Wide-Area Gigabit Networking: Los Alamos HIPPI-SONET Gateway

Abstract

This paper describes a HIPPI-SONET Gateway which has been designed by members of the Computer Network Engineering Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Gateway has been used in the CASA Gigabit Testbed at Caltech, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center to provide communications between the sites. This paper will also make some qualitative statements as to lessons learned during the deployment and maintenance of this wide area network. We report record throughput for transmission of data across a wide area network. We have sustained data rates using the TCP/IP protocol of 550 Mbits/second and the rate of 792 Mbits/second for raw HIPPI data transfer over the 2,000 kilometers from the San Diego Supercomputer Center to the Los Alamos National Laboratory.