StarLight users include a global scientific community25 conducting advanced networking,
database, visualization and computing research using IP-over-lambda networks. StarLight also
supports experimental protocol and middleware research of high-performance application
provisioning of lightpaths over optical networks. StarLight has fiber and circuits from many
vendors (including AboveNet, Global Crossing, Level 3, Looking Glass, Qwest, RCN, Sunesys
and AT&T)26. Regional optical networks, including the State of Illinois-funded optical network
initiative I-WIRE, Fermi's Lightpath, Indiana's I-Light, Louisiana's LONI, Michigan's MiLR,
and Southern LightRail, as well as the NSF-funded TeraGrid27 also connect28.
StarLight is also a GLIF Open Lightpath Exchange (GOLE)29. GOLEs, operated by GLIF
participants, are comprised of equipment that is capable of terminating lambdas and performing
lightpath switching. This way, different lambdas can be connected together, and end-to-end
lightpaths established over them. Normally GOLEs must interconnect at least two autonomous
optical domains in order to be designated as such.
Acknowledgment:
StarLight continues to be developed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the
University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the International Center for Advanced Internet Research
(iCAIR) at Northwestern University, and the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at
Argonne National Laboratory, in partnership with Canada's CANARIE and the Netherlands'
SURFnet.
NSF funding to Tom DeFanti (PI) and Maxine Brown (co-PI) established STAR TAP (NSF ANI-
9712283, Apr 1997-Mar 2000) and StarLight (NSF SCI-9980480, May 2000-April 2005, and
OCI-0229642, Oct 2002-Sept 2006).
25
http://www.startap.net/starlight/NETWORKS/
26
http://www.startap.net/starlight/CONNECT/connectCarrierInfo.html
27
http://www.teragrid.org/
28
http://www.startap.net/starlight/NETWORKS/
29
http://www.glif.is/resources/starlight-topology.jpg
108