ATDnet
SC2000 Website

SC2000
Dallas Convention Center
Dallas, Texas
Nov 4-10, 2000

The Advanced Technology Demonstration Network (ATDnet) is a high performance networking testbed in the Washington D.C. area. It is intended to be representative of possible future Metropolitan Area Networks. Established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to enable collaboration among Defense and other Federal agencies, ATDnet has a primary goal to serve as an experimental platform for diverse network research and demonstration initiatives. Emphasis is on early deployment of emerging Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) technologies.

The ATDnet concept is to interconnect several agency sites with high speed fiber optic transmission media and to overlay this media with SONET and ATM protocols. The initial deployment will be at OC-48 data rates (approximately 2.5 billion bits/second, also referred to as 2.5 gigabits/second) but is designed to scale upwards to technology-limited data rates. Pair-wise and multiple party research initiatives and experiments are planned over the lifetime of the testbed. Experimental testing of the bitways and a diversity of service and applications experiments are intended to gain insight into the potential of this new performance level.

• Co-chairs of the ATDnet Program
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
  • Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)
• Principal ATDnet Federal Agency Members
  • Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
  • Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
  • National Security Agency (NSA)
• Other Participating Members
  • Bell Atlantic (BA)

DARPA further envisions use of the ATDnet physical infrastructure to support proof of concept experiments and demonstrations which prototype aspects of an enhanced National Information Infrastructure (NII) and its use in the context of future Defense Information Infrastructures. Plans include engaging the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) in research collaborations to facilitate extending the ATDnet model and associated experiments agenda into broader commercial initiatives and to help refine evolving standards.

Site Specific Experiment Plans:
• DARPA
• DISA
• DIA
• NASA
• NRL
• NSA
• Bell Atlantic

Research Collaboration

Sites wishing to obtain tail circuits for research collaboration with the ATDnet researchers need to first obtain approval from the ATDnet principals, the six founding sites who meet monthly as an executive board. Submit an abstract of the proposed research work to be undertaken and clearly indicate the supporting principal site(s) involved jointly in the research work (remember that ATDnet carries no operational traffic). To obtain further information please email requests to yates@cmf.nrl.navy.mil or phone at 202-404-7339. Only sites/organizations who have received approval for collaborative research from the ATDnet Executive board will be allowed to connect to ATDnet.

Once approved, the site can begin to negotiate directly with Verizon for their service connection to ATDnet and will obtain the ATDnet negotiated cost; for sites at this point who need to validate their costing data, the site contract agent will simply call NRL Contracts to confirm Verizon's charges.

PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE PRIOR TO CONTINUING