MAN. "We're always testing the next-generation technology with them."

ESnet is a nationwide IP backbone linking the Department of Energy's headquarters in Germantown with more than 40 sites, including Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee, Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago, Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

Qwest has provided ESnet backbone services since 1999, when it won an eight-year contract worth an estimated $87.5 million. ESnet's ring-shaped backbone network operates at 10G bit/sec in northern states and 2.5G bit/sec in southern states.

Starting in the San Francisco area, ESnet is adding a fully managed MAN with dual 10G bit/sec Ethernet rings. By 2008, the San Francisco MAN is expected to support more than 100G bit/sec as lambdas are added.

Qwest is building the San Francisco MAN under a five-year, $4.4 million contract awarded in March. This MAN, which will link six sites in the region, is scheduled to be operational by September.

"The system that we're putting in place is a fully wavelength-provisionable network ring that we can add capacity to," says Wes Kaplow, CTO for Qwest Government Services Division. "They're starting with a ring structure with 20G bit/sec, but they have options to go up to 40 or 80G bit/sec. We expect that like the rest of the network this MAN will grow."

The Energy Department plans to build similar MANs in Chicago and New York later this year. Department of Energy labs in Virginia and New Mexico are hooking into optical MANs being built by nearby universities.

The high-speed MANs will replace a hub-and-spoke-style design used to provide access to the backbone network. ESnet used conventional circuits ranging from 622M to 2.5G bit/sec for the local links to the backbone. Now ESnet is replacing these circuits with lambdas that can be provisioned on dark fiber MANs.

The Department of Energy's goal is to provide greater bandwidth from its regional sites to the core of its network, as well as to improve redundancy by offering multiple paths from the sites to the ESnet backbone.