The GSFC High End Computer Network (HECN) is a local, non-mission dedicated, R&D testbed network contributing to advanced network technology evaluations for the next generation high-end computer network at GSFC. The HECN shares the GSFC Scientific and Engineering Network’s (SEN’s) high-speed links to the Internet2’s Abilene and other Next Generation Internet (NGI) networks.

The purpose of the HECN is to enable research, development, evaluations, and demonstrations of high performance network capabilities and testbeds utilizing leading edge communications technologies and networking protocols to support new high end computer user applications.  As the knowledge gained from investigating the technologies and protocols in the HECN is reapplied directly in support of users and developers of the GSFC SEN, the HECN should be viewed as a GSFC-based strategic asset contributing to GSFC's evolving networking capability.

For the last several years the goals of the HECN have been closely aligned with the national High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) program's Next Generation Internet (NGI) goal 1 to conduct R&D in advanced end-to-end networking technologies and provide a 1,000-fold increase in end-to-end performance over 1997 capabilities to networking researchers.  In pursuit of this goal the HECN has served as NASA's node on the Advanced Technology Demonstration Network (ATDnet), a high performance networking testbed in the Washington D.C. area, which interconnected optically with other DARPA-funded optical networks. This R&D included early deployment of optical networking technologies such as cross-connects and wave division multiplexing (WDM) add/drop multiplexers, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), Packet over  SONET (POS), and progressive scan High Definition TV (HDTV).

Present HECN R&D involves evaluation of 10 Gigabit Ethernet and optical networks as described in the recently awarded GSFC FY04 IRAD proposal "Preparing Goddard for Large Scale Team Science in the 21st Century: Enabling an All Optical Goddard Network Cyberinfrastructure" submitted by Co-PIs Pat Gary (930) and Jeff Smith (423/585) with GSFC's Information Technology Pathfinder Working Group as Co-Is. The awarded effort plans to establish a “Lambda Network” (in this case using optical wavelength technology and 10Gbps Ethernet per wavelength) from GSFC’s Earth science facility in Greenbelt, MD to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography through the University of California, San Diego over the National Lambda Rail, a new national dark optical fiber infrastructure.

To read more about the HECN see:

Pat Gary's 2003 Earth Science Technology Conference paper (pdf, 1.3MB)

Pat Gary's 2003 Earth Science Technology Conference presentation (pdf, 765KB)