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Eight networking research teams have had their proposals accepted for the 2013 Internet2 Innovative Application Awards program, giving them a chance to show how software-Defined networking (SDN) can solve the challenges faced by research, education and business networks today.

Given the promise of SDN to make campus networks work better, it's not surprising that some of the proposals focus on higher education challenges like doing a better job of addressing the bring your own device (BYOD) trend and its impact on universities.

Internet2, Juniper Networks, Ciena and Brocade announced the awards at the US Ignite Application Summit.

The selected applications will receive their initial awards to begin developing their open source, end-user applications, with the remainder to be awarded upon completion, in the early fall. The applications will make use of OpenFlow-enabled, SDN capabilities within switches and controllers like those found on the Internet2 Network.

[ A never-ending battle? Read Can Colleges Tame The Bandwidth Monster? ]

The desired outcome of the awards program is to produce examples of new and advanced applications that can help lead the transformation of Internet2 campus research, science and education by taking advantage of SDN and 100G capabilities of the Internet2 Innovation Platform. The program complements application development efforts by US Ignite, an Internet2 affiliate member.

Launched in 2012, the new Internet2 Network is the first open, national-scale 100G network that employs SDN and OpenFlow standards. It includes equipment from Juniper Networks, Ciena, and Brocade, all of them Internet2 industry members.

Here are summaries of the winning proposals:

Application Developer: William J. Brockelsby
Organization: North Carolina State University
Location: Raleigh, N.C.
Project: Network Administration Control -- The application aims to provide an efficient, customized, enriched "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) experience for any campus user or visitor. The user can be securely verified to access the enterprise network, and routed to the most pertinent digital resources based on the user's role, work and/or discipline. For example, a visiting particle physics expert could have their identity and device recognized and immediately routed to the institution's dedicated physics network, cloud and other digital resources.

Application Developer: Mark De Leenheer
Organization: Open Network Laboratory
Location: Palo Alto, Calif.
Project: Netvisor -- Researchers need networking environments that can be molded to meet their demanding requirements. Netvisor is a network virtualization platform that aims to allow each researcher to build discrete virtual networks on a shared physical infrastructure for research collaboration. Each virtual network in the multi-tenant cloud would look and behave just like a physical network, but provide complete control over the address space and topology.

Application Developer: Mo Dong
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Location: Urbana, Ill.
Project: Black Box Congestion Control (BBCC) -- Big data senders are faced with the challenge of efficiently and effectively distributing large data sets among collaborators. BBCC aims to allow individual senders to observe and diagnose changing network conditions, optimize and control network characteristics and meet specific data movement needs.

Application Developer: Rasha El-Jaroudi
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Project: Software Defined Networking-based Application for Efficient Video Streaming -- All network users, especially those without networking expertise, need to reliably stream video content. The application aims to enable seamless video streaming by providing better control through a holistic view of network conditions, a programmable interface to an SDN controller and leveraging content from optimal sources based on the global view of the network in order to reduce bandwidth costs.

Application Developer: Andy Li Xiaolin
Organization: University of Florida
Location: Gainesville, Fla.
Project: Elf: Network-Enhanced Data Prefetching Middleware for Geo-Distributed MapReduce. Geographically distributed scientists need to collaborate with massive amounts of data. MapReduce is a popular programming model for analyzing large data sets generated by experiments. This application aims to provide a solution that enhances the functionality of MapReduce by reserving network bandwidth and performing intelligent data transfers.

Application Developer: Pingping Lin
Organization: Open Network Laboratory
Location: Palo Alto, Calif.
Project: Seamless Interworking of Software Defined Networks and IP -- Collaborators using different types of network architectures need them to reliably interoperate. This application aims to allow Software Defined Networks to interoperate with legacy networks, ensuring successful network collaboration. Utilizing BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), this solution has been implemented and evaluated for feasibility, and is now ready for deployment in production environments.

Application Developer: Muhammad Shabaz
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Project: Software Defined Networking (SDN) for Internet Exchange Points -- Network operators need controller software tailored for inter-domain routing due to the rise of SDN infrastructures at several commercial SDN Internet exchange (SDX) points. This application aims to create an architecture for SDX that can solve a variety of problems for network operators who must rely on BGP by enabling new functions and a richer set of policies than are possible with today's inter-domain routing systems.

Application Developer: Stephen Tredger
Organization: University of Victoria and PlanetWorks LLC
Location: Victoria, B.C.
Project: GENI Experiment Engine (GEE) Infrastructure -- Testing and developing new applications are crucial to advancing network infrastructure, innovating Internet technologies and accelerating scientific discovery through enhanced research collaboration. The GEE aims to radically simplify researchers and educators workflow in using distributed systems to quickly deploy and develop distributed apps that work higher in the stack by using pre allocated dedicated VLANs creating an international network to isolate GEE experiments.

Follow David F. Carr at @davidfcarr or Google+, along with @IWKEducation.