Juniper Networks, Ciena, Brocade and Internet2 have put out a call for proposals for the 2013 Innovative Application Awards program.
The program will award cash prizes for the best winning open source, data movement, software-defined networking (SDN) enabled applications that benefit the research and education (R&E) community on the Internet2 Network.
The new Internet2 Network launched last year and is the first open, national-scale 100G network employing SDN and OpenFlow standards. It includes equipment from Juniper Networks, Ciena, and Brocade.
The Innovative Application Awards program is open to individuals or small groups who demonstrate the ability to develop and deploy useful and reliable open source software. It provides grants of up to $10,000 for winning proposals. Universities may provide additional matching funds.
This solicitation is designed to encourage the development of next generation, open source applications that are of general interest to the R&E community and take advantage of SDN-enabled capabilities within new, disruptive network switches and controllers.
Of particular interest are applications that improve data movement across 100G OpenFlow-enabled networks and proposals that have a clear path to scale those applications for widespread use, perhaps by leveraging existing widely deployed software frameworks.
The desired outcome of the awards program is production-quality software that can operate on Internet2’s Advanced Layer 2 Service and take advantage of the SDN and 100G capabilities of the Internet2 Innovation Platform.
The program complements some recent application development efforts made by US Ignite.
“The new Internet2 Network can advance global research collaboration in previously unimaginable ways,” said Rob Vietzke, vice president of network services at Internet2. “Leveraging our new 100G, SDN-enabled network, we’re on the hunt for the most innovative applications that help to accelerate and transform discovery in big data sciences.”
Applications are due electronically by June 7. Successful awardees will be notified on or after June 14.
Internet2 is a member-owned advanced technology community founded by the nation’s leading higher education institutions in 1996. The group consists of universities, corporations, government agencies, regional and state education networks, and hundreds of national research and education networking partners representing more than 50 countries.
Internet2 offices are located in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Emeryville, Calif.; and Washington, D.C.
