Grid service-enabled optical networks: Architectures and technologies - art. no. 60221Y

A new generation of scientific applications is emerging that couples scientific instruments, data and high-end computing resources distributed in a global scale. Developed by collaborative, virtual communities, many of these applications have requirements such as determinism (guaranteed QoS), shared data spaces, large data transfers, that are often achievable only through dedicated optical bandwidth.

High capacity optical networking can satisfy bandwidth and latency requirements, but software tools and frameworks for end-to-end, on-demand provisioning of network services need to be developed in coordination with other resources (CPU and storage) and need to span multiple administrative and network technology domains.

In response to the above requirements, this paper will address some of the key technical challenges to enable on-demand e2e network services. The proposed network concept will make applications aware of their resources (computational and networking) environment and capabilities, and able to make dynamic, adaptive and optimized use of network infrastructures connecting various high-end resources.