Internet2 Land Speed Record

The Internet2 Land Speed Record (I2-LSR) competition for the highest-bandwidth, end-to-end networks is an open and ongoing contest.

"We hope this competition gets people thinking about enabling really revolutionary Internet applications,"
- Jim Gray

"To realize Internet's full potential, end-to-end network performance needs to take a huge leap forward,"
- Gordon Bell

Current Records

IPv6 Category

Single Stream Class: 272,400 terabit-meters per second by a team consisting of members from the University of Tokyo, the WIDE Project, NTT Communications, and others accomplished by transferring 20.42 terabytes of data across 30,000 kilometers of network in about 300 minutes at an average rate of 9.08 gigabits per second.

Multiple Stream Class: 272,400 terabit-meters per second by a team consisting of members from the University of Tokyo, the WIDE Project, NTT Communications, and others accomplished by transferring 20.42 terabytes of data across 30,000 kilometers of network in about 300 minutes at an average rate of 9.08 gigabits per second.

IPv4 Category

Single Stream Class: 264,147 terabit-meters per second by a team consisting of members from the University of Tokyo, the WIDE project, and Chelsio Communication and other organizations by sending 2.98 terabytes of data across 30,000 kilometers of network over 45 minutes at an average rate of 8.80 gigabits per second.

Multiple Stream Class: 264,147 terabit-meters per second by a team consisting of members from the University of Tokyo, the WIDE project, and Chelsio Communication and other organizations by sending 2.98 terabytes of data across 30,000 kilometers of network over 45 minutes at an average rate of 8.80 gigabits per second.

Details and history of record-setting entries

Awards

Entries that set new records will be publicized via notice in Internet2 communications, posted on the Internet2 Web site, and other means. Teams with entries that set the highest marks by dates announced in advance of the Internet2 Members Meeting will, in addition, receive an award at the meeting.

Deadlines

Entries that conform to the rules below may be submitted at any time. Entries will be reviewed in order of submission. N.B.: Only entries that exceed current marks by at least 10% will be recognized as new record-setters.

Format

Each entry must contain sufficient information for the judging panel to determine adherence to all contest rules. Entries must also identify institution(s) and personnel requesting consideration as winners. Documentation is expected for a complete entry.

Contest Rules

  1. A data transfer must run for a minimum of 10 continuous minutes over a minimum terrestrial distance of 100 kilometers with a minimum of two router hops in each direction between the source node and the destination node. A maximum of 30,000 kilometers will be allowed for the distance value used in any submission.
     
  2. The transfers must run across one or more operational and production-oriented high-performance research and educations networks.  Examples of such networks are Abilene, ESnet, CA*net3, NREN and GEANT.
     
  3. All data must be transferred end-to-end between a single pair of IP addresses by bona fide TCP/IP protocol code implementations of RFC 793 and RFC 791.  One IP address is designated the source IP address, while the other is designated the destination address.  All data must be transferred in TCP packets encapsulated in IP packets that use no other IP addresses other than the designated source IP address and the designated destination IP address.  The source node is defined as the equipment associated with the source IP address and which executes the data-source network application, while the destination node is defined as the equipment associated with the destination IP address and which executes the data-sink network application.
     
  4. Instances of all hardware units and software modules used to transfer contest data on the source node, the destination node, the links, and the routers must be offered for commercial sale or as open source software to all U.S. members of the Internet2 community by their respective vendors or developers prior to or immediately after winning the contest.
     
  5. Each entry must include sufficient information that adherence to all contest rules can be readily determined.  Entries must also identify institution(s) and personnel requesting consideration as winners.  Entries must be submitted no later than two weeks prior to each Member Meeting inorder to recieve recognition during the meeting.
     
  6. Winners will be recognized in each of the following separate classes:
    1. The IPv4 Single-Stream Class winner must utilize a single TCP/IPv4 session.
       
    2. The IPv4 Multiple-Stream Class winner may utilize multiple concurrent TCP/IPv4 sessions.
       
    3. The IPv6 Single-Stream Class winner must utilize a single TCP/IPv6 session.
       
    4. The IPv6 Multiple-Stream Class winner may utilize multiple concurrent TCP/IPv6 sessions.
       
    Any record setter in a single stream class will be automatically be considered for the multiple stream record in the same category.
  7. In computing the amount of data transferred, only data transferred from user-process-space buffer(s) in the data-source network application to user-process-space buffer(s) in the data-sink network application may be counted.  Received data must vary in content from buffer to buffer and must be verified by checksum or other means that it is identical to the data transmitted from the source node.  The elapsed time of the data transfer is the real time that elapses between the source sending a packet with the SYN bit enabled and sending a packet with the ACK bit enabled following the receipt of a packet(s) with the FIN and ACK bits enabled.
     
  8. The winner in each Class will be whichever submitter is judged to have met all rules and whose results yield the largest value of the product of the achieved bandwidth (bits/second) multiplied by the sum of the terrestrial distances between each router location starting from the source node location and ending at the destination node location, using the shortest distance of the Earth's circumference measured in meters between each pair of locations.  The contest unit of measurement is thus bit-meters/second.
     
  9. A Contest Entry Judging Panel chosen by Internet2 staff from the Internet2 community will determine winners in each class according to the stated rules.
     
  10. A winning entry must exceed the previous winning entry by at least 10%.
     
  11. A Contest Rules Panel chosen by Internet2 staff will review, revise, clarify, and interpret rules as necessary to ensure the spirit of the competition.  Contestants may request published rule interpretations from the Panel via email.

Questions and Clarifications

Please submit all questions and requests for clarification via email to lsr@internet2.edu.

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