Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

This Wiki page aims to provide a concise review of “state-of-the-art” in the use of DTN infrastructures by NRENs, primarily those in Europe, but activities by R&E networks outside Europe are also referenced. The review includes experiments, testbeds, architectural components (including transfer software and user interfaces), lessons learnt, and a gap analysis.


bits logoImage Modified

Introduction

Transfer of large science data over wide area networks require maximum usage of the network throughput with a combination of transfer tools for high-speed/big file/ multiple file data movement. The complexity of data sources from multiple and distributed teams and complex science work-flow, scaling and spanning resources between multiple sites to store or process the data is becoming a challenge for hardware and software architecture.

To improve data transfer between different sites, dedicated computer systems and architectures are used to improve performance. Data Transfer Nodes (DTN) are used to overcome this problem. DTNs are dedicated (usually Linux based) servers, with specific hi-end hardware components and dedicated transfer tools and are configured specifically for wide area data transfer.

In science community many research groups employ a number of DTN instances, with dedicated network pipes for multiple high data file transfers, that bypass network firewalls, filtering services, BGP or QoS restrictions, etc. The challenge that research groups are facing is: “that despite the high performance of the hardware equipment, data transfers are much lower than the bandwidth provided (specialty with bandwidth beyond 40Gbit/s)”.



Contact Us

We are very interested to hear from members of the community working on DTN deployment, whether you wish to share your knowledge or find out more. 

You can email the GN4-3 WP6 DTN team at: gn4-3-wp6-dtn@lists.geant.org


Info
titleInfoshares ++ Research ++ Training ++ Networks Services


More Information:

About DTN

DTN Tools

DTN Hardware

Related Projects

Use Cases/Solutions

GÉANT NREN Survey

Why large scale data transfers matter for NRENs?

  • It is a very common use case for the NRENs, supporting data-intensive science
  • Short distance transfer
  • Long distance transfer
  • Very sensitive to packet loss
  • Even a fraction of 1% packet loss leads to poor performance
  • Congestion / provisioning
  • Optimize network (Optimize network path, MTU, …)
  • Deploy Science DMZ at the end sites / campuses - https://fasterdata.es.net/science-dmz/
  • Other providers have the same concern, e.g., Google created an algorithm “Bottleneck Bandwidth and Round-trip time (BBR)”, which is far less sensitive to packet loss
  • Established data-intensive transfer users (mainly the CERN community and WLCG) have already addressed this concern (File Transfer Service, and the same principles as Science DMZ).
  • Long tail science, and emerging science disciplines, are subject to a poor experience

Latest publications


NREN survey logoImage Modified

GÉANT NREN Survey

We conducted a survey to investigate how European NRENs support their user communities in making optimal use of their networks for large scale data transfers, including the use of Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs). Results are available at: GÉANT NREN Survey



...