Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
The potential of cloud services
Citation preview
CCOONNNNEECCTTTHE MAGAZINE FROM THE GÉANT COMMUNITY | ISSUE 11 APRIL 2013
GÉANT SUPPORTINGNUCLEAR FUSIONSCIENTISTS IN SEARCHFOR CLEAN ENERGY
DOUBLE AWARD WINS!GÉANT RECEIVES TWO HIGH-PROFILEACCOLADES
INTRODUCTION TO GN3PLUSTHE NEXT STEP FOR GÉANT
THE POTENTIAL OF CLOUD SERVICES
CONTENTS
WELCOME 01
CONNECT NEWS 02
USER FOCUS 05
FEATURE - GN3PLUS 08
FEATURE - CLOUDS 12
FEATURE - FUTURE INTERNET 16
SERVICES 19
GLOBAL NEWS 22
GLOBAL Q&A 25
COMMUNITY NEWS 28
PARTNER PROFILE 30
CONNECT TECHNICAL 31
ABOUT GÉANT 33
CONNECT is the quarterly magazine from the GÉANT community; highlighting key areas of interest, updates on the project and its vital work supporting European research and education. We give insights into the users who depend on the network, and the community that makes GÉANT what it is. We welcome feedback at [email protected]
Published by the GÉANT (GN3plus) project, under the NA2 Communications ActivityTask 1 | Editors: PPaauull MMaauurriiccee ((TTaasskk LLeeaaddeerr)) aanndd TTaammssiinn HHeennddeerrssoonn ((MMaarrkkeettiinngg OOfffificceerr))..
Hyperlinks: CONNECT is produced as a digital magazine also made available in print.To view the digital edition and benefit from hyperlinks to further information, please see:http://connect.geant.net
Subscribe: To subscribe to the digital version, email [email protected] with ‘Digital’ in the subject header | To receive printed copies, please email [email protected] ‘Print’ in the subject header with numbers and postal address.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CONNECT is published on recycled silk stock and is:• 100% FSC recycled pulp• Saving of 25% of KG CO2 per tonne compared to virgin grades• Process chlorine free, made without the use of chlorine chemistry
01
WELCOME TO CONNECT By Editors: Paul Maurice & Tamsin Henderson
WELCOME
Welcome to the Aprilissue of CONNECTmagazine. This issuemarks the start ofGN3plus, the next phasein the development ofGÉANT, the world-classresearch and educationnetwork.
We kick off this stage having justreceived not one, but two fantasticaward wins; Computer Weeklyʼs ʻBest Technologyʼ and an ʻExcellentScienceʼ accolade from the EuropeanCommission. You can read moreabout these and many other excitingnew developments inside; from the
immense job that has been the terabit-capacity network upgrade to how GÉANT is supporting nuclearfusion research in the global search for clean, sustainable energy.
As well as looking at what GN3plus islikely to bring, you can also read abouthow GÉANT will contribute to the futureof the connected world with the FutureInternet Initiative.
As usual we have updates from ourglobal partners and on page 11, weannounce GÉANTʼs first ever Open Call,a €3.3 million funding opportunity formulti-domain network R&D activities.
Enjoy this issue of CONNECT and as always we’d love your [email protected]
WELCOME TO GN3PLUSBy Dorte Olesen, Chair of the GÉANT Assembly
Welcome all to the GN3plusproject. The next two yearsin the GÉANT lifecycleherald new changes acrossthe infrastructure, not justfrom a technological pointof view, but also in terms of governance and rigorous research andinnovation activities.
A focus on service provision, alwayswith our users in mind, is driving thisaugmented effort. We must alwaysremember what the network is here todo, focusing our efforts on developingnot just a world-class network, but a toolthrough which the R&E community canwork to solve some of mankind’sbiggest challenges.
GÉANT is the invisible glue which bindstogether a highly complex andfragmented structure of global researchcommunities, who are increasinglyreliant on each other to communicateand share data between importantscientific projects. Our objective is toconnect researchers across the world,completely unimpeded by geographicallocation or bandwidth restrictions, andto provide an unrivalled service portfoliothat allows them to make the most of theGÉANT network. Therefore we have nowalso created an International UsersAdvisory Committee in GN3plus, acommittee which obviously hasrelevance also for the futuredevelopments beyond this specificproject. This committee will workalongside the External AdvisoryCommittee which was formed duringthe last part of the GN3 project andconsists of members from NRENs inother parts of the world, the HPC andGrid communities, industry anduniversities.
On behalf of GÉANT and its 41partners, I welcome you to learn moreabout our leading-edge network in thefollowing pages. Here you will see howwe are working hard to enable globallysignificant research projects to takeplace; projects which have the potentialto change the face of our world today.
Winners were announced atthe 10th e-InfrastructureConcertation Meeting, held inMarch in Brussels. The meetingwas organised by theEuropean CommissionServices with the support of thee-ScienceTalk project. Its aimwas to bring projects togetherto discuss issues related to thecompletion of the 7thFramework programme and thestart of an e-infrastructuresactivity during Horizon 2020(2014-2020).
EXCELLENT SCIENCEThe objective of the FP7 Success StoryCompetition was to highlight the threebest success stories from the FP7Capacities funding programme in e-Infrastructures.
The Excellent Science categoryshowcased how the project has raisedthe level of excellence in Europe'sscience base, making it an attractivelocation for the world’s bestresearchers. Success stories were usedto highlight examples of how the projectsupported the best ideas, developedtalent within Europe and providedresearchers with access to priorityresearch infrastructure.
DDoorrttee OOlleesseenn,, CChhaaiirr ooff tthhee GGÉÉAANNTTAAsssseemmbbllyy aanndd rreecciippiieenntt ooff tthheeaawwaarrdd oonn bbeehhaallff ooff GGÉÉAANNTT,, ssaaiidd;;"Itʼs very pleasing to receiverecognition for the project. It is a result of the collaborationof so many talented anddedicated people all overEurope, all with a shared visionof providing the most advancednetwork and associatedservices. Being selected as awinner of such a prestigiousaward is testament to thatshared vision and effort."
02
CONNECT NEWS
EUROPEAN COMMISSIONAWARDS EXCELLENT SCIENCEPRIZE TO GÉANTGÉANT has received first prize in the Excellent Science category for its entry ‘Driving technology across the digital divide’.
Kostas Glinos, European Commission, presents award to Dorte Olesen.
STAYING AHEAD OF THE DATA DELUGEBy Marian Garcia-Vidondo, Chief Operations Officer, DANTE
GÉANT 100GBPS NETWORK UPGRADE UPDATE
The upgrade of the GÉANTinfrastructure is due forcompletion in June 2013,delivering speed andbandwidth above and beyondcurrent requirements. Offeringindividual users data transferspeeds of 100Gbps, andsupporting up to 2Tbps(terabits per second)capacity, this effectively futureproofs the network to supportresearch and education datarequirements until 2020.
The upgrade began in earnest last yearafter DANTE awarded contracts toImtech/Juniper Networks and Infinera tobuild the next generation of GÉANT, thepan-European research networkinfrastructure.
Juniper is the supplier of the MX seriesUniversal routers with 100Gbpscapability. This infrastructure isunderpinned by Infinera’s latest DTN-Xoptical transmission platform designedto provide 500Gbps super-channelsacross long-haul distances.
GÉANTPLUS SERVICES FOR ALL NRENSThe Juniper implementation started inJuly 2012 and DANTE has sincedeployed 35 Juniper MXs in 24European Points of Presence (PoPs), all the way from Moscow to Lisbon. With this platform all the NationalResearch and Education Networks(NRENs) will have access toGÉANTPlus services.
The GÉANTPlus services provide point to point Ethernet circuitsconfigured either statically ordynamically using Bandwidth onDemand (BoD). They offer the flexibility, reachability (with servicesextending to the US and other worldregions) and quality that major projects require.
The roll out of the Infinera platformbegan in September 2012 and DANTE has since completed theinstallation of 15 main sites, whereservices are handed over to the NRENs, 77 In line Amplifiers sites (ILAs) and over 4,261 km of networkinfrastructure (8,592 km of actual fibre).
Infinera switching equipment:• Yellow fibres 10Gigabit traffic• Blue fibres 100Gigabit traffic• Red fibres 500Gigabit traffic
A SCALABLE NETWORKWith the new Infinera platform, DANTEand the GÉANT community are buildingthe network of the future. The nextgeneration of GÉANT is scalable andcapable of fulfilling the growingcapacity demands of the researchcommunity, able to rapidly provision100Gbps wavelengths and multiplexinglower rates of, for example 10Gbpsusing OTN (Optical Transport Network)technology.
Quality is also key to delivering criticaldata, such as that produced by theCERN experiments. With robustmanagement and the expertise of theGÉANT Network Operations Centre, the network will continue to provide theoutstanding levels of availability thatGÉANT is known for. Together withNIFF/Hungarnet, GÉANT delivered itsfirst 100Gbps connection for CERN’sLHC project in December 2012.
With the roll out due for completion inJune 2013 we are on track to deliveringthis major investment in globalnetworking technology. It is an excitingproject which supports the importantwork of the European researchcommunity.
03
CONNECT NEWS
04
CONNECT NEWS
DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology toEurope) has been awarded ‘Best Technology Innovation’for the research and education network GÉANT, in the 2013 Computer Weekly European Awards.
The GÉANT project wasrecognised for its far-sighted approach tohandling the sky-rocketinggrowth in data generatedby European science andinnovation. Employingworld class solutions usingInfinera’s new DTN-Xplatform to meet the ever-expanding requirements forhigher speed transmissionto support this ‘datadeluge’, GÉANT is able toprovide highly resilientterabit networking aboveand beyond currentrequirements.
With capacity to handlecontinued growth in datavolumes, GÉANT is continuing totransform the way researcherscollaborate, supporting researchprojects that deliver real societalbenefit in a variety of researchdisciplines such as climatechange, fuel and food sourcesand security, medicine andhealthcare.
Computer Weekly judges said:“Being able to deal with the vastvolumes of data involved in real(or near real) time requires solidtechnology and differentapproaches. The project does agreat job of dealing withtomorrow’s problems.”
MMiicchhaaeell EEnnrriiccoo,, CChhiieeff TTeecchhnnoollooggyyOOfffificceerr,, DDAANNTTEE ssaaiidd::
“It is crucial that the GÉANTnetwork has the bandwidth tosupport the growing data needsof our users. Our currentupgrade to 500Gbps (gigabitsper second) involves refreshing50,000km of cabling andreplacing all existing equipmentwith the latest transmission andswitching technology. No meanfeat. Itʼs fantastic that ourendeavours have beenacknowledged by the ComputerWeekly European Awards and weare always pleased when thepotential impact of R&Enetworks on global science andinnovation is recognised.”
DANTE WINS BEST TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONAWARD FOR GÉANT NETWORK
05
USER FOCUS
GÉANT PAVES DATA HIGHWAY FOR NUCLEAR FUSION ENERGY RESEARCHHIGH-SPEED NETWORK ESSENTIAL LINK INSEARCH FOR CLEAN, SUSTAINABLE ENERGYFinding clean, sustainable energy is one of the biggest challenges facing societytoday. As we scramble for fossil fuel alternatives, energy related emissions stillaccount for an unprecedented percentage of greenhouse gas emissions, a majorcause of global warming. With the future of our grandchildren in mind, Europe and the rest of the world is placing innovative alternative energy at the top of the research agenda.
06
There are several promising emergingenergy technologies, with opinionleaning towards nuclear fusion.Considered by many as safe andenvironmentally friendly; on paper itsounds like the perfect energy source.Nuclear fusion could be a real carbon-free energy option for the future, with noradioactive waste or greenhouse gasemissions. The problem is that thispromising potential is a very difficulttheory top put into practice. But why is this?
What is nuclear fusion?Nuclear fusion is effectively recreating thesame process that powers the sun and thestars. The world’s fusion scientists areworking to develop the same process, by fusing together light atoms, such ashydrogen, at extremely high pressuresand temperatures – hence the termnuclear fusion.
Gas from a combination of types ofhydrogen is heated to 100 million degreesCelsius via one method called ‘magneticconfinement' – controlling the hot gas(known as a plasma) with strong magnets.A device for this is the ‘tokamak'(pictured), Russian for a ring-shapedmagnetic chamber.
The results of this technology could oneday fuel the power stations of tomorrow.
Data driven scienceData driven research such as this requiresthe combined processing power ofpowerful, multiple computers to store,analyse and share scientific data betweenthe many researchers workingcollaboratively worldwide.
High-speed networks provide the essentiallink to support this massive globalprocessing power. GÉANT is now pavingthe data highway in the search for nuclear
fusion energy research with a 10Gbps linkto the International Fusion Energy ResearchCentre (IFERC), in Rokkasho, Japan.
IFERC hosts the Helios supercomputer, asystem with a compute power exceeding1 PFlops and attached to a storagecapacity of 50 PB. It is provided andoperated by the French AlternativeEnergies and Atomic Energy Commission(CEA), France and is a Fusion for Energy(F4E) resource.
Industrial demonstrationfusion reactorGÉANT’s link connects Helios withscientists involved in ITER (a large-scalescientific experiment that aims todemonstrate that it is possible to producecommercial energy from fusion) andDEMO (the demonstration fusion reactor),follow-on project of ITER. It is hoped thatthe first fusion plasmas will be generatedby 2020, at ITER in Cadarache, France.Once achieved, the DEMO project willhopefully lead to full-scale fusion energyproduction, which will reach the commercialmarket in the second half of the century.
Massive data sets“The combination of major new scientificprojects like IFERC and the use ofsupercomputers like Helios is creating anexplosion of data for which we need to beready. GÉANT’s link is a first and crucialstep to supporting the data networkingneeds in the global search for cleaner,sustainable energy and to assist scientistsin their ground-breaking work.” Roberto Sabatino, GÉANT BusinessSolutions Consultant.
Via SINET, a Japanese National Researchand Education Network (NREN), IFERC isconnected to the GÉANT network andEuropean NRENs, like RENATER, DFN,SWITCH, Janet and many others, togethersupporting the research activities forfusion in Europe.
Europe’s vision for sustainable energyITER is funded and run by seveninternational parties – Europe (contributing45% of the cost), India, Japan, China,Russia, South Korea and the US. DEMOstudies are carried out by individual ITERmembers, and in the case of Japan andEurope, jointly in the IFERC, in theframework of the Broader ApproachAgreement. The investment is in line withthe EU Horizon 2020 focus to find newsolutions to societal challenges, includingto secure clean and efficient energy. (This is just one of the aims.) GÉANT is an essential component in drivingEuropean ICT.
“Helios users are running codes rangingfrom fundamental physics in hot ITERplasmas to technology and engineeringcalculations so as to build components invery challenging environments asexpected in DEMO. Supercomputers arecrucial in solving these complex problemsand good data communication channelssuch as the high-speed GÉANT networkcan provide the essential links to helpscientists all over the world to analyse theirfindings. Ultimately, all these initiatives willbring us a step closer to fusion as apotential energy source” Susana Clement Lorenzo, F4E GroupLeader for IFERC
Big science reliant on high-speed networksIFERC joins many other big scienceprojects supported by GÉANT, which arechanging the way the world collaborates.For example, CERN's Large HadronCollider, societal research addressingclimate change, disease diagnosis andfood security.
Further info on F4E:http://fusionforenergy.europa.eu
USER FOCUS
Helios supercomputer - Bull copyright.
Tokamak magnetic chamber
07
CONNECT NEWS
FINAL REPORT FROM ASPIRE FORESIGHT STUDY PUBLISHEDBy Cora Van den Bossche, Communications Officer,TERENA
GÉANT AT TNC 2013
ASPIRE (A Study on theProspects of the Internet forResearch and Education)provides strategicrecommendations to policyand decision makers on topicslikely to have a significantimpact for the future ofresearch and education (R&E)networking: the adoption ofcloud services; the integrationof mobile services into nationalR&E networking organisations’(NRENs) service portfolios;middleware and managingdata and knowledge in a data-rich world; the future role ofNRENs.
The report recommends that the futuredevelopment of R&E networkingcapitalises on the wealth of experienceand knowledge acquired by NRENs and
GÉANT to date. Disseminating technicaland managerial expertise more widelywould support community building.
Many services traditionally delivered byNRENs are now available on themarketplace. The community shouldtherefore collaborate with commercialpartners to jointly deliver these services.
The community must lead the way onidentity federation policy and systems, afield where NRENs excel. Thisleadership role is also relevant indeveloping integrated mass mobileconnectivity.
Another goal is to reduce the currentgovernance complexity. The communityshould expand to include all otherpublicly funded users. A revised, morestreamlined governance model shouldbe implemented, based on theReykjavik Group‘s recommendations.
ASPIRE was led by TERENA (Trans-European Research and EducationNetworking Association) as part of theGÉANT project. The final report and
four topic reports can be downloadedfrom the TERENA website –www.terena.org/publications. Print copies can be ordered from theTERENA Secretariat :[email protected].
GÉANT is looking forward to its an-nual participation at TNC, this yearhosted by SURFnet in Maastricht, 3-6 June 2013.
The GÉANT panel on “Innovation inthe Balance” looks set to cause abit of a stir. Experts from across thecommunity are getting ready for alively debate to examine howinnovation can be best achievedwithin the GÉANT project - throughcollaborative research programmesor by going it alone?
Don't miss joining in - Wednesday 5 June, 14.00 – 15.30, in Alfa.
GÉANT will also have an exhibitionbooth with demos and informationon the latest services andtechnology developments, including the chance to see the Infinera technology that the new GÉANT 100Gbps network is built upon.
https://tnc2013.terena.org/
08
FEATURE - GN3PLUS
FEATURE:GN3PLUS – NEXT STEP FOR THEWORLD’S LEADING RESEARCHAND EDUCATION NETWORK
09
The independent EC review of GN3 willtake place later this year. Keep an eyeout in future issues of CONNECT whichwill highlight the achievements andlessons learned from the project to date.
For now, we would like to welcome youto GN3plus, which began on 1 April2013. This latest iteration of the projectwill embrace many emergingtechnology and application areas,including cloud services, mobility, test-beds, and Federation-as-a-service.
Seen as playing a vital role in securingEurope’s prosperous future, GÉANTaims to reinforce its status as the unifiedEuropean Communications Commons.
FEATURE - GN3PLUS
Key Facts GN3plus
Start date April 1 2013
Duration 24 months
Total budget €84,283,018
EC contribution €41,800,000
Participants 250+
41 Project Partners: 38 NRENs, DANTE, TERENA, NORDUnet (representing 5 Nordic countries)
By driving knowledge creation andinnovation, GN3plus will position GÉANTas the global hub for research networkingexcellence tomorrow and beyond.
GN3plus aims to:
• Deliver excellent networking services, at the highest levels of operational excellence, to research and education communities, building on GN3’s success.
• Support the growth of R&E communities within Europe in both breadth and depth, and expose them to talent elsewhere, providing opportunities to meet across the divides of resources and distance and in so doing transform the way research is done.
• Innovate to meet the needs of the community, and act as a catalyst to translate this into a competitive European ICT sector.
• Research, collect and share knowledge about network technologies and services through cooperation and community collaboration.
INNOVATIVE SERVICEPROVISIONGN3plus will deliver fast and efficientprovisioning of advanced services.From developing operational supportacross management domains, toenhancing security, service integrity andprotection of network resources.
Complemented by the development ofapplication services in a federatedenvironment, these initiatives willinclude mobile and wireless roaming,and supported Authentication andAuthorisation Infrastructure (AAI) meta-service environments forindividuals in the R&E community.
THE JOINT RESEARCHACTIVITIES - DRIVINGINNOVATIONThe Joint Research Activities (known as“JRAs”) will focus on investigating newtechnologies and service trends, whichwill influence the future development ofnetworking services required by theglobal R&E community.
Research into service provisioning andmanagement will give users enhancedcontrol over the network and servicestack. This will include very activeparticipation in globalinteroperability/standardisationdevelopments. For instance; SoftwareDefined Networking (SDN),virtualisation, Network-as-a-Service(NaaS) and Networking StandardsInterface (NSI). These will contribute to international initiatives, such as theInternational Network Development and Deployment Initiative (iNDDI) and OpenNaaS.
Over the last four years, GÉANThas delivered a strong portfolio ofservices and products to theresearch and education community.This phase - GN3 - ran from 1 April2009 to 31 March 2013.
Achievements to date include; anew terabit network providing100Gbps bandwidth to 38European National Research andEducation Networks; a portfolio ofservices to enhance userexperience, increased geographicalreach and improved industrycollaboration. In combination, theseoffer a world-class infrastructure,which is influencing globalstandards in networking.
GN3plus is the next phase in thelifecycle of GÉANT and takes theinfrastructure one-step further. With a two-year programme ofconcentrated effort on innovationand user needs, GN3plus is anambitious expansion of GN3ʼssuccessful output, with intensifiedfocus and new developments, suchas GÉANT's first Open Call.
10
FEATURE: GN3PLUS
GN3plus aims to spearheadtechnological innovation, developingnew products and services throughrequirements-based R&D, with theOpen Calls and Public PrivatePartnerships potentially presenting new opportunities to work with industry and academia.
THE SERVICE ACTIVITIES –SUPPORTING USER NEEDS In order to better support the users’needs, the project will build on theGÉANT “eco-system” throughdevelopment and delivery of a world-class networking service portfolio.
Through the Service Activities (knownas “SAs”), the GÉANT portfolio willexpand to include new areas of value to the R&E community, encompassingflexible connectivity options and test-bed facilities across the network. This will offer robust support andperformance expertise; and advancedAAI, cloud and mobility services, to give end users, their projects andinstitutions secure access to thenetwork, with the resources they need.
THE NETWORKINGACTIVITIES – EXTENDINGOUTREACH ANDFOSTERING PARTNERSHIPSThe Networking Activities (known withinthe project as “NAs”) will providemanagement and targeted outreachsupport for all GN3plus activities,including internal and externalcommunications, product marketingand business development iniatives.
HELPING USERS CHANGETHE WORLD Together with Europe’s NRENs, GÉANTreaches over 50 million users in over10,000 institutions across Europe,including universities, higher educationinstitutes, research institutes, libraries,museums, and hospitals. The networkalso connects primary and secondaryschools in many European countries. In addition, via extensive global links,GÉANT reaches a further 65 NRENsbeyond Europe.
Nearly all scientific disciplines are nowgenerating an ever-increasing volume ofdata in their research. The 100GbpsGÉANT network - due for completion in
June - will be vital to support this datadeluge. Global scientific collaborationsrely on new database and analysis toolsand instruments, supporting everyaspect of scientific research in physics,astronomy, biology and more.
COLLABORATION AT HEARTOF GÉANT SUCCESSPraised for its collaborative approach,the success of GÉANT so far is thanksto the close working relationships of itspartners, and the teamwork within andbetween the Activities. GÉANT remainsa complex and large project; with over250 participants from 41 partnersworking in one of fourteen Activities.These cover ‘Support to Clouds’,‘Network Architectures for Horizon 2020’and ‘International & BusinessDevelopment’ amongst others. And, aspart of the new Open Calls initiative,GÉANT will also be working moreclosely with industry.
Collaboration is the cornerstone ofGÉANT, delivering high bandwidth andflexible, secure networking services toresearch communities across Europe - and increasingly beyond.
11
€3.3 MILLION EUROPEAN COMMISSION FUNDINGFOR MULTI-DOMAIN NETWORK R&D ACTIVITIESOn April 1, GÉANT issued its first competitive Open Call for additional beneficiaries to carry out Multi-Domain Network Research and Development activities.
FIRST GÉANT OPEN CALL ANNOUNCED
ENABLING INNOVATION
The GÉANT Open Calls arestructured around three key themes:
• Theme 1: Research and Technological Development (RTD) users/use cases/projects to make use of existing GÉANT production and experimental network facilities.
• Theme 2: Self-contained utility packages of work that can be used by the on-going RTD work programmes in GN3plus.
• Theme 3: RTD to promote, develop and demonstrate Innovation in a Multi-Domain Research and Education Networking Environment.
Activities will be partly funded ratherthan fully funded, in alignment withthe funding schema defined for
research activities by the EuropeanCommission (up to 75% of direct costs).
Full details of how to submit a proposal can be found at:http://www.geant.net/opencalls. The deadline for submissions is 29 May, 2013.
ENABLING BETTER ANDFASTER COLLABORATION
GÉANT’s role is seen as vital toboosting Europe’s competitivenessby enabling better and fastercollaboration between researchteams worldwide. The GÉANTnetwork provides the essentialbandwidth to support all scientificdisciplines, such as thoseaddressing societal challengessuch as ageing populations,disease diagnosis and climatechange, to big science projectssuch as high-energy physics anddeep space research.
CONNECT NEWS
“In order to meet the needs ofthe R&E community we mustmaintain excellence ininnovation. Our first Open Call opportunity reflects ourcommitment to GÉANTʼs usersand our vision for GN3plus. The goal for which is to driveknowledge creation and learning in Europe, by delivering world-classconnectivity and services.
We are appealing to the best and brightest minds. We hope to hear from partners with early-stage research projectsthat could lead to breakthroughnetworking technologies. This isa fantastic opportunity to workwith the world-class GÉANTnetwork and help promote theunimpeded movement ofscientific knowledge.”
DANTE CTO, Michael Enrico
12
TOWARDS THE CLOUDS, TOGETHER
CLOUD SERVICES AND GÉANTBy Karl Meyer, Product Marketing and Communications Officer, DANTE
FEATURE - CLOUD SERVICES
Cloud computing and cloud services in particular, offer the research andeducation (R&E) sector huge opportunities to both maximise effectivenessand reduce the capital investment and development time for projects.
13
Cloud Services offer the R&Ecommunity a number of key benefits:
• Reduced capital costs• Reduced support costs• The ability to leverage purchasing
power across the community• Easier remote access for
collaborative projects and users• Scalability
By utilising shared and off-the-shelfservices for commodity activities, theR&E community can refocus its design,development and support resourcesinto fields that cannot be easilyprovided by the commercial sector.
CLOUD SERVICES AND THE R&ECOMMUNITYIn recognition of the huge potentialbenefits of cloud services to the R&Ecommunity and the need for acoordinated approach, GÉANT hasstarted a major new service activity,Support to Clouds. This service aims tohelp National Research and EducationNetworks (NRENs) to bring cloudservices to their users.
GÉANT will help the community toselect, purchase and manage cloudservices with the right conditions of use; amongst them topics likeinteroperability, data portability,security and privacy.
The activity works with NREN partnersto identify existing successful cloudservices (either built by the NRENs orbrokered for their national audience)and scale these up to the widerEuropean community.
In addition, GÉANT will work withestablished and emerging commercialoperators to find the best way to offertheir services to the community. To reachthese goals, the Clouds service containsspecific tasks dealing with cloud strategy;cloud standards and interoperability;cloud brokerage and vendormanagement and cloud integration.
To help NRENs achieve the benefits ofcloud services the Cloud team will focus on the following five areas:
• Cloud strategy: developing a common strategy based on communityrequirements, shared principles and values; knowledge dissemination and information exchange.
• Cloud standards and interoperability: creating policies, rules and best-practices to establish standards and help ensure interoperability and effectiveness.
• Cloud brokerage and vendor management: by aggregating demand across the community and negotiating integrated brokerage and service delivery (framework contracts, terms and conditions of use) NRENs will be able to get the best possible value from cloud services.
FEATURE - CLOUD SERVICES
• Cloud integration: Cloud services radically change the data requirements of users and ensuring consistent performance and reliability will require enhancing the integration between GÉANT and the NRENs
• Mobile data service: the combination of mobile access and cloud services offers huge opportunities and so Support to Clouds will have an area of work targeted at providing mobile data network capabilities to GÉANT and NRENs, which suit the needs of education and research.
MEET THE CLOUD SERVICES ACTIVITYLEADER - ANDRES STEIJAERTAndres Steijaert is the activity leaders for the GÉANT Support to Clouds Activity.At SURFnet, as member of the SURFnet-taskforce Cloud, he initiated and directed the cloud brokerage and vendor management activities. Previously he worked as program manager on the development of the SURFconextcollaboration infrastructure; a middleware framework which interconnects cloud vendors and higher education organisations in the Netherlands. Andres is a frequent speaker on cloud computing.
Many NRENs are already offering valuable services using Cloud providers. SUNET in Swedenhas successfully integrated Box (www.box.com) into its offerings to provide a simple to useCloud Storage service to staff and researchers. By linking Box to SWAMID (the identityfederation for higher education in Sweden) the creation and management of accounts is greatly simplified and allows for easier control. By February 2013, SUNET had 17 organisations,with nearly 5000 users and approximately 9TByte of stored data using the service.
14
ANNOUNCING OPENFLOWCOMPETITION RESULTSGÉANT OpenFlow is the next generation of Software-Defined-Networking(SDN) for improved performance and flexibility. The OpenFlow testbedallows network configurations at the software level allowing users tovirtualise the core infrastructure. Researchers can now experiment withnew communications protocols across a high capacity internationalnetwork with a dedicated "slice" of the network.
In April, GÉANT gave a demo at theOpen Networking Summit 2013 (ONS2013) in Santa Clara, one of the mostrecognisable SDN/OpenFlow eventsglobally. Created by the founders ofSDN it is a non-profit summit whichshares and explores keydevelopments and deployments inOpenFlow/SDN activities.
The demo featured GÉANT’sOpenFlow provisioning capabilities,and the research results of the MTA-BME Future Internet Research Group(winners of the OpenFlowcompetition).
Audiences at the event were takenthrough the visualised impact on TCPtraffic when traditional resiliencemechanisms are enabled (at theoptical and IP layer) and able tocompare it with the performanceachieved when path diversity andOpenFlow-directed flow routing acrossGÉANT PoPs are introduced.
The demo provided a show-case forhow researchers can benefit from a real-world OpenFlow-enabled facility in real
time and how its capabilities can be steered to leverage research inwide-area environments.
GÉANT OPENFLOW AT OPEN NETWORKING SUMMIT 2013
A competition to find the first user projectwas launched earlier in the year. Entries covered everything from FutureInternet to OpenFlow technology researchand development, and originated from awide range of academic research teams,as well as National Research andEducation Networks (NRENs).
In February, MTA-BME Future InternetResearch Group in the Budapest Universityof Technology and Economics (Departmentof Telecommunications and MediaInformatics) were announced as the winners.
The team has an extensive track record of scientific achievements ininternet architectures and networkmanagement. They will be usingOpenFlow to research network resiliency at the transport layer, utilising the capabilities of the testbed to provide edge-disjoint routes on top of a network core. The research aims to eliminate concurrent resiliencymechanisms at the physical, transport and network layer and associatedcomplexities/costs.
The facility provides a particularly goodexample of how to exploit the uniquecapabilities of OpenFlow by providing arealistic environment to measure resiliencemechanisms and convergence times.
The outline results of the MTA-BME workwill be published in a later edition ofCONNECT.
More information on the competition:http://www.geant.net/Pages/openflow_competition.aspx
CONNECT NEWS
15
GÉANT AND PARTNERS TO BUILDWORLD’S FIRST 100G INTERCONTINENTALTRANSMISSION LINKS FOR RESEARCHAND EDUCATION COMMUNITYPioneers invite commercial sector and others to advance global networks
On 24 April, it was announced that six ofthe world’s leading research andeducation (R&E) networks intend to buildthe world’s first 100 gigabits-per-second(Gbps) intercontinental transmission linksfor research and education.
Leaders from Internet2 (USA),]NORDUnet, (Nordic countries), ESnet(U.S. Department of Energy), SURFnet(Netherlands), CANARIE (Canada), andGÉANT (Europe) made the announcementat the 2013 Internet2 Annual Meetingbefore 800 technology, education andresearch leaders.
They will create a public-privatepartnership with the commercial sector,such as equipment vendors and carriersactive in the North Atlantic, to advanceglobal networks for research andeducation.
National research and education networks(NRENs) and their constituencies fromaround the world are invited to participatein the project, titled the “Advanced North
Atlantic 100G Pilot” or ANA-100G. Thegoal is to stimulate the market for 100Gbps intercontinental networking and toadvance global networks and applicationsto benefit research and education.
In the past year, many NRENs around theworld have upgraded to 100 Gbpstransmission speeds. But until now,intercontinental network links have notfollowed suit. ANA-100G will acceleratediscovery in data-intensive sciencedisciplines such as high-energy physics,radio astronomy and genomics, as well asspur development of revolutionary newnetworking applications and architectures.
The six leaders will test the newtransmission links, applications,resources, monitoring techniques andadvanced technologies such as software-defined networking, between as many as four open exchange points,including MAN LAN in New York City andNetherLight in Amsterdam. These effortswill help determine the operationalrequirements needed to effectively run
100 Gbps wavelengths between NorthAmerica and Europe.
DANTE Joint General Managers MatthewScott and Niels Hersoug commented onbehalf of GÉANT,
“We welcome this opportunity tocollaborate in trialing 100 Gbps capacityacross the Atlantic and support our NRENpartners and their users. As R&Ecollaboration becomes increasingly global the huge increases in transatlanticdata transport requirements mean that it isnot sustainable operationally to continueat multiple 10Gbps connections.
It is imperative that R&E networks worktogether – and quickly – to push theenvelope of networking technology anddeliver economies of scale as well asseamless global connectivity.”
Read the full story: http://www.geant.net/MediaCentreEvents/news/Pages/first-transatlantic-link.aspx
CONNECT NEWS
16
THE FUTURE INTERNET INITIATIVEDRIVING THE FUTURE OF THE CONNECTED WORLD
FEATURE - FUTURE INTERNET
Over the past 20 years, the internet has provided a sea-change in the way thatthe majority of Europeanswork, connect andcollaborate.
From the early days of dial-up modemsand connection speeds of less than5Kbps to the current generation ofalways-on, multi-megabit, mobileenabled connectivity; the internet isvirtually un-recognisable.
As the technologies have developed,the networks and the applications havechanged radically. As the number oftablets, smartphones and, mostimportantly, semi-autonomous wirelessdevices grows, the number of systemsconnected to the internet is greater thanthe number of people on the planet.
17
As the volume of data and devices onthe internet increases rapidly, there is aneed to investigate new networkingparadigms to support them. Testingnew protocols and software under highcapacity and high bandwidth conditionsis extremely difficult and expensive, so“virtual network” testbeds are crucial.
The FEDERICA project (Federated E-infrastructure Dedicated to EuropeanResearchers Innovating in Computingnetwork Architectures) is a two-and-a-half-year European project toimplement an experimental networkinfrastructure for trialling newnetworking technologies.
By creating a “technology agnostic”infrastructure, FEDERICA is based uponGigabit Ethernet circuits, featuringtransmission equipment and computingnodes capable of virtualisation. Thisallows users to host experimentalactivities on new internet architecturesand protocols.
The network runs across the multi-gigabit GÉANT network. Circuits areterminated in Points of Presence (PoPs)of the participating NRENs, which hostFEDERICA nodes capable of virtualisinghosts, e.g. open source routers and end nodes.
Virtual slices of FEDERICAʼsinfrastructure can be allocated to for testing, even with disruptiveexperiments within a large productionsubstrate. Internal project research is focused on understanding andproducing initial solutions formonitoring, management and controlof parallel virtual networks in a multi-domain environment.
For more information, go tohttp://www.fp7-federica.eu/
GÉANT AND THE NRENS HELPING TO DEFINE THE NEXT GENERATION OF NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES
The European Commission (EC) predictsthat by 2015 there will be 25 billionwirelessly connected devices globally –more than three devices for every person.By the end of 2012, Cisco estimated thedata volumes from all these devicesreached 885 petabytes (885 milliongigabytes) per month.
This increase in user numbers and datavolumes is anticipated to escalate asnewer technologies arrive. The so-calledInternet-of-Things (IoT) will drive a largeproportion of this growth which will seemore and more autonomous devicesconnected to the internet. These rangefrom traffic lights and bus stop signs,through to stress sensors on buildings,bridges and wind turbines. These deviceswill report on their status and theirsurroundings, managing many aspects of the environment without humaninteraction.
So how can the technologies that createdthe first public internet cope with such a
huge increase in user numbers and dataspeeds and volumes?
In an ‘always on’ world with multi-megabitconnectivity, and a proliferation of wiredand wireless infrastructures, how can anetwork designed around error prone dial-up analogue phone lines cope?
This is where the Future Internet Initiativecomes in. FII is an umbrella activity whichencompasses a range of projects fundedby the EC under the Seventh FrameworkProgramme (FP7). It aims to bring togetherpublic and private organisations acrossEurope on a wide range of activitiesranging across all aspects of the FutureInternet. From development of smartsensors in the healthcare sector to largescale projects investigating the shape ofnetworking technologies (such asOpenFlow), FII projects cover the fullspectrum of usage and technology.
The issues facing the internet are huge – from simple IP addressing and data
bandwidth through to the need to allow allthese diverse devices to interact andinteroperate securely and reliably. Theparticipants in the FII have the jointchallenges of finding solutions totomorrow’s requirements whilst building astructure that has the flexibility to copewith the unknown future direction of the internet.
In total there are 43 separate projectsworking under the FII banner with 47universities and research institutesparticipating alongside 105 otherorganisations. Nearly a third of thefacilities are based within universities orresearch institutes, with the remainder inCommercial or Government facilities. Justas researchers within CERN are widelycredited with inventing the WorldWideWeb,the new technologies that will power theFuture Internet may emerge from theseEuropean projects.
Both GÉANT and the NRENs have theopportunity to contribute hugely to theFuture Internet Initiative both at thepractical level, providing the infrastructurefor universities and institutes tocollaborate; and through the developmentof testbeds such as OpenFlow, a platformto test out these exciting new technologies.
In future issues of CONNECT we'll belooking at how the FII is developing withinsights into the shape of the Internet to come.
For more information on the Future Internet Initiative go to http://www.future-internet.eu/
FEATURE - FUTURE INTERNET
Growth of Internet Connected Devices - Source CISCO
18
NEW LOOK FOR GÉANT WEBSITE
BRIGHTER,FRESHER ANDEASIER TONAVIGATE; THE NEW GÉANT WEBSITEIS HERE!
Updated to coincide withGN3plus, the GÉANT website is agreat place to learn more aboutthe network and how it helps over 50 million users at 10,000institutions across Europe.
Check back regularly for up-to-date GÉANT news andevents, services, case studies and the digital version ofCONNECT magazine.
www.geant.net
CONNECT NEWS
eduGAINHELPING TO CONNECTRESEARCHERS WITH THEIR SERVICESBy Brook Schofield, eduGAIN Task Leader
19
The GÉANT Data Protection Code ofConduct has been developed tomeet the Data Protection Directiveʼsrequirements in the context of inter-federated identitymanagement. It balances the risk ofinformation sharing and the easewith which it enables collaboration.The Code defines behavioural rulesfor Service Providers that want to
receive enhanced user information,and gives confidence to identity-providing organisations about theuse of their usersʼ information.
The policy and technicalrequirements needed to support theCode of Conduct are being validatedthrough a public consultation andproof-of-concept pilot that involves a
multi-national team of federationsand CLARIN -a pan-Europeanresearch infrastructure project.
Work continues to have this Codeof Conduct validated by thenecessary data protection workinggroups and to expand the Codeʼscoverage to a global audience.
GÉANT DATA PROTECTION CODE OF CONDUCT
SERVICES
Students and researchers need accessto research and education (R&E) servicesand content hosted across manycountries in Europe and beyond. TheGÉANT eduGAIN inter-federation serviceenables easier access to resources bybringing together the identity federationsof participating NRENs and helping toovercome barriers between their differingAuthentication and AuthorisationInfrastructures (AAI), with which theyvalidate users.
When a user accesses an online serviceusing their trusted ‘federated’ identity,the service requires some informationabout the user and whether the R&Einstitution that provided his identityauthenticates him as a trusted user. To support their access controlrequirements, some services requireonly simple information, such as the factthat the user is a student, while othersneed more information, for example tobe able to personalise the service.
By processing a user’s personal data, a service is subject to theEuropean Union’s Data ProtectionDirective.
The challenge for an identity-providingorganisation is to ensure that its users’data is sufficiently controlled andprotected. The R&E community’sfederated environment is too vast tosupport bilateral agreements betweenorganisations across differentfederations.
To help organisations and studentssimplify authentication and accesseduGAIN offers a service that allowsparticipating identity and serviceproviders to co-operate easily andsecurely.
EDUGAIN VIDEOHIGHLIGHTSBENEFITSTo help identity federations highlight thebenefits of inter-federating througheduGAIN, a promotional video has beencreated for them to re-brand and use toencourage Service Providers andidentity-providing institutions to join. It emphasises the collaborative natureof inter-federation through eduGAIN and the agreements that underpin the service.
The video can be viewed here:http://edugain.geant.net
20
In an era of increasing collaboration, the need for students and researchers to communicate with each otheris growing dramatically. Videoconferencing offers the ability to arrange meetings quickly and easily withoutthe time and expense of travelling from site to site.
To support this growing need for videoconferencing, GÉANT has developed the eduCONF service.eduCONF promotes higher quality video-conference experience within the academic world by providing aset of services and tools for NRENs, Institutions and end users. The aim of eduCONF is to provide userswith confidence that they can find a video-conferencing facility that will work for them on the first attemptand without the need for expensive IT support. EduCONF certifies NRENs and rooms to assure quality andprovides a directory to help users find a nearby room quickly and easily.
For more information on the eduCONFservice or to find a room visithttp://eduCONF.geant.net
SERVICES
In order to experience eduCONFbenefits, NRENs must follow thecertification Program and certificate their VideoconferenceServices and Infra-structure. Thiswill enable NRENs to certify roomswithin the country and providequality service to the research and education community.
The eduCONF team has developed aset of tools to help NREN VCManagers and Room Managers todiagnose and handle commonproblems. Once registered, you willbe able to access a range ofdiagnosis, monitoring andconfiguration tools to enhance the
service to users. These tools provideearly alerts, infrastructure status andcreating statistics about reliabilityand usage. This gives NRENs muchmore information about the servicethey provide to help support anddevelopment of the service.
December saw the start ofcertification in AMRES, CARNet,FCCN and PSCN and the moreNRENs that join the greater the valueand benefits that users will see. Formore information on the benefits ofeduCONF and how to get your NRENcertified, visit eduCONF.geant.net.
BEING PART OF EDUCONF – GET CONNECTED
eduCONFEXPANDING REACH WITHVIDEO
“An important task for an NRENlike us is to provide our usercommunity with the new toolswhich are at the forefront oftechnology and make a realdifference to their work.eduCONF offers newopportunities and maximizes thereturn on our investment inVideo conference facilities”.
TTiimm BBoouunnddyy;; AApppplliiccaattiioonnssDDeevveellooppmmeenntt TTeeaamm MMaannaaggeerr,, JJaanneett
*depending on equipment available
21
CANARIECanada’s advancedresearch andinnovation network www.canarie.ca
ESnetThe Energy Sciences Network www.es.net
ORIENT plusLinking European andChinese Infrastructuresand Communities http://www.orientplus.eu
CARENCentral Asian Researchand Education Networkwww.caren.dante.net
HP-SEEHigh-PerformanceComputing Infrastructurefor South East Europe’sResearch Communitieswww.hp-see.eu
EUMEDCONNECT3Southern and EasternMediterranean researchnetworking www.eumedconnect3.net
Internet2®RReesseeaarrcchh aannddeedduuccaattiioonnccoonnnneeccttiivviittyy ffoorr UUSSuunniivveerrssiittiieesswww.internet2.edu
RedCLARA TThhee LLaattiinn AAmmeerriiccaannRReesseeaarrcchh aannddEEdduuccaattiioonn NNeettwwoorrkkwww.redclara.net
C@ribNETTThhee CCaarriibbbbeeaannRReesseeaarrcchh aannddEEdduuccaattiioonn NNeettwwoorrkkwww.ckln.org
WACRENWest and CentralAfrican Research andEducation Networkwww.wacren.net
UbuntuNet AllianceRegional Researchand EducationNetwork for Easternand Southern Africawww.ubuntunet.net
TEIN3The Trans-EurasiaInformation Network www.tein3.net
GLOBAL REACH
22
GLOBAL NEWS
Egypt has recentlyreconnected to theinternational R&E networkingscene with a 622-Mbps link to GÉANT (Alexandria -Amsterdam).
The organisation representing Egypt isENSTINET which provides NRENservices for Egypt’s science andtechnology research. Internationalcollaborations with Egypt are expectedto benefit significantly from this step.Previously, Egypt had been connectedthrough the EUMEDCONNECT project,but this had ceased following the eventsof the Arab Spring.
EGYPT RE-JOINS GLOBAL R&ENETWORKING COMMUNITY
GLOBAL NEWSBy Tom Fryer, International Relations Officer, DANTE and Helga Spitaler, Senior Communications Officer, DANTE
Following its announcements at thee-AGE 2012 conference in Dubailast December (as reported in thelast edition of CONNECT), ASREN(the Arab States Research andEducation Network) has now takenfirst concrete steps towardsbecoming a network provider in itsown right. In a recently publishedreport, ASREN has reviewed thestatus of e-Infrastructures in theArab world and highlighted theneed to develop a regional R&Enetwork (the report is available fromhttp://www.eumedconnect3.net/Media_Centre/Pages/e-infrastructures-report.aspx)
Now, with its technical planningunderway, ASREN has acquired its firstIPv4/IPv6 address space and itsAutonomous System number(AS199354) for its pan-Arab regionalnetwork. This marks the first concrete
ASREN A STEP CLOSER TO SETTING UP A PAN-ARAB R&E NETWORK
step of securing long-term sustainabilityof e-Infrastructures in the Mediterraneanand the neighbouring Gulf region.
To find out more about ASREN, pleasevisit www.asrenorg.net
23
America. By agreeing to providereciprocal backup services via a ring of10 Gbps connections around the globe,the organisations involved will maximiseconnectivity and provide a stronger,more resilient service to researchers asthey work together on major projectsand share growing volumes of data.
ORIENTplus, Internet2, TransPAC3 andCERNET signed the agreement lastmonth at the TIP2013 Conference inHawaii, which involved more than 450
Vital research collaborations involvingChina, Europe and the United States willbe safeguarded through the first majoragreement among partners running thetwo main high-speed R&E internetroutes across Asia, Europe and North
international technology leaders. Thispartnership reflects the recognitionamong national and regional R&Enetworking organisations that acollaborative approach is the mosteffective way to meet the needs of anincreasingly global user base.
To read more about this great exampleof collaboration between networkproviders, please visithttp://www.orientplus.eu/node/38
FIRST-EVER BACKUP AGREEMENT FOR R&E TRAFFIC AROUND THE GLOBE
Collaboration between Japan andEurope on projects such as ITER andthe LHC is increasing the amount oftraffic which regularly needs to betransferred between Japan and Europe.
To date, direct connectivity betweenSINET and GÉANT has been providedby a 10Gbps peering at MAN LAN inNew York, in addition to the capacitybetween Europe and Asia provided bythe TEIN interconnection with GÉANT.However, to cope with the increasedcapacity requirements in prospect,GÉANT and SINET implemented asecond 10Gbps interconnection at theWIX internet exchange in Washington
SINET AND GÉANT INCREASE CONNECTIVITYDC at the end of March 2013. As well as providing for the ITER project andenabling collaborators in Japan toconnect directly with the LCHONEnetwork, the new peering will provideadditional capacity for general purposetraffic between Japan and Europe.
For more information on SINET, visit:http://www.sinet.ad.jp
Signing of the back-up agreement (from left to right): James Williams (TransPAC3), David West (ORIENTplus), Jiangping Wu (CERNET) and Dave Lambert (Internet2).
GLOBAL NEWS
24
Remote participants collaborate at master class
To coincide with the launch of theGN3plus project and the new GÉANTwebsite, the Global Connectivitywebpages on the GÉANT website haveenjoyed a face-lift. The globalconnectivity webpages provide an up-to-date summary of GÉANT’s globalconnectivity and the regional networksthey connect to. The use of globalconnectivity is described in a section on
Global Collaboration Case studies. Inaddition, the new global site includesgreater focus on the end user,describing the benefits provided byglobal connectivity and providing usefulcontacts for anyone with queries aboutnational, regional or global connectivity.
To visit the new Global Connectivitywebpages, visit: http://global.geant.net
GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY WEBPAGES - UPDATED
A master class in steel-drum-playing,involving Caribbean musicians andremote participants from the UnitedKingdom and the United States,provided the back-drop for amemorable launch ceremony for theCaribbean Research and EducationNetwork, C@ribNET on 26th February2013 at the University of Trinidad andTobago’s Academy of Performing Arts.With EC funding of €10 million,C@ribNET provides connectivity in theregion, and to the rest of the global R&Enetworking community through links toGÉANT, RedCLARA and Internet2,enabling the Caribbean R&Ecommunity.
Witnessed by participants fromCARICOM, the European Commission,the International Development Bank,GÉANT, Internet2, RedCLARA, theUbuntuNet Alliance, and the Minister ofTertiary Education and Skills Training inTrinidad and Tobago, the launch eventdemonstrated that the Caribbean is now a full member of the global R&Enetworking community, enablingCaribbean researchers and academicsto collaborate with their peers aroundthe world, and reduce the digital divide in the region.
C@RIBNET IS LAUNCHED TO THE SOUND OFSTEEL DRUMS
For more information on CKLN(Caribbean Knowledge and LearningNetwork) and C@ribNET, visit:http://www.ckln.org/home/content/cribnet
GLOBAL NEWS
25
GLOBAL Q&A
Q&AORIENTPLUS: BOOSTING EU-CHINA COLLABORATIONBetween 2007 and 2010 the ORIENT project provided the first direct high-capacityInternet connection for research and education between Europe and China. Now inits second phase – ORIENTplus – the link has recently been upgraded to 10 Gbps,offering the shortest and fastest data communications route between the GÉANTand Chinese research networking communities, enabling innovative EU-Chinaresearch and education collaborations to flourish. CONNECT caught up with project representatives in both regions and asked them what ORIENTplus means for scientists, academics and NRENs at both ends of the link.
26
DDAAVVIIDD WWEESSTTDDAANNTTEE,, PPRROOJJEECCTT MMAANNAAGGEERROORRIIEENNTTPPLLUUSS
JJIIAANNGGPPIINNGG WWUUDDIIRREECCTTOORR,, CCEERRNNEETT CCEENNTTEERR
KKAAII NNAANNDDIIRREECCTTOORR,, CCSSTTNNEETT
CCHHRRIISSTTIIAANN GGRRIIMMMMDDIIRREECCTTOORR DDFFNN,, CCHHAAIIRROORRIIEENNTTPPLLUUSS SSTTEEEERRIINNGGGGRROOUUPP
WHO IS BEHINDORIENTPLUS?
DW: ORIENTplus was born out of thesuccessful ORIENT collaborationbetween Europe and China. Throughthe planning and operation ofORIENTplus the relationship hasfurther developed. We now have bothmajor Chinese research andeducation networks, CERNET andCSTNET, fully involved in the project.We also have 9 European NRENpartners*, though all EuropeanNRENs are connected via GÉANT,and DANTE is co-ordinating on behalfof the EU and Chinese partners.Operational management is jointlycoordinated by the GÉANT andCNGI-6IX NOCs. The project isabsolutely a partnership of equalsbetween Europe’s and China’s NRENs- committed to work together toprovide world class e-Infrastructurefor world class collaborative research.The project receives financial backingfrom the EC’s FP7 programme andfrom the Chinese government as wellas from the NREN communities.
JW: CERNET was the Chinesepartner in ORIENT and connectedCSTNET in China. CERNET is verypleased CSTNET has become a fullpartner in ORIENTplus. The equalfunding and project responsibilityfrom China and Europe symbolisesthe shared commitment of both sides.
AREN’T 10 GBPSCONNECTIONSCOMMONPLACE THESEDAYS? WHAT MAKESTHIS UPGRADE SOSPECIAL?
CG: Not at all! I agree we have 10Gbps in the European GÉANTfootprint and on our links to the US.This is why most Internet traffic toAsia still goes the long way round, viathe US and through the Pacific. Butwith ORIENTplus we now have adirect link between Europe and Chinawhich goes overland through Siberia.Unfortunately, this comes at a costwhich is why we sought EC andChinese government funding support.But it has the great advantage ofbeing the only high-capacityconnection between Europe andChina using the shortest routeavailable – a must-have for manydata-intensive and time-criticalresearch applications.
The upgrade from 2.5 to 10 Gbps wasclearly needed to keep pace with theincreased user demand we areseeing. To illustrate how capacity toChina has grown I may recall thatORIENTplus evolved from a direct2Mbps peering between the UK andChina to a high-speed inter-regionallink over a thousand times thatcapacity. Not to mention that in DFNwe celebrated a 64kbps link betweenGermany and China less than 15years ago.
JW: But ORIENTplus is more than justa link with huge capacity. Thanks togood co-operation between CERNET,TransPAC3, and Internet2, andORIENTplus there is now also anintegral element of “around the globe”connectivity support. A recent mutualback-up agreement between the fourpartners guarantees network reliabilityand resilience by automatically re-routing the traffic via the US in theevent of any outage. I believe this isthe first-ever global back-uppartnership and a great example ofcollaboration between networkproviders.
WE UNDERSTAND THISLINK IS OPERATED INHYBRID MODE. WHATARE THE ADVANTAGESOF THAT?
CG: Indeed. The hybrid nature of thelink means that it can carry both IPand point-to-point traffic. It will allowus to deploy tools and services, suchas Perfsonar MDM, eduroam anddynamic point-to-point links. Inaddition to the upgraded linkcapacity, this will give us adequateflexibility to support communities withspecial networking requirements.
* BASNET, CESNET, DFN, e-ARENA, GARR, GRNET, JANET, NORDUNET and PSNC
GLOBAL Q&A
27
KN: Let us not forget the good teamwork to make this happen. We haveset up a joint EU-China technicalsupport team. So we have the mostefficient and simplifiedtroubleshooting process to ensurereliable and high quality networktransmission. And I agree, thehybrid mode provides theopportunity to deploy different,innovative techniques andequipment, such as accelerationdevices, to match specificapplication needs.
WHO USES THIS LINKTODAY AND WHAT ARE THE GROWTH AREAS?
CG: It comes as no surprise thatusers from the LHC community wereamong the first to fill the increasedcapacity. But we expect many morefrom other disciplines. As aninteresting effect, by making theORIENTplus capacity available toour users we learned a lot about themany existing collaborationsbetween European and Chineseresearchers.
KN: We have already seen take-upin the field of radio-astronomy.eVLBI, for example, relies on astable network connection forcorrelating massive data in real-timefrom radio-telescopes in Europeand on CSTNET’s network in China.Similarly, the ARGO-YBJ cosmic raystudies involve the transfer ofterabytes of data every year from atelescope in Tibet to a processingcentre in Italy – thousands of milesaway. Real-time processing andanalysis of these data do not workwith packet loss or a jitteryconnection – so the applicationsneed dedicated R&E network links,such as ORIENTplus, to deliver this.
Genomic research between Chinaand Europe needs the same strongnetworking. The commodity Internetwould simply not be able to tacklethe data traffic generated by DNAsequencing and processing by lifesciences institutions, such as theBeijing Genomics Institute (BGI)and the European BioinformaticsInstitute (EBI).
JW: More and more collaborativeprojects between universities inChina and Europe have increasingbandwidth demands. There are, forexample, many UK universitiessetting up remote campuses andoffices in China, the online courses,videoconferences and other formsof virtual meetings and discussionsare becoming a key part of this typeof remote education. Certainly,ORIENTplus is the basicinfrastructure to support thesecollaborations.
WHAT SPECIAL VALUE DOES CHINA SEE INORIENTPLUS?
JW: In the late 90’s, before ORIENTand ORIENTplus, CERNET’s firstdirect links to Europe were withJANET and DFN only. With ORIENTand now ORIENTplus, China’sresearchers can now reach thewhole of Europe with just one link.As the link capacity grows and ourresearchers can collaborate more,the relationships get stronger andlead to new discoveries andinnovation. On China’s side we havethe vision of global networking sinceresearch challenges are global. Weare very pleased this is Europe’svision too. It leads to goodpartnership and success.
KN: ORIENTplus brings the bestChinese and European mindstogether. In addition to our majorscience programmes, there areimportant applications for all ourpeople, such as e-health andenvironmental monitoring. Duringthe Sichuan earthquake in 2008, forexample, the ORIENT link was ableto distribute high-resolution satelliteimages of the damaged region forimmediate analysis to help planrescue, relief and recovery.
HOW DO YOU SEE THE EU-CHINACOLLABORATIONDEVELOP IN THECOMING YEARS?
DW: We already see China is theEU’s 2nd largest trading partnerand the EU is China’s biggesttrading partner. The currentORIENTplus project runs to the endof 2014.The growing research andtechnology developmentprogrammes between Europe andChina mean there is a clear needfor the world class e-Infrastructurelinks to continue to be provided andfurther developed. So we are nowstarting to discuss not ‘if’ but ‘how’this is done, building on the alreadyexcellent working relationships. Aswell as the connectivity we wouldlike to broaden this in to furtherservice and user collaborations.
We have some way to go, but Ihope it will not be too long beforethe project that follows on fromORIENTplus is able to tellCONNECT of its latest upgrade to 100 Gbps or higher!
GLOBAL Q&A
28
COMMUNITY NEWS
JANET6: DELIVERING THE NEXTGENERATION OF NETWORKINGBy Rob Evans, Chief Technical Advisor, Janet
During the course of 2013,Janet will complete the buildof our new network, Janet6,and migrate from the currentnetwork, SuperJANET5, that has been operationalsince 2006.
SuperJANET5 has served the Janetcommunity well. During its lifetime it hasbeen upgraded from 10Gbit/s through40Gbit/s to the current 100Gbit/s Ethernetwhich has been in place for almost twoyears. It is now being upgraded again with a network that will last for the decade to come.
Designing, procuring and building Janet6started in 2010 with a requirementsgathering process. This includedworkshops targeting the various sectorsthat use Janet – research, highereducation, further education and schools– and a survey. The requirements of thefuture network were built around theseconsultations, most of which will befamiliar to you all.
In addition to volumes of data thatcontinue to grow exponentially, theincreased use of critical services that areno longer hosted on the campus has ledto a requirement for a reliable network thatcan be used from a variety of locationsand on a wide range of devices. This alsorequires Janet to engage with thecommercial sector to deliver its products.
In every version of the network so far, atelecommunications company hasprovided circuits to Janet, albeit latterly ona dedicated infrastructure, and Janet hasrun the switching or routing layer on top of
that. Early in the process of Janet6, wedecided that to give us the flexibility weneeded to meet our customers’requirements, and the transparency toensure capacity matches demand, weshould operate the transmissioninfrastructure ourselves.
We began the process by engaging withsuppliers of optical fibre and thetransmission equipment – in bothprocesses, we welcomed assistance fromour colleagues at NORDUnet.
One thing that rapidly became apparentduring the procurement of the fibre wasthat UK suppliers seemed reluctant to selldirect access to it; the ‘fibre glut’ of theearly part of the 2000s was a distantmemory. There were six potential fibresuppliers at the start of the process, butonly two submitted a final bid. There was amuch wider choice of transmissionequipment, and several of the largernames did not make it through the pre-qualification questionnaire into thedialogue process.
With those that did, the project team atJanet went through several rounds ofdialogue as some of the options for thenetwork were exercised – should it bedirectionless? Colourless?Contentionless? Should there be OTNswitching? Should there be chromaticdispersion compensation?
Both colourless and contentionlesstechnologies are still in relatively earlystages and would have been of limitedvalue in Janet6. Directionless accesshowever, was something we could seeourselves using, having the flexibility toroute wavelengths around the network andnot requiring separate channelmultiplexers tied to each direction of amulti-directional node.
Janet already operates an Ethernet overMPLS switching infrastructure. The OTNofferings from the potential suppliersvaried widely enough that it would have
been difficult to write a tender documentthat would have allowed fair competitionfor a service that we did not need.
The decision of whether to use chromaticdispersion compensation was driven bythe requirement to make extensive use of40Gbps and 100Gbps wavelengthsacross the network.
We wanted to be able to provision a circuitfrom any point on Janet to any other point,and whilst the advanced encodingschemes and coherent detectiondeployed for high-speed wavelengthsallows that, having “traditional” on-offkeyed signals sharing the fibre, andhaving chromatic dispersioncompensation modules in-line would have reduced the number of channels and their reach.
As very few paths on Janet required asingle 10Gbps circuit, we opted to doaway with chromatic dispersion and use4x10GE and 10x10GE muxponders tocarry 10GE circuits on higher-rate carriers.
The build of the network is now wellunderway, and our Network OperationsCentre has increased its strength tomanage the transmission equipment byhiring a new optical engineer andseconding a Ciena engineer for 9 months.We’re also taking this opportunity to lookat overhauling our network monitoring,writing a support system that will displayand correlate alarms from both the IP andthe transmission networks.
We are now the owners of 5,900km offibre, 130 10GE circuits and 28 100GEcircuits although all three of those figureswill increase before the end of the year asthe fibre is extended to cover moreresearch facilities. We’re confident that theCiena transmission equipment will havethe capacity to scale to meet the demandsof Janet’s users. We’ll be following Ciena’sdevelopment roadmap closely looking totake advantage of higher-speed channelcapacities as and when they are offered.
GÉANT is a vital part of the European research e-infrastructure, which includes highperformance networking, distributed computing infrastructures, supercomputing and data storage. Here we welcome our many partners to shed light on their activities.
29
COMMUNITY NEWS
E-IRG ROADMAP 2012 PUBLISHEDBy Ari Turunen, Dissemination Manager, e-IRG
The e-IRG Roadmap 2012outlines a vision for the futureof e-Infrastructures in Europe,to meet the challenges ofimplementing the EU’s 2020Strategy.
A single “e-InfrastructureCommons” for knowledge,innovation and science as aliving ecosystem that is openand accessible, the roadmappresents the political,technological andadministrative frameworkneeded for such an e-Infrastructure.
To maximise the socioeconomic value ofa common research e-Infrastructure, thee-IRG Roadmap 2012 provides policymakers, as well as e users andproviders, insights and coherence onthe future European landscape.Important external drivers include: theneed to compete in a global
knowledge-based economy; theemergence of new models in research, innovation and learning; e-Infrastructures driving innovation inindustry, business and public services;and technology bringing newparadigms for data and informationservices.
A LIVING ECO-SYSTEMAt present there is insufficient cohesionin Europe-wide research and educatione-Infrastructures. Users need highquality services that are well managedand seamlessly integrated so that theycan get on with their business ofscience.
As a living ecosystem, an e-Infrastructure Commons is needed thatis flexible and can change dynamicallyin a future-proof manner. This can onlybe established through commonstrategic effort between users andprimary strategic actors and suppliers.Hence, many barriers towards realisinga European e-Infrastructures Commons2020 are structural rather thantechnical. Organisational and fundingmodels, governance structures andlegal and regulatory landscapes facefundamental changes in thedevelopment of the e-IRG vision.
THE CHANGING WORLD A complex ecosystem for e-Infrastructure services calls forgovernance structures that aretransparent, streamlined, andresponsive. European level bodiesshould have clear, non-overlappingmandates along the three corefunctions: community building and high-level strategy, serviceprovisioning and innovation.
Governance should reflect theEuropean dimension of e-Infrastructuresand the global scale of its user basetoday and in the future, while respecting
that national level decisions still have animportant role in all activities. It is notnecessary for all national providers toparticipate in projects at every level.
Pan-European organisations likeDANTE, TERENA, EGI.eu and PRACEAISBL, as well as emerging datainfrastructures, should re-think their rolein reference to the three core functionsstated and reposition themselvesaccordingly for participation in the e-Infrastructure Commons 2020.
STRATEGIC USER PULL To achieve a strategic user pull, e-IRGsees a need for a single e-Infrastructureumbrella forum, with sufficient userparticipation for community building,high-level strategy and overallcoordination. It should be clearlyseparated from operationalresponsibilities. The currentexperiences in networking and gridcomputing provide useful input insetting up this overall strategicframework. TERENA and DANTE arenow actively following up on the GEGrecommendations and EGI.eu is alsoworking actively towards a sustainablefuture structure.
A clear distinction between funding forservice provisioning and innovation willbe necessary, where serviceprovisioning is “paid by the users”, andinnovation will be justifiably (co-)fundedby public R&D-funds according to theHorizon 2020 principles. The latter candrive novel service propositions that arenot yet offered on the commercialmarket.
Obviously due care is needed to ensurethat users have enough budget to payfor the services they require, forinstance by including these as part ofHorizon 2020 or national researchgrants. It is also clear that a healthyecosystem requires closer collaborationbetween e-Infrastructure users andproviders in developing and deployingnew services.
30
Contact info:NORDUnet A/SKastruplundgade 22DK-2770 Kastrup
Tel: +45 32 46 25 00Fax: +45 45 76 23 66
E-mail: [email protected]: www.nordu.net
PARTNER PROFILE
PARTNER PROFILE:
NORDUnetNORDIC COLLABORATION FOR 25+ YEARSBy: NORDUnet COM
NORDUnetOVERVIEWNORDUnet is a collaborationbetween the NationalResearch and EducationNetworks (NRENs) of the fiveNordic countries; Denmark(DeIC), Iceland (RHnet),Norway (UNINETT), Sweden(SUNET), and Finland (Funet). The Nordic region(five countries and threeautonomous areas) has apopulation of 25 million, 9 official languages, and a strong tradition ofcollaboration. Together, thecountries form the world’s 7th largest economy.
NORDUnet was founded in 1985 as aresult of the NORDUnet programme andis jointly owned by the five Nordiccountries. Each of the Nordic NRENshas a seat on the board and share thebase costs according to the country GDP.
NORDUnet operates a world-classnetwork and e-infrastructure service forthe Nordic R&E community. The fiveNRENs develop and operate thenational research networkinfrastructures, connecting more than400 research & education institutionswith more than 1.2 million users.
Together with the Nordic NRENs,NORDUnet works continuously tofurther develop leading edge servicesand to push the technology envelope.NORDUnet provides global networkconnectivity, and is a key contributor tointernational partnerships such asGÉANT, GLIF, and GLORIAD.
It is the Vision of NORDUnet to be theNORDIC Infrastructure for Researchand Education, by providing a commonworld-class network infrastructure,services, support and collaborationplatform for the Nordic NRENs andresearch and education communitiesand by facilitating other common e-Infrastructures as requested by theNordic national e-Infrastructurestakeholders.
NORDUnet CORENETWORKNORDUnet operates an optical networkbackbone interconnecting Oslo,Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, andHamburg. This network forms thenorthern extension of the GÉANTfootprint, and through cross-border fibreconnects to Amsterdam, Poznan and St.Petersburg. In addition, NORDUnetoperates an MPLS fabric used for IPnetwork services and settlement-freepeering. The MPLS fabric has nodes inthe five Nordic capitals, in Amsterdamand London, as well as at five locationsin North America. Operating anindependent, international networkallows NORDUnet to effectively managecost of IP transit and at the same timeoffer attractive, high-quality Cloud-based services in a fully controllednetwork environment.
The IP network is dual stack IPv4 & IPv6.
For more information: Inspiration Paper – The Role ofNRENʼs in 2020
GÉANT is a collaboration between 41 project partners: 38 European NRENs, DANTE, TERENA and NORDUnet (representing the 5 Nordic countries), delivering services to 50 million researchers and their institutions. Here the NRENs tell us about their services.
31
BUILDING NEMO, A TOOL TO TRACK ROUTING IN IP NETWORKSBy Frederic Raspall and David Rincón, i2Cat Foundation / UPC-BarcelonaTech
CONNECT TECHNICAL
The routing subsystem is a fundamental component of any network. IP routing is whatlogically glues together all the networks that make up the Internet, offering end users the illusion of being connected to a single world-wide network.
32
Beyond granting “simple”reachability, routingdetermines the path that thetraffic takes between any pairof hosts. Thus, it has a directeffect on how resources areused on any network intransit, playing an importantrole on network performance.
While routing protocols,interior and exterior, havebeen conceived toautonomously run andautomatically react totopology changes,understanding routingbehavior is needed toefficiently operate a network,aiding administrators todeploy traffic engineeringpolicies or assessing their effect.
This need is particularlyevident in the case of BorderGateway Protocol (BGP),whose behavior can dependon routing decisions taken atneighboring (and not-so-neighboring) domains, andwhose decision process is not a simple matter and canbe altered by numerousfactors, some of which arevendor-specific.
TRACKING ANDMONITORINGTracking and monitoring routing stateand its changes can, in addition, bevery helpful to detect and troubleshootnetwork failures that could lead tonetwork outages or poor performance.And, if correlated with Netflow-like tools,routing information can be used todetermine the ingress and egress pointsof traffic flows, information that is key toestimate traffic matrices for instance.
Despite the advantages that having anetwork-wide view of the routing stateoffers, acquiring and keeping up-to-
date the full routing information of anetwork (e.g. an Autonomous System) isnot simple. Routing protocols operate ina distributed fashion without humanintervention, and were not designed toaddress such monitoring needs.Besides, the number of BGP routes thata single router may handle can easilyexceed 400K, making the acquisition,storage and keeping in sync of routingdata a challenging task, and raisingscalability issues as the number ofnodes increases.
NEMO (NETWORKMONITORING TOOL) Nemo is the result of an effortundertaken in the GN3 project towardsthe goal of monitoring and showingrouting state in a timely andcomprehensible manner. The tool hasbeen designed as a multi-threadedLinux process that is fed by severalsources of information such as BGP,SNMP and DNS. Users can interact with the tool through a text-basedcommand-line interface (CLI, with a
syntax similar to that employed by manynetworking equipment), and also bymeans of a web-based graphical userinterface (GUI), as shown in Figure 1.
The tool is able to keep and storerouting information in a scalable fashionwithout imposing too much load onnetwork nodes or links. It discovers thecurrent network topology and presentsthe user rich information about itsrouting state.
To ensure interoperability, Nemohas been designed to rely only onstandard tools and protocols. Whenfed with traffic measurement data, itcan estimate router-to-router trafficmatrices. During its developmentphase, the tool was partially testedin RedIris (the Spanish NREN). At the time of writing, it is beingdeployed at GRnet (the GreekNREN), and we expect to test it inGÉANT very soon.
Figure: Nemoʼs web GUI showing a snapshot of GRnetʼs logical topology.Blue nodes correspond to GRnetʼs backbone routers. Pink and gray circlesrepresent neighboring autonomous systems (private and non-private,respectively). The large green circle corresponds to GÉANT, which isGRnetʼs main provider. The text windows show routing information of one of the routers, EIE2.
CONNECT TECHNICAL
UPCOMING EVENTS
TNC2013 TThhee pprroojjeecctt hhaass aann eexxhhiibbiittiioonn bbooootthh,,tteecchhnnoollooggyy ddeemmoonnssttrraattiioonnss aannddppoosstteerrss.. TThhee ccoonnffeerreennccee pprrooggrraammmmeeaallssoo ffeeaattuurreess GGÉÉAANNTT AAssssoocciiaatteeddSSppeeaakkeerrss,, aanndd ppaanneell ddiissccuussssiioonnss..
Date: 0033 JJuunnee 22001133 ttoo 0066 JJuunnee 22001133Location: MMaaaassttrriicchhtt,, NNeetthheerrllaannddss
More information:https://tnc2013.terena.org
In the previous issue of CONNECT we erroneously suggested that the eduroam service from GÉANT superseded TF-Mobility. This was incorrect. TF-Mobility - now known as TF-MNM (Task Force on Mobility and Network Middleware) the TERENA task force whose research helped launcheduroam as a service. TF-MNM still helps to research the next generation of Mobility services and the efforts of this group help support the continuingsuccess of eduroam. In addition, we reported that Sweden had recently joined eduroam, this report referred to the linking of the existing Swedishservice to “The Cloud” to further extend coverage for users in the region.
Future Internet Assembly GGÉÉAANNTT wwiillll hhaavvee aann eexxhhiibbiittiioonn bbooootthh..
Date: 0088 MMaayy 22001133 ttoo 1100 MMaayy 22001133Location: DDuubblliinn,, IIrreellaanndd
More information: http://www.future-internet.eu/news/view/article/future-internet-assembly-dublin.html
SubOptic 2013 GGÉÉAANNTT wwiillll bbee ppaarrttiicciippaattiinngg iinn tthheeMMaasstteerrccllaassss TTuuttoorriiaall ""OOTTNN && MMeesshhNNeettwwoorrkkiinngg""..
Date: 2222 AApprriill 22001133 ttoo 2255 AApprriill 22001133Location: PPaarriiss MMaarrrriiootttt RRiivvee GGaauucchheeHHootteell && CCoonnffeerreennccee CCeenntteerr,, PPaarriiss,, FFrraannccee
More information:http://www.suboptic.org/conferences/
33
www.geant.net
www.twitter.com/GEANTnews
www.facebook.com/GEANTnetwork
www.youtube.com/GEANTtv
!" #$Belarus Moldova
Austria
%& Ukraine
Backbone topology as at March 2012. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.
Associate NRENs
Backbone topology as at March 20Backbone topology as at March 2012. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’12. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’12. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.s NRENs.Backbone topology as at March 20
Austria
Backbone topology as at March 2012. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’12. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’12. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.s NRENs.
!" UkraineMoldova#$ %& Ukraine
ACOnetwww.aco.net
Belnetwww.belnet.be
BRENwww.bren.bg
CARNetwww.carnet.hr
CyNETwww.cynet.ac.cy
CESNETwww.ces.net
EENetwww.eenet.ee
RENATERwww.renater.fr
DFNwww.dfn.de
GRNETwww.grnet.gr
NIIFwww.niif.hu
HEAnetwww.heanet.ie
IUCCwww.iucc.ac.il
GARRwww.garr.net
GÉANT is the pan-European research andeducation network that interconnects Europe’sNational Research and Education Networks(NRENs). Together we connect over 50 millionusers at 10,000 institutions across Europe,supporting research in areas such as energy, the environment, space and medicine.
GÉANT PartnersSigmaNetwww.sigmanet.lv
LITNETwww.litnet.lt
RESTENAwww.restena.lu
MARNetdns.marnet.net.mk
University of Maltawww.um.edu.mt
MRENwww.mren.ac.me
SURFnetwww.surfnet.nl
NORDUnetwww.nordu.net
PSNCwww.man.poznan.pl
FCCNwww.fccn.pt
RoEduNetwww.nren.ro
AMRESwww.amres.ac.rs
SANETwww.sanet.sk
ARNESwww.arnes.si
RedIRISwww.rediris.es
SWITCHwww.switch.ch
ULAKBIMwww.ulakbim.gov.tr
JANETwww.ja.net
DANTEwww.dante.net
TERENAwww.terena.org
BASNET www.bas-net.by
BASNET www.bas-net.by
RENAMwww.renam.md
URANwww.uran.net.ua
ASNET-AMwww.asnet.am
AzRENAwww.azrena.org
GRENAwww.grena.ge
ABOUT GÉANT
www.geant.net
This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of DANTE and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. CONNECT/0413
