About UCLP | About UCLP |
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User Controlled Light Paths Community Edition UCLP is software allows end-users, either people or sophisticated applications, to treat network resources as software objects and provision and reconfigure lightpaths within a single domain or across multiple, independently managed, domains. Users can also join or divide lightpaths and hand off control and management of these larger or smaller private sub-networks to other users. UCLP is designed to enable end-users to create their own discipline or application-specific IP network, particularly in support of high-end e-science and Grid applications. For example, a community of high energy physicists could create their own independent IP network (as a subset of a larger optical network); the topology and architecture would be optimized for their particular Grid application needs and requirements. More importantly these networks can be reconfigured by the end-user and do not require the permission of the optical network manager. "UCLP can be very simply thought of as a configuration and partition manager that exposes each lightpath in a physical network and each network element associated with a lightpath as an 'object' or 'service' that can be put under the control of different network users to create their own IP network topologies." - Bill St. Arnaud, Senior Director of Research Networks, CANARIE Inc. Virtual Private Networks Using UCLP, several network operators can make part of their resources available to end users so that they can assemble these various web services into multiple network virtualizations, or Articulated Private Networks (APNs) running their own protocols and services. More importantly UCLP allows for the deployment of many parallel virtualized networks – for example one network could be used to support traditional IPv4 routed applications, while another parallel network could be running IPv6 or some other advanced protocol. UCLP also allows users to "spawn" new virtualized networks, at any time, without requiring setup or permission of any central operator. This will allow for the easy migration of new services and protocols. This capability is already available on CAnet 4 today with over 30 separate virtualized networks or APNs used for various network research and cyber-infrastructure applications. It also allows researchers to carry out experimentation in various new services such as security, active networking, etc.
Extending the Application into the Network The virtualized network resources can also be linked together with other network resources, instruments, sensors, etc. via service oriented architecture (SOA) or workflow technologies suck as BPEL to create new rich web services. This opens the door for users to create any number of workflows that can make use of the network resources whenever they are required, effectively bringing the network into the application itself. Not only can the end users control and manage their own private high speed networks, but so can their sensors, instruments and applications leaving them free to analyze the data that is being transferred instead of having to worry about how to get the data in the first place.
Extending the Application into the Network Future Internet The significance of web services for dynamic network infrastructures is that users no longer have to think of the future Internet as having a fixed or static architecture defined by network engineers or service providers. Instead the future Internet may be dynamic and agile where communities of interest can define on the fly, their own network topologies, protocols and services for their particular application or research. These communities can decide themselves whether the network will use virtual routers and/or optical switches and protocols that are important for their particular applications.
http://www.uclp.ca |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 01 November 2007 ) |
UCLP Brochure
