Table of Contents
Network for Innovation and Research (NeIF)
Use-Cases
- Point-to-Point: in the standard use-case NeIF-links are used to build a layer-1 point-to-point connection between two participants. The Belwü muxponders, residing at each university in Baden-Württemberg are used as entry and exit points. Such direct links can be used to connect institutes of a university to perform specific experiments or to connect the university's datacenter to optimize user experience by increasing bandwidth for certain services.
- Latency-Loop: since researchers asked about methods for creating high latency in an experimental environment the network operating group presented a concept of multiple, serial connected NeIF-links. In December 2015 three links between the participating universities were connected to each other to get a ring-like layer-1 connection. Sending packets from Ulm via Karlsruhe to Tübingen and onwards to Ulm (total distance of 534 km according to1)) we achieved a round-trip-time (RTT) of about 6 milliseconds. With the current setup we can have up to four of these loops in parallel. When connecting them serially it's possible to create a layer-1 connection of about 2136 kilometers distance resulting in a 24 ms RTT. We plan to maximize that construct in the futures by spanning the loop all across Baden-Württemberg including the universities in Heidelberg, Freibug and Konstanz. That would result in a distance of about 1400 kilometers per loop, achieving a total distance of over 7000 kilometers when connecting the maximum of five loops in serial.
Current Links
The following table shows the current configuration of NeIF-Links:
Port#01 | Port#02 | Port#03 | Port#04 | Port#05 | Port#06 | Port#07 | Port#08 | Port#09 | Port#10 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Karlsruhe | TU#03 | UL#02 | – | TU#02 | UL#04 | UL#09 | UL#10 | TU#09 | TU#10 | – |
Tübingen | UL#01 | KA#04 | KA#01 | – | UL#05 | Campus | UL#08 | UL#07 | KA#08 | KA#09 |
Ulm | TU#01 | KA#02 | – | KA#05 | TU#05 | – | TU#08 | TU#07 | KA#06 | KA#07 |
The following graphic also depicts the configuration: