RWTH's Internet uplink stands the test of time

05/12/2019

That's what she looks like: The RWTH Weathermap. It maps all data streams into the RWTH network as well as to the outside world. Especially noticeable: The red arrow from "DFN" to "XWIN" [snapshot from 13.11.2019].
Wheatermap of the day in question Copyright: © IT Center

On 13.11.2019, there was a special case of stress: For the first time ever, such large amounts of data were processed and sent over several hours as never before. RWTH Aachen University's network was able to process these data volumes smoothly - despite an enormously high workload without any noticeable impact for the users.

High data transfers successfully mastered on 13.11.2019

Through parallel data transfers of the high performance cluster CLAIX2 and the LHC Computing Grid, a full utilization of the 100Gbps route from Frankfurt to Aachen was achieved several times. The data streams took place over a period of 7 hours.

Good preparation by the IT Center

With the installation of the new CLAIX high-performance computer, such data streams were foreseeable. This led to a sustained optimization of the firewalls and the expansion of RWTH-internal connections. Despite the high capacity utilization, only a slight increase in latencies was observed. This shows that the systems involved still had sufficient capacity to process the data stream.