Scientists from AT&T, IBM and Applied Communication Sciences (ACS) have unveiled a proof-of-concept technology that reduces set up times for cloud-to-cloud connectivity from days to seconds.
This advance is a major step forward that could one day lead to sub-second provisioning time with IP and next generation optical networking equipment and enables elastic bandwidth between clouds at high connection request rates using intelligent cloud data center orchestrators, instead of requiring static provisioning for peak demand.
The prototype was built with contributions and expertise from AT&T, IBM and ACS, and the work was performed under the auspices of the US government’s DARPA CORONET program, which focuses on rapid reconfiguration of terabit networks.
“The program was visionary in anticipating the convergence of cloud computing and networking, and in setting aggressive requirements for network performance in support of cloud services” said Ann Von Lehmen, the ACS program lead.
AT&T was responsible for developing the overall networking architecture for this concept, drawing on its industry leadership in bandwidth-on-demand (BoD) technologies and advanced routing concepts.
IBM provided the cloud platform and intelligent cloud data center orchestration technologies to support dynamic provisioning of cloud-to-cloud communications.
ACS contributed its expertise in network management and innovation in optical-layer routing and signaling as part of the overall cloud networking architecture.
This prototype was implemented on OpenStack, an open-source cloud-computing platform for public and private clouds, elastically provisioning WAN connectivity and placing virtual machines between two clouds for the purpose of load balancing virtual network functions.
The use of flexible, on-demand bandwidth for cloud applications, such as load balancing, remote data center backup operation, and elastic scaling of workload, provides the potential for major cost savings and operational efficiency for both CSPs and carriers.