NSF Award
0745188
The Global Environment for Network Innovation (GENI) Project Office (GPO) GPO will carry out several planning activities, all aimed at ensuring that the best research and industry viewpoints are consulted and brought to bear in the design process for GENI's optical substrate. These activities include a focused study group activity along with a workshop. We will encourage that the broad optical research and academic community participate in our planning efforts. <br/><br/>This work is needed to address some of the capability/cost/complexity questions that have arisen recently specific to the optical area. The study group will also identify specific areas that are targets for risk reduction in GENI?s design effort. All the results will culminate in a final report that will flow, together with the existing substrate materials for the other areas, into a substrate working group that the GENI Project Office plans as one of the GENI facility design groups. <br/><br/>We plan to work on five specific tasks and workshops in order to further understanding and provide direction for the GENI facility substrate. These activities will focus primarily on the optical-fiber based systems and technologies, but are intended to enhance collaboration between and understanding between the optical layer and the wireless substrate as well as processing and higher layer functions of the GENI facility. Once this work is complete, it will be submitted to the emerging substrate working group, which will be charged with integrating the pieces of the GENI substrate into a cohesive architecture. The proposed activities include group brainstorming and preparation of a series of reports centered on five key topics crucial to the near-term development of the optical substrate architecture. The topics are:<br/><br/>- Cross layer research agenda,<br/>- Photonic integration trends,<br/>- Commercial roadmap,<br/>- Optical edge architectures, and<br/>- Multiple candidate GENI topologies.<br/><br/>Providing powerful infrastructure for research, the mission of GENI, and of the GPO, has broad benefits and impacts. This planning activity is expected to increase the future-proofing, relevance and realism of the optical substrate that experimenters will have available from the GENI design, and thus enhance the impact of the infrastructure.
