12 GÉANT and GN2

12.1 The GÉANT Project

GÉANT is the most significant international project of the European Union 5th Framework Programme in which the CESNET Association takes part. The project was launched on November 1, 2000; a Consortium of 27 European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) operators coordinated by the DANTE Ltd. set its goal to design, build and make operational a pan-European infrastructure connecting the NRENs of European countries by October 31, 2004 when the project is to end. This infrastructure - the Géant network - must allow the European researchers the following:

transferring large amounts of data in a short time
make use of advanced network applications such as grid computing
cooperate on joint projects in real-time.

This goal should be reached especially as follows:

Backbone lines of the Géant network will have a minimum bandwidth of 2.5 Gbps; the network core will be formed by circuits with a transfer speed of 10 Gbps.
The Géant network will ensure the interconnection of more NRENs than its predecessor, the TEN-155 network. It means especially the connection of new countries accessing the EU, e.g., Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia. Malta will also be connected to the Géant network.
High-quality access to Research and Education Networks outside Europe will be provided for the Géant network users.
In addition to standard IP services, the Géant network will provide also the Premium IP, guaranteed bandwidth service, virtual private networks, multicast and other services based on the developments in the field of communication technologies.

Since the beginning of the project, the CESNET Association has been participating in design of network topology currently interconnecting twenty-eight national and regional Research and Education Networks in thirty-three countries and serving more than thirty thousand research institutions. Due to an active participation in this task, the Czech Republic could connect directly to the network core whose lines have a transfer capacity of 10 Gbps. Furthermore, one of the network core nodes is located directly in the premises of the CESNET Association in Prague. It is connected to other GÉANT network nodes as follows:

Frankfurt a. M., Germany - 10 Gbps
Bratislava, Slovakia - 2.5 Gbps
Poznañ, Poland - 2.5 Gbps

Locating the network node directly in the premises of the CESNET Association significantly increases the reliability of our connection to the Géant network and it minimizes the expenses for this connection as well.

Figure 12.1: Topology of the Géant network in November 2003 (large image)

A general rule in the European National Research Networks, including the Czech network CESNET2, says that the infrastructure for the research institutions and operated services themselves are research objects due to the non-standard requirements regarding their parameters. Therefore, an integral part of the GÉANT project is the research in the field of information and communication technologies conducted by teams composed of experts from individual NRENs, called the TF-NGN (Task Force - Next Generation Network). The experts from the CESNET Association applied their experience above all in the fields of tool development for monitoring large-scale networks and assessing the network status, implementation of the IPv6 protocol, multicast implementation and in the field of Quality of Service.

Further information can be found at http://www.dante.net/geant/index.html

12.2 Preparation of the GN2 Project

As the Géant project ends in October 2004, a proposal of a new project called Multi-Gigabit European Academic Network (GN2) was elaborated and submitted within the call "Integrated Infrastructure Initiative" of the 6th Framework Programme in order to keep the continuity of the European Academic Network.

The aim of the project, which will start around November 2004, is to build during the next four years a modern and highly efficient infrastructure which will allow users accessing their working environment (in the sense of information resources, computing powers, etc.) in real-time anywhere within the ERA (European Research Area). The service support ensuring end-to-end performance and mobility requirements will be emphasized. Thirty-one organisations involved in the issue of high-speed research networks will take part in the project. The total planned budget is approximately 180 million EUR; the EU subsidy makes 93 million EUR.

Project activities are divided into three groups:

a) Projecting, construction and operation of the backbone network

These activities include the user support and the support of the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) development. The goal is to remove the differences in the technical level of NRENs in individual European countries and make ready for implementation of services ensuring direct connection of the network end devices upon request. A part of this group activities will include those focused on technical, organizational and economical aspects of implementing the up-to-date information and communication technologies for planning the research network development and coordination of research activities of individual NRENs in the field of high-speed networks and their services.

b) Specific services

This group includes both activities related to the network operation and supervision and activities ensuring quality of services and end-to-end performance. Support of grid technologies is expected as well. The GN2 will also provide connectivity to research networks in other world regions.

c) Research activities

The Consortium will follow the tradition of research activities related to the high-speed networks, which started already during work on the TEN-34 project in cooperation with the TERENA Association. The research in the GN2 project will be focused especially on:

development of new monitoring tools for supervising large-scale high-speed networks,
development of tools ensuring the network security,
development of new services, especially in the field of authentication and authorisation,
realisation of testing environment for new technologies as well as for other 6th Framework Program projects,
research in the field of mobility and interoperability.

The CESNET Association is involved in preparation of the project and it plans to participate significantly in the network part as well as in the research activities, especially in the field of monitoring, network security, authentication and authorisation, mobility and end-to-end performance.

12.3 Conclusion

Participation of the CESNET Association in the GÉANT project allows the Czech Republic to be involved actively in building the international infrastructure connecting research workplaces in Europe and thus ensuring high-quality access to information sources abroad for the CESNET2 users under very advantageous financial conditions. The CESNET Association has also gained a very good reputation thanks to its contribution to research activities of the GÉANT project which allowed CESNET to get involved with the preparation of the GN2 and other projects. The submitters of the GN2 project successfully attended the European Commission hearings and the specification of individual activities is currently proceeding. The final version of the project will be submitted to the European Commission in the beginning of 2004.

contents