ESnet

ESnet
Name	Energy Sciences Network
Founded	0 1986
Type	Research and education network
Headquarters	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Area served	United States Department of Energy complex, Large Hadron Collider, ITER
Key people	Inder Monga (Executive Director)
Website	es.net

ESnet. The Energy Sciences Network is a high-performance, unclassified network built to support scientific research, primarily for the United States Department of Energy and its laboratories. It is managed and operated by the Scientific Networking Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The network facilitates large-scale data movement for projects in fields such as high-energy physics, climate science, and genomics, connecting researchers at national laboratories like Oak Ridge National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to global collaborators.

Overview

ESnet serves as the primary data circulatory system for the United States Department of Energy Office of Science, enabling data-intensive science across its national laboratory system and with international partners. It interconnects more than 50 Department of Energy research sites, including major facilities like the Spallation Neutron Source and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, and extends to thousands of partner networks worldwide. The network is engineered to handle the extreme data volumes generated by modern scientific instruments, such as detectors at the Large Hadron Collider and sequencing machines for the Joint Genome Institute. Its architecture is designed to be a strategic capability for American science, ensuring the United States remains at the forefront of discovery in critical research domains.

History

The network originated in 1986 to link Department of Energy supercomputing centers, evolving from earlier networks like MFENet and HEPNet. A major milestone was its merger with the NASA Science Network in the early 1990s, significantly expanding its reach and capabilities. The launch of ESnet4 in the mid-2000s represented a leap to a national-scale optical network, providing dedicated bandwidth for science. Subsequent generations, including the 100 Gbps ESnet5 and the current ESnet6, have been built in response to the exponential data growth from facilities like the Linac Coherent Light Source and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. Key figures in its development have included leaders from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Internet2 community.

Network infrastructure

The physical backbone is a coast-to-coast fiber-optic network employing dense wavelength-division multiplexing technology to create multiple high-capacity circuits on a single fiber pair. Core network points of presence are strategically located in major Internet exchange point hubs like New York City, Chicago, and Sunnyvale, California. ESnet operates its own Internet Protocol and optical transport network layers, utilizing advanced software-defined networking principles for dynamic circuit provisioning. It peers extensively with other research and education networks globally, including Internet2, GEANT, and CENIC, creating a seamless global data fabric for science. The infrastructure also includes specialized Science DMZ architectures at connected sites to optimize data transfer nodes.

Services and capabilities

Core services include guaranteed bandwidth circuit networking via the On-Demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System, and high-performance IP routing for general scientific collaboration. The network provides perfSONAR-based performance monitoring and testing tools, enabling end-to-end network measurement. A key capability is support for large Hadron Collider data distribution, funneling petabytes of data annually from CERN to the LHC Open Network Exchange in the United States. ESnet also offers consulting on science network architecture and operates the Energy Sciences Network Exchange for facilitating high-performance connections to cloud computing providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

Research and collaborations

ESnet engineers actively conduct research in network architecture, telemetry, and data transfer protocols, often publishing results in venues like the ACM SIGCOMM conference. The network is integral to major international projects, providing the transatlantic connectivity for the ITER fusion experiment and supporting data flows for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. It collaborates closely with the Global Research Network community on interoperability and with laboratories on experiments for the Exascale Computing Project. These partnerships ensure network innovations directly address the evolving needs of frontier science, from cosmology simulations at Argonne National Laboratory to materials science at the Advanced Photon Source.

Governance and funding

The network is funded primarily by the United States Department of Energy Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research program. Strategic direction is provided by a steering committee comprising representatives from major Department of Energy national laboratories and program offices. Day-to-day management and operations are the responsibility of the Scientific Networking Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which also engages in joint technology development with partners like Internet2. Governance includes close coordination with the international Research and Education Networking community to align on global infrastructure priorities and standards.

Category:Computer networks Category:United States Department of Energy Category:Research and education networks