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Appendix 11: Canadian Research Networks

Submitted by Randy Sobie(rsobie@uvic.ca), Bill St.Arnaud

January 2008

This report describes the status and plans of the Canadian research network ­ the CANARIE

network. The projects utilizing the high-speed network are listed.  A number of projects

exploiting network usage are described.

CANARIE Network:

The CANARIE network is Canada's national research and education network infrastructure,

designed and operated by CANARIE through funding provided by the Government of Canada.

The CANARIE Network is a flexible and scaleable network infrastructure upon which a wide

variety of users can custom-build independent networks, according to their application needs and

organizational constraints.

To support the widest range of research and application innovation over networks, and to support

network research, the CANARIE network infrastructure is made up of "low-layer building

blocks" (to be exact, layer 1, as defined in the ISO Open Systems Interconnection reference

model). The "low-layer building blocks" permits resource sharing at the lowest layers, thus

permitting the sustained operation of many independent higher-layer networks, each using the

switching methods (circuit or packet) and associated protocols, and in topological configurations,

which best meet users' and future users' varying requirements. This is one of the key architectural

principles on which the network has been designed.

Optical infrastructure:

The CANARIE optical network infrastructure is hybrid. Individual CANARIE Network links are

built over a mixture of CANARIE-lit wavelengths, and carrier-leased wavelengths. All

wavelengths are unprotected, point-to-point wavelengths operating at 10 Gbps.

Wavelengths are added to the CANARIE Network incrementally, based on current and medium-

term projections for demand.

As with all networks, the design objective is to eventually

construct a network with a topology consisting of a set of rings, which can be daisy-chained from

west to east in order to support network research which might require a ring topology or diversely

routed point-to-point links, as is the case for the CANARIE IP network (discussed in the

CANARIE IP network services section).

CANARIE-lit wavelengths:

CANARIE-lit wavelengths are possible because in 2005 and 2006 CANARIE undertook in-house

projects under which dark fiber was purchased and lit with CANARIE-owned and operated

ROADM (reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer) equipment. ROADM is the latest in

dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology, enabling remote software

reconfiguration of wavelength routing and permitting low-cost operations as compared to earlier

DWDM technologies. ). The ROADM hardware supports up to 72 x 10 Gbps wavelengths,

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