ESnet’s mission compels us to share knowledge, experience, and findings with both the DOE ecosystem and the global R&E networking community, including commercial networking technology providers. We do so by technical consulting, publishing, and participating in DOE and other U.S. scientific planning endeavors; hosting and engaging with in-person collaborations; and contributing keynote speeches, technical presentations, demonstrations, and workshops at numerous high-profile conferences.
Spotlight: Supporting the LHC Data Challenge 2024
In February 2024, ESnet participated in the Large Hadron Collider Data Challenge 2024 (DC24), a global stress test of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) in preparation for the LHC’s High-Luminosity era, which will begin in 2030. The challenge set forth aggressive global targets: 1.2 Tbps for the minimal model focusing on Tier-0 export to the Tier-1 centers, and 2.4 Tbps for the flexible model, including complex experiment data flows. DC24 also included smaller‑scale exercises by Belle‑2 and DUNE, sharing network paths without interference.
ESnet contributed to DC24 in many areas:
- Infrastructure readiness: Coordinated peering exchange upgrades, worked with Tier‑2 sites and local providers, and resolved over 70 pre‑event work items.
- Performance troubleshooting: Identified and mitigated a multi‑service throughput issue between ESnet and Fermilab, using perfSONAR with multi‑threaded iperf.
- Resiliency measures: Minimized the impact of sub‑sea cable outages by applying new ESnet6 traffic engineering capabilities and leveraging partner networks for backup routes.
- Custom monitoring: Built a dedicated Stardust portal for DC24 sites and infrastructure.
- Advanced telemetry: Used High‑Touch services to profile and analyze DC24 traffic post‑event.
Results showed that ESnet’s network flowed smoothly, enabling WLCG experiments to focus on scaling their File Transfer Service (FTS) and Rucio data management tools. The data challenge effort surfaced valuable insights into performance bottlenecks, configuration optimizations, and operational improvements, strengthening the scalability and robustness of the global LHC data infrastructure.
The next Data Challenge is planned for spring 2027, aiming to handle 50% of High Luminosity traffic, and ESnet will continue to help ensure the global network can meet the demands of next‑generation high energy physics.
Connecting People to Advance Global Innovation
ESnet frequently leads community building and knowledge exchange efforts with a range of academic, industry, government, and research & education thought leaders. Some highlights from 2024 follow.
High Energy Physics Requirements Review
One of the primary means by which ESnet engages a broad spectrum of its stakeholders is through the formal Requirements Review program, under which ESnet staff meet with scientists and program managers from each of the six DOE Office of Science programs that ESnet supports. The outcomes from each review are published in a comprehensive report with multiple case studies.
In 2024, ESnet and the DOE High Energy Physics (HEP) program began a full review of the program, involving approximately 125 participants from HEP, ASCR, ESnet, university and DOE PIs, facility managers, and members of the ESCC. The review presented 14 scientific case studies and 7 technical case studies that embodied the primary aspects of the HEP portfolio. The in-person review was held in September 2024 in Rockville, Maryland, and followed by asynchronous collaboration. The recommendations will be detailed in the HEP Requirements Review final report to be published in CY2025.
Nokia Bell Labs
ESnet has a longstanding organizational friendship with this legendary R&D company owned by Nokia, and in 2024 their leadership teams convened for information-sharing sessions at ESnet’s headquarters at Berkeley Lab, Nokia Bell Labs HQ in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and at several Bell Labs’ research locations.
Caption: Peter Vetter (left), President of Bell Labs Core Research at Nokia, gave ESnet CTO Chin Guok, Executive Director Inder Monga, Advanced Technologies and Testbeds Group Lead John Wu, and quantum networking engineer Wenji Wu a tour of Bell Labs historic headquarters.
NORDUnet
This global network interconnects the national R&E networks of the five Nordic countries and connects these networks to the rest of the world. ESnet leadership hosted a NORDUnet group in November 2024, discussing AI for networking, network orchestration, and more, and touring NERSC and the Joint Genome Institute.
Quantum Networking Community
ESnet’s QUANT-NET team actively engaged with the global quantum networking community through multiple invited talks, lab visits, and international collaborations with leading researchers and institutions in Japan, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Switzerland. Highlights included hosting prominent speakers such as Rodney Van Meter (Keio University), Sophia Economou (Virginia Tech), and Wolfgang Tittel (University of Geneva), as well as reciprocal visits to QuTech in the Netherlands and Trinity College Dublin to explore joint R&D opportunities.
Key Conferences for ESnet
SC: At the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC), ESnet plays primarily a technical role, supporting the fastest temporary network in the world, SCinet, with connectivity and services for live demonstrations and tests. ESnet also provides more than a dozen volunteers to the team that builds this record-breaking conference network every year. ESnet staff also participate as panelists and speakers. At SC24, ESnetters spoke on IRI-related projects, including EJFAT, DELERIA, and DIII-D Fusion, and IRI interfaces; SENSE Services for Data Movement Systems; and more.
TNC: The largest research and education networking conference, TNC is funded by the European Union via the GÉANT (GN4-3) Project. It attracts more than 800 participants from 70+ countries. At TNC24 in France, ESnet staff presented on network orchestration, IPv6, MetraNOVA, perfSONAR, and trans-Atlantic fiber strategy and met with many of their national research & education network (NREN) colleagues.
ESnet’s Orchestration and Core Data Group Lead Scott Richmond at TNC24
Internet2 Technology Exchange: Hosted by Internet2, the TechX conference brings together the global R&E community. At the 2024 TechX conference in Boston, ESnet’s presentation topics included security for automation engineering, 20 Years of perfSONAR, MetrANOVA, Stop-Gap Traffic Engineering, and more.
OFC: ESnet’s Executive Director Inder Monga gave a plenary talk, “Networking Alchemy: Transforming Science Through Connectivity,” at OFC 2024, the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition sponsored by Optica, IEEE Communication Society, and IEEE Photonics Society. ESnet staff participated in building OFCnet, the high-speed network enabling demonstrations on the show floor.
IEEE Quantum Week: The IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE) seeks to bridge the gap between the science of quantum computing and the industry growing up around it. At QCE24, ESnet staff chaired a quantum network testbed panel and cohosted a session on quantum network protocols with Japan’s quantum networking experts.
GrafanaCON: ESnet Measurement & Analysis staff presented at GrafanaCON, an annual visualization conference hosted by Grafana Labs, sharing how ESnet uses and extends our Stardust data collection, analysis, and visualization platform to support science.
ESCC Meetings: The ESnet Site Coordinator Committee (ESCC) is made up of technical representatives from ESnet’s supported sites who gather regularly with ESnet staff to share insights and collaborate on the operational, network engineering, and security innovations and challenges that will shape the future of the ESnet infrastructure. In spring 2024, ESCC held a successful two-day, hybrid meeting in Berkeley with more than 70 participants from 17 sites, ESnet, and DOE. A community call was held in August.
Technical Presentations and Publications – 2024
In 2024, ESnet staff published 7 major reports, 1 journal article, and 13 conference papers, as well as delivered almost 100 technical presentations and conferences and meetings. (For a full list, with links where available, visit https://www.es.net/esnet-2024-pubs.) The following examples were selected to illustrate the ESnet work featured in this report.
Accelerating data movement
L. Brown, E. Marx, D. Bali, E. Amaro, D. Sur, E. Kissel, I. Monga, E. Katz-Bassett, A. Krishnamurthy, J. McCauley, T. Narechania, A. Panda, S. Shenker. “An Architecture For Edge Networking Services,” ACM SIGCOMM ’24: Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2024 Conference, August 4, 2024.
Y. Kumar, V. Gyurjyan. “Practical Hardware Accelerated Real-Time Multi-facility Streaming Workflow (EJFAT),” SC24, November 20, 2024.
AI for Networking
S. Guthula, R. Beltiukov, N. Battula, W. Guo, A. Gupta, I. Monga. “netFound: Foundation Model for Network Security,” ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), October 2024 (preprint).
In-network Caching
R. Monga, A. Sim, J. Wu. “Comparative Study of the Cache Utilization Trends for Regional Scientific Data Caches,” ACM Student Research Competition Grand Final, November 2024.
Network Orchestration and Automation
S. Richmond, C. Cummings. “Going Beyond Network Automation Towards Service Orchestration,” TNC24, June 11, 2024.
Performance Measurement
E. Balas. “Introducing MetrANOVA: a consortium to advance the tools, tactics, and techniques of network measurement,” TNC24, June 12, 2024.
A. Lake, M. Feit, L. Delvaux. “20 Years of perfSONAR and the Road Ahead,” TechEX 2024, December 10, 2024.
Quantum Networking
I. Monga. Plenary Session: “Networking Alchemy: Transforming Science Through Connectivity,” OFC24 Keynote, March 26, 2024.
I. Monga, W. Wu, S.Y. Yu, et al. “The QUANT-NET Testbed Development and Preliminary Results,” IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering, QCE24, September 17, 2024.
Scientific Networking Requirements
J. Balcas, D. Carder, E. Dart, et al. “WLCG/DOMA Data Challenge 2024: Final Report,” Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, June 3, 2024.
J. Zurawski, B. Brown, G. Rai, et al. “Nuclear Physics Network Requirements Review Final Report,” July 26, 2024.
Security
F. Bannat Wala, S. Bohacek. “Zone-Hopping: Sensitive Information Leakage Prevention in DNSSEC-NSEC,” The 54th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN’24), June 24, 2024.
K. Agrawal. “Kubernetes Security: Re-Thinking Traditional Security Operations in this Brave New World,” NSF Cybersecurity Summit 24, October 7, 2024.
Standards
N. Buraglio. RFC 9637 “Expanding the IPv6 Documentation Space.” Internet Engineering Task Force, August 27, 2024.
Wireless Edge
A. Wiedlea. I. Tarazi, C. Cowden, et al. “Revolutionizing Enterprise Wireless: Exploring Next-Gen Technologies,” Mobile World Congress 2024, February 27, 2024.