Large-Scale Deterministic IP Networks on CENI

With the evolution of Internet protocols and communication networks, time-critical applications (e.g., smart grid, remote surgery) emerge with requirements on deterministic Quality of Service (QoS). Plenty of works have been done on the deterministic networking that provides transmission services with bounded delay and jitters. Most current works evaluate their designs and algorithms with software-based simulations. However, it is highly desired that innovative ideas can be evaluated on real systems or testbeds. The practical implementation and experiments in the real world shall yield insights that lead to further theoretical improvements and vice versa. Thus, this paper presents an implementation of the large-scale deterministic network to validate the availability of deterministic techniques. A large-scale deterministic network is constructed based on Deterministic IP (DIP)-enabled routers (i.e., a prototype for deterministic communication in the core network). Experiments are designed based on two network test facilities, including China Environment for Network Innovations (CENI) and Yangtze River Delta Comprehensive Test Environment (YZNET). We achieve the world’s first delay and jitter control over a transmission distance of more than 2,000 kilometers. A maximum jitter beneath 30 µs is realized, which is independent of congestion levels and communication distances. Moreover, to demonstrate the potential of deterministic networking, a demo instance on PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) remote control is also presented. The experimental results imply that the deterministic networking is a promising technique for future networks to support time-critical applications on large-scale networks.