| NSF Org: |
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 21, 2013 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 24, 2014 |
| Award Number: | 1340609 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Kevin Thompson
kthompso@nsf.gov (703)292-4220 OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2013 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $499,890.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $530,499.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2014 = $30,609.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2601 WOLF VILLAGE WAY RALEIGH NC US 27695-0001 (919)515-2444 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
2701 Sullivan Drive, Suite 240 Raleigh NC US 27607-7514 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
CFS-Combustion & Fire Systems, Campus Cyberinfrastructure |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
North Carolina State University is deploying a next generation extensible network architecture in support of faculty, staff and students across multiple disciplines, enabled by an NSF CC-NIE networking infrastructure enhancement grant. This architecture introduces new equipment and processes at strategic points in the campus network, and provides a versatile infrastructure in support of e-Science, computing-in-X, and networking research. It also leverages agile techniques like Software Defined Networking (SDN) to meet current and future needs of the campus community, while minimizing capex and opex.
The new architecture eliminates bottlenecks, significantly increasing access layer bandwidth in a few strategic locations, to support big data and advanced analytics. This provides immediate benefit to researchers across diverse disciplines who are generating, processing and sharing more data than ever before.
The project leverages SDN techniques not only in support of networking research, but also for the construction of a dynamic "Virtualized Science DMZ" to provide enhanced network connectivity to the campus research community. This provides an optimized, easily adopted path for researchers to exchange data on- and off-campus.
This project starts North Carolina State University on a roadmap that allows the institution to extend these agile and high-bandwidth services progressively to a larger variety of campus researchers as data transfer needs grow and evolve. In the future, by extending SDN capabilities in partnership with the North Carolina Research and Education Network, the institution will provide SDN capable bandwidth available to other regional universities and the Internet2 Advanced Layer 2 Research Network, ultimately improving the ability to conduct leading edge research.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Through the CC-NIE grant provided by the National Science Foundation, NC State University has deployed a next-generation campus network across multiple research buildings. The new network has eliminated bandwidth bottlenecks that previously hindered the success of researchers across many different disciplines. The award made it possible to replace 10/100 Mb/s ports in research facilities with 10/100/1000 Mb/s ports. In addition, 10 Gb/s access layer ports were provided in critical locations for research use as needed. The circuits between upgraded research buildings and the campus backbone were also upgraded to 10 Gb/s.
In addition to enhancing bandwidth available to researchers, we were able to deploy a virtual science DMZ by leveraging software to virtually stitch circuits between research buildings across our existing MPLS backbone. The virtual science DMZ concept delivered an extremely cost effective “friction free” path to researchers permitting the rapid exchange of data enhancing their ability to conduct research. As a specific example, this topology permitted islands of SDN gear in different buildings to be connected to one another to permit researchers to conduct distributed experiments in software defined networking.
The grant also enabled us to connect our campus network to a regional SDN network currently being developed as part of a separate project with the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN). By providing a mechanism that permits our virtual science DMZ to connect to the regional SDN environment currently in development, researchers at NCSU will be able to exchange data with regional peers and will eventually be able to connect to other institutions that are part of the Internet2 Advanced Layer 2 Service (I2 AL2S). By utilizing the functionality provided by the new network infrastructure, we are in the process of establishing a BGP peering relationship between NCSU and the MCNC data center over the campus virtual science DMZ and the regional SDN network to permit the exchange of research data.
The award has provided enhanced connectivity to over 80 domain scientists (and their associated research assistants) across the College of Engineering, College of Sciences and College of Veterinary Medicine. These scientists are all involved in multiple research projects across a variety of domains including computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, physics, bioinformatics, chemical engineering, biomolecular engineering, materials science and engineering, and veterinary medicine.
Last Modified: 11/29/2016
Modified by: William Brockelsby
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