Boulder Research and Administration Network

(BRAN), Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP), Bi-

State Optical Network (BiSON)

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Marla Meehl

UCAR/FRGP/BiSON ManagerUCAR/NCAR2014-04-29

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Colorado Network History• NSFnet national R&E network

• Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)• Operated mid-1980s to 1995• Encouraged creation of regional networks to aggregate

• Westnet (Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah)

• Still operates as an affinity group• Meets bi-annually managed by Marla

• Operated and managed by Colorado State University and the University of Colorado

• 56Kbps, T1, to T3

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Colorado Network History – Cont’d

• Very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) funded by the NSF to connect the supercomputer centers including NCAR• OC-3 (155Mbps) to OC-12 (622Mbps)• Left out universities and other entities

• Internet2 formed and created the Abilene Network – 1999• Formed by 34 member universities• Still in operation with a 100Gbps backbone• Own fiber for expansion

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Colorado Network History – Cont’d• National LambdaRail (NLR), Inc.

• Founded in 2003 and operational in 2004• 14 members formed including the FRGP• Owned 12,000 mile national Level3 fiber optic

footprint• In November 2011 the control of NLR was

purchased from its university membership by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong for $100M

• His intention to upgrade NLR infrastructure and repurpose portions of it to support an ambitious healthcare project

• The upgrade never took place. NLR ceased operations in March 2014

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Boulder Research and Administration Network (BRAN) –

January 2000• http://www.branfiber.net/• The City of Boulder (the City), the University of

Colorado at Boulder (CU), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and the Department of Commerce Laboratories (DOC) share an important fiber optic network that interconnects the participating organizations

• BRAN provides a significant, local, next-generation, fiber optic infrastructure that gives the partners a competitive advantage in research, higher education, and administrative functions. The network links greatly improve the ability of each of the partner organizations to conduct their business, as well as enhance their ability to serve the public.

• The fiber network is over 11 miles in length. The cable path extends generally along a north-south corridor within the City, and the route of the network links the partners' many facilities to capitalize on the network infrastructure already in place, to utilize rights-of-way, and to transect properties that the partners control.

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What is the FRGP?• For over 14 years, the FRGP has

advanced the research and educational goals of government, nonprofit, and educational participants in the region by establishing and maintaining a unique multi-state network infrastructure that is owned and controlled by the FRGP participant research and education community.

• Starting new 5-year agreement cycle 7/1/14

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What is the FRGP – Cont’d• The FRGP is a consortium of Universities,

non-profit corporations, government agencies, colleges, K-12s, non-profit corporations, and non-profit health care entities who cooperate as part of a Regional Optical Network (RON) in order to share wide area networking services including the commodity Internet, Internet2, intra-FRGP, caching, and peering connectivity.

• UCAR provides the management, engineering, and network operations center support for the FRGP.

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FRGP Benefits• FRGP participants typically enjoy

reduced costs, shared expertise, shared services, increased buying power, and economies of scale.

• Aggregated and direct intra-participant network access– This includes access to all participants, secondary

connections behind primary FRGP participants• Direct peering connections including

Comcast, Google, CoreSite Any2, and the Energy Sciences network (ESnet).

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FRGP Benefits• Access to multiple commodity Internet service

providers at 10Gbps offering resiliency and diversity– TeliaSonera and Level3

• Traffic aggregation and FRGP membership in The Quilt, Inc. provide cost savings for commodity Internet services

• The FRGP also participates in the commercial network peering program known as TransitRail (TR)/Commercial Peering Service (CPS) managed by Internet2– Designed to improve network performance through

peering relationships with commercial networks to help participants reduce the overall cost of, and reliance on, commodity Internet transit services.

– Carries 30-50% of FRGP traffic

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FRGP Benefits• Provides caching services as part of the

Akamai and Netflix (carrying ~7Gbps)• Provides connectivity to the Internet2

network– Either directly for Internet2 members or qualifying

community anchor institution via the US UCAN program (formerly known as SEGP)

– 50Gbps to Chicago– 10Gbps to Salt Lake City– 10Gbps to Los Angeles (soon to be 100G)– Seattle soon to be 100G

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FRGP Traffic• FRGP Traffic (excludes caching and

intra-FRGP)– ~14% commercial IP transit (Level3 and TSIC)– ~60% peering (ESnet, Google, TR/CPS, Any2)– ~26% Internet2

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FRGP Benefits• Has supported a doubling in traffic

growth every 2-3 years since inception• Currently serves approximately one

million users whose organizations participate in our research and education community in Colorado and Wyoming

• Multiple locations to terminate circuits for redundancy

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Western Regional Network (WRN)

• The Western Regional Network is a multi-state partnership to provide advanced, robust high-speed networking for research, education, and related uses. WRN is a collaboration of the Pacific Northwest GigaPoP (PNWGP) in Washington, the Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP) in Colorado, the University of New Mexico on behalf of the State of New Mexico, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), and the University of Hawaii.

• Share Internet2, intra-WRN, and commodity Internet

Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON)

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• The Bi-State Optical Network, or BiSON, is a collaboration of research and educational institutions in Colorado and Wyoming that utilize fiber optic links for high-speed optical networking

• BiSON participants receive robust, redundant access to regional and Wide Area Network (WAN) services.