Testbed: India Surely Needs One

In the past few years India has seen large growth in its telecom and Internet

infrastructure. The fixed line and cellular subscribers base has shown a steep

rise. Fiber cables carrying hundreds of megabits have been laid. International

fiber links have made gigabits (to future terabits) capacities available. A

whole range of equipment and technologies are being deployed in the national

network. New technologies like IP/WDM and VoIP are being adopted. Stress has

been put on networking research, both for high-end broadband technologies and

low-cost technologies suitable to extend the reach of our networks to rural

areas.

Such a growth has put huge demands on all the participants –the telecom

service providers, equipment manufacturers and the research institutions.

Research institutions need to develop and test high-end broadband technologies

at the same time as their standards are being developed and adopted globally. An

environment needs to be created to ease development of low-cost and

wide-reaching networking technologies suitable to Indian conditions. The

equipment makers need to develop products based on latest international

standards and test their interoperability with a large range of existing

international products. The telecom service providers need to choose products

that have been tested for conformance with the current international standards,

which puts pressure on test labs to develop test suites at the same pace as

these technologies are being standardized. Tools need to be developed to

monitor, manage and troubleshoot large telecom networks.

A TESTBED NETWORK: A 3D model of the vBNS network that connects universities and laboratories in the US shows how traffic flows over the links

All these requirements ask for creation of a large networking testbed

consisting of varied networking equipment, linked through high- and low-speed

wireline and wireless links. The testbed can provide facility for conducting

networking research and for testing of equipment and technologies. It is

suggested that such an initiative be taken through participation of the

government research and test labs, academic institutions and the industry.

Testbed Examples



Such networking testbed initiatives have been successful in the US and

Singapore and we can broadly follow their examples to device an appropriate

strategy for India.

n vBNS: The US

government R&D funding organization, National Science Foundation (NSF) has

given grants to create a high-speed nationwide network, called very

high-performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS). The network connects 221

universities and research organizations on links ranging from tens of megabits

to 10 gigabit speeds. The institutions are carrying research on high-speed

networking, like protocol enhancements for Next Generation Internet (NGI),

distributed high-speed computing, data mining, remote imaging, tele-collaboration,

etc. This year, another $2.25 million is to be granted to 15 more institutions.

The availability of this high-speed network has resulted in the networking

industry sponsoring a large number of projects to these institutions for

development of high-end broadband technologies and equipment.

LOADS OF BENEFITS
	Indian service providers can adopt new broadband equipment and technologies at the same time as these appear internationally
	They get to choose equipment after being convinced of wide-ranging compatibility
	India will soon have a good number of professionals well trained in network planning, integration, performance monitoring, troubleshooting

n SINGAREN: Singapore government too has created a large network testbed.

Singapore had established a large broadband network in 1995 that was extended in

1997 to create Singapore Advanced Research & Education Network (SINGAREN)

testbed. SINGAREN is a high-speed network to support research, advanced

technology development and testing. It serves users from academia, research

organizations and industry. The activity is funded and managed by the government

R&D organization there and has participating universities and partners from

the industry. The testbed has a 155 Mbps ATM backbone linking all the

participants. The network links to vBNS in the US and universities in Canada and

Japan through high-speed international links. The participating universities are

conducting research in developing broadband equipment, NGI applications,

performance testing tools, network traffic simulators, troubleshooting tools,

etc. The testbed is also being used for conformance and compatibility testing of

networking equipment to be deployed in networks in Singapore.

Strategy for India



The Indian testbed will need to be created with participation from the

Government, academic and research institutions, and the industry. The

participants will include the government research organization NCST, government

testing lab TEC, universities like IITs/IISc/RECs, industry equipment

manufacturers, software development industry, and sponsors like telecom service

providers and global networking MNCs . Some of these participants have already

been successfully conducting the ERNET research experiment in the last decade

and that experience should help in the success of this initiative.

n Funding: The testbed creation would initially be funded by the

government. However, once the testbed is created, it would result in the

industry sponsoring projects with the participating universities to conduct

research in areas of their interest. In the long run, the activity will be

self-sustaining with funding from the industry.

n Infrastructure: The infrastructure would consist of broadband

networking equipment linked through multimegabits-speed wireline links.

International links would be used to connect to universities in US, and other

countries, for collaborative research. The wireless links would be provided in

all forms–local, cellular and satellite. Environment will also be created for

low-cost and low-speed links suitable for research for rural telephony and

Internet access in India.

A nationwide testbed on the model of vBNS or SINGAREN promises loads of

benefits in the form of:

Conformance Testing: For growth of Indian telecom network, it is important

that Indian telecom service providers adopt the new broadband equipment and

technologies at the same time as these appear internationally. This asks for the

test suites to be developed at the same speed as the ongoing international

research in the technology, instead of waiting for commercialization of the

technology.

Compatibility Testing: Even though networking equipment may conform to the

same standards, due to a large range of options available in each standard

document, two such conforming equipment may still not interoperate. The problem

is addressed by equipment manufacturers internationally by conducting

compatibility testing of their equipment at different forums. The testbed will

create such an environment within India by supporting a range of equipment from

different vendors. This will give telecom service providers the freedom to

choose equipment from different vendors after being convinced of their

compatibility through such testing.

Networking Research: Research can be conducted for developing appropriate low

cost and wide reach wireline and wireless products to make telecom networks

easily accessible across rural India and remote locations. High-end broadband

networking equipment and technologies can be developed to cater to international

high-speed network requirements. Research can be performed on 4G cellular

technologies. Software research can be conducted to develop high performance

applications for NGI.

Training: Finally, the availability of a large testbed of varied equipment

will create an environment to train our professionals in network planning,

integration, performance monitoring, troubleshooting, etc. India needs a large

trained manpower and the testbed facility can provide such training.

Vimal Kumar Khanna



Honorary technical editor, IEEE Communications" (pub.
New York)