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Calient Networks' DiamondWave Photonic Switches Now Deployed in UltraLight National Research Network

Posted on: Monday, 24 January 2005, 09:00 CST

New Grid Network Operated by Caltech, 11 Other Us Research Universities, Sets Direction for Ip/Optical Networks to Come

Calient Networks announced today that its DiamondWave(R) photonic switching and GMPLS network control systems have been deployed in the UltraLight 10 Gigabit Grid network (http://ultralight.caltech.edu). The network is operated by a consortium of US universities, with multiple nodes in California, Illinois, Michigan and Massachusetts, and interfaces to other research and education networks worldwide.

The UltraLight Grid network will use Calient DiamondWave switching systems and Calient GMPLS controllers to enhance and extend the Cisco Systems ONS 15454 and 15540 multiservice provisioning platforms to support massive, globally distributed datasets, petaflops of distributed computing and storage, and collaborative data analysis across the US, Europe, Asia and South America.

Ultralight is based on a hybrid network infrastructure, including dynamic construction of end-to-end optical paths used in parallel with traditional switched and routed networks. Multi-Terabyte transfers throughout UltraLight will use the advanced monitoring and management facilities developed at Caltech, based on the MonALISA global Grid and network monitoring system (http://monalisa.caltech.edu). MonALISA provides the consistent high level of performance, feedback and control needed by the experiments, with transport speeds approaching 10 Gbps. This new capability will be used to create prototype computing infrastructures for the leading physics experiments at the frontier of high energies, including CMS and ATLAS which are part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) program at CERN, broadening their existing global Grid computing systems by promoting the network to an actively managed component.

UltraLight will support the strategic planning and execution of Terabyte-scale "data transactions" between sites that complete in minutes rather than hours, significantly improving the responsiveness of the distributed computing infrastructure, and enabling optimized resource sharing to accommodate hundreds of tasks with a wide range of priorities and data access patterns. Radio astronomers will also use the new UltraLight capabilities for distributed real-time correlation and processing of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data using global Grid-based computing facilities.

"Calient has provided invaluable assistance to UltraLight in the areas of advanced optical switching and our work on end-to-end managed services, which requires automated provisioning and network management integrated with Grid middleware and data intensive science applications," stated Harvey Newman, UltraLight Principal Investigator and Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. "Because of the company's extensive work on interoperability, inter-network signaling protocols and remote reconfigurability, Calient was the best choice for our globally-scalable research network."

UltraLight uses Calient's DiamondWave systems together with Caltech's MonALISA system to dynamically switch, manage congestion and provide restoration protection for 10 Gbps links between its own points of presence in the US, along with a growing community of international partners, including CERN in Switzerland, UKLight, Netherlight in Amsterdam, KEK in Japan, TANet in Taiwan, UERJ (Rio de Janeiro) and USP (Sao Paulo) in Brazil, and KNU in Korea.

"Calient is very gratified to be chosen to support this important IP/optical program," stated Calient CEO Charles Corbalis. "Our goals and capabilities are very well-aligned with those of UltraLight and other participants such as Cisco Systems. The results of our joint efforts should have very productive outcomes for R&D as well as for follow-on commercial network environments."

About Calient Networks, Inc.

Calient Networks is a leading provider of intelligent, carrier-class photonic switching systems and software that help service providers scale their networks for expanding bandwidth demands and deliver new wavelength services. Calient's DiamondWave switching system and GMPLS-powered networking innovations provide a seamless, 'opto-electronic-to-photonic' migration path that is non-disruptive to legacy operations, highly cost-effective, and an enabler to revenue-generating optical services. Calient is shipping its DiamondWave PXC systems and PX switching subsystems to production networks, labs and OEMs worldwide. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. Additional engineering and manufacturing operations are located in Santa Barbara, Calif., while MEMS design and fabrication operations are located in Ithaca, N.Y. For additional information about Calient, visit http://www.calient.net.

Calient, Calient Networks, the Calient Networks logo, DiamondWave, the DiamondWave logo and "Where Innovation Comes to Light" are registered trademarks of Calient Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other marks used in this press release are the property of their respective owners.

Source: Business Wire

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