Page1    Page32                                                                        Page34  Page177

Appendix 5. US LHCnet

Submitted by Dan Nae(dan.nae@cern.ch) and

HarveyNewman(Harvey.Newman@cern.ch)

January 2008

Introduction:

The US LHCNet transatlantic network has evolved from DOE-funded support and management

of international networking between the US and CERN dating back to 1985, as well as a US-

DESY network in the early 1980's. US LHCNet today consists of a set of 10 Gbps links

interconnecting CERN, MANLAN3 in New York Starlight4 in Chicago and SARA in

Amsterdam. The network has been architected to ensure efficient and reliable use of the 10 Gbps

bandwidth of each link, up to relatively high occupancy levels, to cover a wide variety of network

tasks, including: large file transfers, grid applications, data analysis sessions involving client-

server software as well as simple remote login, network and grid R&D-related traffic,

videoconferencing, and general Internet connectivity.

Caltech shares with CERN the responsibility for the implementation, operation and management

of the US-CERN network, as well as the peering with ESnet and the major US academic network

backbones (in particular Abilene and more recently National Lambda Rail). Funding for the

network bandwidth, the routing and switching equipment and other infrastructure required for

network operation, is shared by Caltech (under a DOE/HEP grant) and CERN.

US LHCNet Status and Future plans:

The Caltech engineering team operates and manages, in collaboration with CERN, a high

performance transatlantic network infrastructure to meet the HEP community's needs. This

facility is developed as needed to address HEP's rapidly advancing requirements, while taking

advantage of the equally-rapid evolution of (and occasional revolutions in) network technologies,

in order to provide the most cost-effective solutions with adequate performance, year-by-year.

The operation, management and development of the current network service and its ongoing

development builds on more than a decade of leadership by the joint Caltech-CERN team in

transatlantic networking.

The US LHCNet backbone today includes three distinct OC-192 transatlantic circuits on three

separate transatlantic cables (Geneva-New York, Geneva-Chicago and Amsterdam-Chicago) and

another three continental OC-192 circuits (two New York-Chicago circuits and one Amsterdam-

Geneva circuit). The network design follows the hierarchical model for LHC Computing

developed at Caltech and provides connectivity and backup between CERN (the data generating

point or Tier0 site) and the two US Tier1s - BNL for Atlas and FNAL for CMS.

A new point of presence in Amsterdam was installed in February 2007 in the SARA colocation

facilities in Amsterdam. Deploying a new Point-of-Presence in Amsterdam enabled us to take

advantage of the GEANT2 infrastructure between Geneva (GVA) and Amsterdam (AMS).

Furthermore, Amsterdam is a strategic place where interconnections to other transatlantic

3

The MANLAN exchange point is designed to facilitate peering among US and international research and

education networks in New-York. See http://networks.internet2.edu/manlan/

4

StarLight is an international peering point for research and education networks in Chicago. See

http://www.startap.net/starlight

33