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Appendix 29. SPRACE-ANSP Network Update

http://hep.ift.unesp.br/SPRACE/

Submitted by R. L. Iope (rliope@usp.br) and J. M. de Almeida (jrgmrcs@ansp.br)

on behalf of the SPRACE Collaboration

"Last updated January 2007"

Introduction:

Since it was first commissioned in 2004, the SPRACE Tier2 cluster that is part of the worldwide

CMS Grid has made remarkable progress in its networking connectivity over the last three years.

This has been possible through the efforts of the Academic Network at São Paulo (ANSP), and

the Brazil's National Research and Education Network (RNP), and the support of ICFA SCIC

members, Caltech, Florida International University, and Fermilab. Starting in 2004 when there

was a single main server connected at 100 Mbps to a small Layer 2 access switch at University of

São Paulo (USP), the SPRACE cluster has grown to full Tier2-scale with 240 processors and one

data server housing 14 Terabytes of RAID and 6 Terabytes of distributed storage. All of the

production and R&D data servers are integrated through a full Layer 3 switch and connected to

two dedicated 1 Gbps wavelengths right at the heart of the São Paulo state R&E network

provider. During these years SPRACE has achieved some important goals and has benefited from

the recent investments in networking made by ANSP.

The Academic Network at São Paulo was created in 1989 as a special program of FAPESP, the

São Paulo State Research Foundation. ANSP was the first NAP in Brazil, a neutral and secure

environment where São Paulo state universities and research centers, Internet access providers

and local Telecom companies started exchanging traffic, storing data and keeping secure

information, among other functional features. The ANSP Network's NAP worked on the third

floor of FAPESP's building until 2002, sharing the same space with the Foundation's data center.

In 2002, it was transferred to the Terremark data center, the NAP of Brazil in Barueri, a small city

in the São Paulo metropolitan area.

ANSP now leads the provisioning of advanced Internet to São Paulo state public and private

universities, government and research institutes. ANSP is in a constant process of updating end-

to-end connections across its network backbone, being co-responsible for the WHREN-LILA

initiative, the single most important international link for research and education in Brazil.

The NAP of Brazil has emerged from an agreement between FAPESP and Terremark Latin

America Ltda., a subsidiary of Terremark Worldwide, Inc, responsible for the NAP of the

Americas [1] operation. NAP of the Americas houses AMPATH, a virtual network maintained by

Florida International University in collaboration with Global Crossing, and connects researchers

from several Universities and research Institutes of South and Central America, Mexico and the

Caribbean. AMPATH is the Latin America access gateway to Internet2 and other international

advanced research and education networks.

The agreement, established in 2002, transferred to Terremark the task of operating, maintaining

and marketing the Network Access Point operated so far by ANSP. Prior to the partnership with

Terremark, FAPESP was solely responsible for the operation and management of the entire

peering point. Nowadays, Terremark operates the peering and houses ANSP core routers,

whereas ANSP is responsible for network configuration and project planning for expansion and

improvements on the São Paulo academic network.

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