NorthernLight is a high-performance network facility, built to provide end-to-end network services to demanding users, to serve as a testbed for development of new networks and services, and to allow the Nordic research community to participate in international lambda networking activities.

The name "lambda networking" derives from the ideas of using different wavelengths (colours) of light on optical fibres, creating multiple channels on a single fibre pair. The vision is that international research groups, projects, or activities can be provided their own worldwide wavelength or "light path", enabling researchers to build dedicated, application-specific networks with large capacities. We call these networks Optical Private Networks (OPN).

Traditionally, the networking needs of science have been met using best-effort IP networks. However, some demanding applications in areas such as high energy physics, astronomy, etc., have bandwidth and in particular quality of service (i.e., guarantees for available bandwidth and minimal latency) requirements that some believe will not be cost effective on a shared, best-effort IP network.

A lambda facility essentially exposes the lowest layer of network infrastructure, allowing for basic point-to-point transport of data, with full user control, but without the intelligence of IP networks. Such a facility is a supplement to the existing IP infrastructure, allowing for experimentation with new approaches to research networking.

In order to meet the demanding future requirements, and in order to develop and understand future network architectures, the international research network community is building new, experimental networks. NorthernLight is one such effort, and is part of the worldwide GLIF collaboration. The aim of these efforts is to develop worldwide, optical networking, and to make available to demanding users high capacity, dedicated, end-to-end network infrastructure.

In NorthernLight, our focus is on developing a facility that enables researchers to have high performance network infrastructure at their disposal and that can serve as a testbed for experiments with network architecture.

NorthernLight provides a lambda networking facility connecting Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam.

At the current state of technology, pure optical networking and the provisioning of wavelengths to individual users is not practical. Instead, end-to-end circuits are provisioned on top of and infrastructure built from traditional SDH links and switches.

NorthernLight is built to provide dedicated, on-demand, end-to-end gigabit Ethernet circuits. Using such circuits, research communities can build application-specific networks. Since the circuits are end-to-end and not shared, users have full control of available bandwidth and guaranteed connectivity and latency.

NorthernLight is a stand-alone facility, enabling NORDUnet to provide researchers with on-demand capacity and application- or activity-specific network resources.

NorthernLight is not part of the NORDUnet production IP network and networks created on NorthernLight are fully dedicated to the community they serve; such network can be used either as a separate network or as part of a larger setup with connections to production IP networks.

The current NorthernLight network is built as a star topology network, with centre in Stockholm, and links to Copenhagen, Oslo, and Helsinki. From these four POPs, national research network resources can be used to extend the network to users at university campuses and research institutions. A link between Stockholm and Amsterdam connects NorthernLight to similar efforts in Europe and North America.

The network is built using Cisco ONS 15454 muxes, one in each POP, and STM-16 (2.5 Gbps) links from the Stockholm to Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Amsterdam. NorthernLigth is currently not resilient; there's only a single link between each pair of cities, and only a single mux in each city.

Each ONS 15454 is equipped with a number of gigabit Ethernet (GE) ports, and the equipment is set up to allow GE channels to be created between any two nodes on the network. This allows dedicated GE end-to-end circuits to be created linking sites in the Nordic area, and through international collaboration linking Nordic sites to sites all over the world. With the existing capacity, two simultaneous GE end-to-end circuits can be accommodated from Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Helsinki.

The facility is up and running and available for demanding users.

An example of an experimental, application-specific network built on top of the NorthernLight facility is the Nordic testbed for the MUPBED project. Here, a group researching new, advanced network technology is provided private gigabit ethernet connectivity between facilities in Copenhagen and Stockholm, as well as connectivity to other European partners.

An Example of a planned Optical Private Network is the network for the DEISA project. Here, a number of supercomputing centres across Europe will be linked with dedicated capacity, enabling a shared, pan-European file system as well as job migration and ressource sharing. A similar example is the Optical Private Network planned for the Large Hadron Collider experiment at CERN. Here, a high-capacity OPN will be used to distribute large volumes of research data to research and computing centres worldwide.

A past example of use of NorthernLight was the the Nordic part 6NET, a European IPv6 testbed. Here, a dedicated, experimental network was built to allow experiements, development, and research into the next generation of IP - IPv6. As part of this effort, NorthernLight was used to link Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, and Copenhagen with gigabit Ethernet links.

Lambda networking is an area with intensive activity. It is expected that the bandwidth will grow, both in terms of the bandwidth of the channels that can be provided to researchers and in terms of the number of simultaneous channels that can be accommodated.

The time and effort required to set up individual channels is substantial at the moment, and all changes to the setup must be done by NORDUnet staff. The international lambda networking community is currently working hard to develop tools for managing lambda networks in an automated fashion, with a degree of control. NORDUnet is following this work closely.

Another future development will be the switch from lambda facilities built on top of existing SDH networks to facilities built directly on fibre infrastructures, enabling true wavelength channels to be provided.

At NORDUnet, we are taking these developments into consideration as we plan the future development of the network. We expect the next generation of NORDUnet to be built directly on fibre infrastructure using DWDM technology, and we expect to provide a lambda networking facility (offering both 1 gigabit Ethernet and 10 gigabit Ethernet) on top of this. Furthermore, the lambda services on the next generation NORDUnet will interconnect to similar services on GÉANT, offering researchers the possibility of dedicated, high-capacity links to research partners throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

All this does of course not mean that the existing IP service to the research community will no longer be needed. There will be a strong need for general IP connectivity in the future, and NORDUnet will continue to develop and improve services in this area.

If you are interested in NortherLight or would like to make use of the facility, please contact Lars Fischer at NORDUnet.