LambdaBridge: Towards an Edge-Based Terabit Wide-Area Network

LambdaGrid applications are likely to be the first users of terabit-level networking. The challenge of terabit networking will be how to manage traffic at the edges. This paper provides insight into the traffic characteristics of future terabit applications, and uses this to drive the design of an edge-based architecture called LambdaBridge. LambdaBridge will provision and control predictable-performance networks for end-systems (i.e. Grid clusters) using on-demand lambda/VLAN provisioning and end-system traffic shaping. The chief contribution of LambdaBridge is a deep understanding of how to synergistically bridge provisionable networks, end-systems, and future generation distributed terabit applications. Keywords-LambdaGrid, Grid Computing, Optical Networks, Flow Management, Terabit Applications