Widely recognized as a mark of excellence, the R&D 100 Awards are the only industry-wide competition rewarding the practical applications of science. Among the 2013 winners of this prestigious award is the latest version of OSCARS, the On-demand Secure Circuits and Reservation System, the development of which was led by ESnet. OSCARS is a software service that creates dedicated bandwidth channels for scientists who need to move massive, time-critical data sets around the world.
What makes OSCARS so useful is that it can automatically create end-to-end circuits, crossing multiple network domains. Before OSCARS, this was a time consuming process–in 2010, for example, ESnet engineers needed 10 hours of phone calls and about 100 emails over three months to do what one person can do in five minutes using OSCARS. The automation of this complex process—through a technique known as Software Defined Networking—is accelerating scientific discovery in high-energy physics and many other disciplines.
“It’s wonderful to see the innovation that’s gone into the latest version of OSCARS recognized with an R&D100 Award,” said ESnet Director Greg Bell. “This early example of Software Defined Networking is yet another example of research networks taking the lead. But OSCARS is not just an ESnet achievement. We’re grateful for collaborations with many partners over the last decade, as the project matured from a bold idea into a production software suite.”
