25   Conclusion

2003 is the last year of solving the current research plan; therefore, already by the end of 2002, the CESNET Association management dealt with a question of how to ensure financing of its main activity, i.e. research and development in the field of information and communication technologies, in the coming years. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports issued a long-awaited call for submitting proposals of research plans for the period 2004-2008 (or 2010). Therefore, on 27 February 2003, the CESNET Association submitted its proposal identification code MSM6383917201 for a seven-year research plan Optical National Research Network and Its New Applications.

The proposal was based on an evaluation of current status of world research networks and on a prognosis of development in this field, although the detailed plans were elaborated only for years 2004-2007 with regard to a fast development in this field.

It has been found recently that using optical fibres and lambdas on a national and global scale is strategically important for development of certain important science and development fields. It allows carrying out some projects which could not be realised in time and for adequate expenses using regular telecommunication carrier services. Some telecommunication companies (e.g., LEVEL3) react to this situation by leasing fibers or by enabling NRENs to participate in laying down the optical cables.

In 2003, research and educational networks characterised by either experimental or production features have been evolving rather differently. Production networks (e.g., Géant, Abilene, ACONET and CESNET2) provide services for research and education communities. Provision of network services for research and education has specific features - the network is not built and operated to make profit. Therefore, it can provide those services necessary for development of research and education in various fields which common ISPs do not provide because these services would either bring no profit to the providers or they would be unacceptably expensive. Currently, this is the case, e.g., for gigabit local links.

At the same time, success of these networks brings a new problem: users in many countries create pressure to make the NREN services, originally of a research and experimental character, as stable and reliable as those provided by the best ISPs - but still for a low price and on a higher technical level. It means that the original opportunity for research and experiments in the field of information and communication technologies (and especially of large-scale computer networks) would be significantly reduced or totally eliminated. This brings a possible risk: in the future, production networks would differ from the ISP networks especially by their non-profitability; this would bring the only advantage to their users rather than any differences in their technical level (the same routers and switches could be deployed only after the development of hardware and software terminates and these are supplied to production networks only if their profitable deployment among ISPs is expected).

Certain improvement of the situation can be reached by selecting some parts of the network or services to have a production character and some others to have a research and experimental character. However, this attitude requires a rather demanding coordination work in the project phase, in implementation and operation of the network; it is also very demanding on the qualification of the network operators. Another alternative is using one network as a production network (e.g., SURFNET5) and building another one (e.g., SURFNET6).

An independent construction of experimental networks brings even better possibilities for network research and development. This method has been used for a longer time (see, e.g., the production and experimental CENIC networks in California), but it has significantly expanded during 2003. Similar federal NationalLightRail and NationalLambdaRail projects as well as subsequent projects financed by individual states (e.g., FloridaLambdaRail) originated in the United States. A global experimental network TransLight is emerging; CESNET is one of its participants.

The goal of the research plan Optical National Research Network and Its New Applications is a design of an integrated network environment suitable for specific requirements of the academic community and verification of its characteristics in actual operation. Furthermore, experience gained by operating the academic networks shows that having sufficient free bandwidth is only one of the demands put on the academic network; implementing other advanced services to operate a high-quality academic network is also necessary. As a result, the research team will focus, apart from the research in the field of infrastructure and network protocols, also on the fields of applications and network services (so-called middleware) linking the application and network layers.

The goals and basic strategies of the research plan being prepared were consulted with important foreign experts who accepted the invitation by CESNET Association and participated in the meeting within the CESNET Association premises on February 20, 2003. The goals of the new research plan resulted from this discussion so as to comply with the world trends in the field of information and communication technologies.

For proposing and constructing the new generation infrastructure, we will focus on using optical technologies while emphasizing the use of leased optical fibers fully controlled by us, equipped with our own devices and capable of providing more channels in each fiber. The research subject will also include studies of building long-distance intercity optical routes without optical regenerators on the line. In the field of routing, development and deployment of PC-based gigabit routers is expected; network migration to the IPv6 protocol is also planned, including applications and services. Naturally, both protocols (the current IPv4 and the coming IPv6) will be operated simultaneously for some time.

The research team also wants to make the most of the opportunities resulting from our participation in the TransLight network and a very affordable cost of leasing the optical fibre in the Czech Republic. The key issue will be solving the optical transmission system for TransLight in the Czech Republic and enlarging the experimental application of the TransLight network.

In the field of applications, we intend to focus especially on the grid development, i.e., an environment for cooperation of distributed entities, whether they are people, groups of people or machines. The following belong among grids:

Another area of interest will be the development of IP telephony, videoconferencing tools and tools for streaming multimedia contents. We intend to pay a lot of attention to the distance learning matters.

Research in the area of network services as links between infrastructure and applications will include:

The involvement of our experts in international activities, especially in the 6th Framework Program projects, will be an integral part of our research plan. The CESNET Association's research team currently takes part in several international projects of the 5th Framework Program - it has gained its prestige by contributing to their solution. Therefore, the CESNET Association does not have to beg to be accepted into the consortiums of newly submitted projects - on the contrary, it is asked to take part in them.

In order to fulfill all these goals, the planned capacity of the research team is significantly extended in comparison to the previous research plan. We expect to use the project management method which proved useful during the solution of the current research plan.

previous
contents 		next
metacentrum elearning liberouter live shows videoserver eduroam