Network for Innovation and Research (NeIF)

1. 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.
2. 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.

The following table shows the current configuration of NeIF-Links:

The following graphic also depicts the configuration: