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Network backbone provides extensive research options

April 4, 2005

Electronic information doesn’t have a cape and superhero powers, so how does it travel so quickly at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign? It travels through the backbone, which is a network architecture so large and advanced that it can provide all data transfer and Internet connectivity for at least 57,000 people at a time on about 700 Local Area Networks in nearly 300 buildings. Charley Kline, Network Architect said, “It serves as the premier educational network in the state.”

One of the major assets of the current backbone network is its vast capability for research. The Urbana-Champaign campus has thousands of researchers, graduate students, and professors, all of whom can take advantage of high transmission speed and network storage space to collaborate with other researchers worldwide.

For example, on campus at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, research coordinators for groups of chemical engineers, biochemists, and other scientists use the network resources to collaborate on papers and proposals with other researchers. Another division of Beckman, the Biomedical Imaging Center, is comparing large quantities of statistical MRI data with other researchers on campus and in Singapore to analyze whether cultural differences interact with the cognitive aging process.

Since the backbone provides service for such a large, diverse networked community, network researchers at the university are able to study and analyze immense amounts of data from their own campus that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access. This promotes the research and development of groundbreaking tools, programs, and services. For example, Michael Liljenstam, a Research Assistant Professor, is analyzing scanning and attack behavior and doing some statistical studies of how the attacks change and grow over time.

The network also provides access to high-speed research networks like TeraGrid, National Lambda Rail (NLR), and Internet 2. These three high-speed networks work in conjunction with government, private sector technology companies, and leading research universities. The purposes include building an infrastructure for open scientific research and developing advanced network applications and research-oriented technologies.

Aside from research, the network data is used for the benefit of the students and the general improvement of the network and campus security. Prasad Naldburg, a post-doctoral research associate, is using flow data in an Information Assurance class to provide a lab of "live data" for students to analyze for traffic patterns. “CITES Security also uses network instrumentation for threat analysis studies, and [the backbone network group] uses it internally for capacity planning and attack reaction purposes,” Kline said.

Another benefit of the current backbone network is its reliability. In everyday language, the word “redundant” has a negative connotation, but for networks, full redundancy implies the most reliable form of network. With redundancy, multiple network routing switches can fail and the campus network still functions. The UIUC backbone network is represented by a cube and composed of two equally independent layers—one orange and one blue—with four routing switches each. The eight main routing switches all connect so that if any piece fails or breaks, the others can redirect network traffic through another routing switch or node, providing maximum reliability for the campus.

With the dramatic growth of technology and influx of new students, it is difficult to expand the campus network at the rate needed, but the backbone network group always tries to anticipate the campus needs. One project to expect in the near future is the upgrade of the campus backbone to provide 10 Gigabit per second speeds.

Another possible upcoming project includes connecting all three University of Illinois campuses with dark fiber, which is currently the highest speed cable available. Finally, the Campus Network Upgrade Project, which will be implemented over the next five years, will not only affect the backbone network, but will bring all campus buildings up to current network standards, making each local network more reliable as well.