StarPlane - a national dynamic photonic network controlled by grid applications

Purpose – This paper aims to look at a research project – StarPlane –a national dynamic photonic network controlled by grid applications. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines StarPlane, a research project funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and carried out by researchers at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Vrije University (VU). Findings – The paper finds that StarPlane provides the management functions needed by applications running on the DAS-3 Grid clusters to interact with the network control plane. The most unique features of StarPlane are the use of photonic equipment in the network core and the fast reconfiguration times of lightpath topologies. Originality/value – This paper was written with the expertise of the authors and will be of interest to those people involved in computing and e-science.