1. The Future of NRENs
Bill St. Arnaud
Bill.st.arnaud@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted all material in this slide deck may be
reproduced, modified or distributed without prior permission of the author

2. Looking Back
• Internet started with R&E networks world wide
– SURFnet was one of the first in Europe to deploy Internet
• Most popular Internet applications like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc
started at universities connected to high speed networks like SURFnet
• SURFnet started AMS-IX which has made The Netherlands global hub for
Internet traffic
• SURFnet pioneered the concept of customer owned dark fiber
– Led to significantly lower costs for broadband and made The Netherlands
world leader in consumer broadband
• SURFnet led world optical networks which has transformed Internet
• R&E networks have enabled a trillion dollar industry, approximately 6% of
GNP
2

3. NRENs will play an even more
important role looking forward
• Technologies developed at SURFnet today may have bigger
impact on Dutch society then Internet had in the past
• Green networking
• Big Data
• Global Collaboration
• Next generation Internet of integrated optical and wireless
networks
3

4. Changing NREN
networking environment
• Global Virtual Research Communities
• Increasing co-operation between public and private
researchers
• Rapidly changing users demands
• Increasing potential of commercial ICT-service
providers
• Education: any time, any place, any device
• Citizen Science and M2M communications and
sensors

5. The ICT energy consumption in
higher- ed
• Campus computing 20-40% electrical energy consumption on most
campuses
– Studies in UK and The Netherlands
– http://goo.gl/k9Kib
• Campus data center alone represents 8-20% of electrical consumption
– http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=1341
• IISD study demonstrated that moving Canadian research to cloud would
pay for itself in energy savings and CO2 reduction
– http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=1341
• Internet and ICT can reduce CO2 emissions by 15-20%
– No other tool has this potential

6. R&E biggest consumer!!
Per employee Per sector
Australian Computer Society Study
http://www.acs.org.au/attachments/ICFACSV4100412.pdf

7. The real cost of campus computing
• Land - 2%
• Core and shell costs – 9% Belady, C., “In the Data Center, Power and Cooling Costs
More than IT Equipment it Supports”, Electronics Cooling
• Architectural – 7% Magazine (February 2007)
• Mechanical/Electrical – 82%
– 16% increase/year since 2004
Source: Christian Belady

8. The Data Deluge
2004: 36 TB
2012: 2,300 TB
Genomic sequencing output x2 every Climate
9 month model intercomparison
project (CMIP) of the IPCC
MACHO et al.: 1 TB
Palomar: 3 TB
2MASS: 10 TB
GALEX: 30 TB
Sloan: 40 TB
Pan-STARRS:
40,000 TB
1330 molec. bio databases
Nucleic Acids Research (96 in Jan 2001) Source: Ian Foster, UoChicago

9. Growth in sensor networks and Citizen
Science
Glacier Tracking
Real Time Health Monitoring
Smart Trash
9

10. NREN Brokered Cloud for IT
departments and Researchers
• Internet 2 Net +
– Provisioning of multi vendor cloud services leveraging the Internet2
Network and InCommon Federated Authentication
– Interoperable marketplace for services where individual institutions
might procure services from a wide range of cloud services
providers.
• HEFCE and JISC to Deliver Cloud-Based Services for UK Research
– Besides providing brokered cloud services they are also providing cloud
“solutions” for IT departments and researchers
– http://www.hpcinthecloud.com/hpccloud/2011-06-27/hefce_and_jisc_to_deliver_cloud-
based_services_for_uk_research.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
• SURFnet: Community Cloud Models and the Role of the R&E network as a
broker for cloud services
– http://www.slideshare.net/haroldteunissen/community-clouds-shared-infrastructure-as-a-service

11. OpenFlow Follow the wind/Follow the sun
Canadian GSN European GSN
Domain Domain
Export VM
Notify EU
Cloud Manager
Cloud Manager Cloud Manager
Internet
Dynamically Configure
IP Tunnel
Host Network Host
Resource Manager Resource
• Shudown VM
• Copy Image • Update VM Context
Mantychore2 • Start VM
Shared
VM storage
Shared
storage VM
Lightpath
Optical switch Optical switch
Host Cloud Proxy
Cloud Proxy Host

12. Building a NREN wireless network
• Vision: to allow students, researchers and employees to
collaborate, research, learn anytime and anywhere they seem fit!
• Also Internet of Things – Machine to Machine communications
• Existing 3G and 4G networks cannot handle data load
– Roaming gateways prevent global seamless access
– Voice centric architectures
• New mobile networks seamlessly integrate with WiFi on campus
– Utrecht SURFnet 4G wireless pilot
– Already demonstrating with vetinanary students

13. GLIF
13

14. e-Research Scenario
GOLE
14
Source: SURFnet

15. Towards “research IT as a service”
Scientific data management as a service
GO-Store GO-Collaborate GO-Galaxy GO-Transfer
GO-Compute GO-Catalog GO-Team GO-User
Source: Ian Foster, UoChicago
15

16. Virtual Organisations
Collaboration Infrastructure Netherlands BioInformatics Centre (NBIC)
(SURFconext) GuestsNBI
N=6 N=10 N=30 C
Attri N=20 Gro
grou provisioni b. N=66
up
AAI ps ng mgm
…
t
Generic Broker Supporting Services
Network Storage Compute Instrument • SURFfederatie
Virt
Broker Broker Broker Broker
• SURFteamsual
Comput Instrum • OpenSocial
Network Storage
e ent IdP
Services Services
Services Services
Experiment
Publisher
Grid res.
PubMed
My
Apps.NB
IC.nl
Source: SURFnet

17. Left wings pointing to the future
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18. Let’s Keep The Conversation Going
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