CEF Networks 2006 Workshop in Prague:
The important government and public institutions are going to use the CEF Networks

On the 29th, 30th and 31st of May, 43 representatives of networking research institutions from US and West, Central and East Europe met in Prague to exchange experience in the design and operation of Customer Empowered Fibre (CEF) Networks and to formulate major guidelines for their further research and development. The host of the meeting was the CESNET association, which operates the CEF national research and education network CESNET2 connected to GEANT2, and dark fibre testbed CzechLight connected to GLIF. The three-day workshop was opened by the director of CESNET Jan Gruntorad.

Presentations selected by Stanislav Sima covered the very interesting new development of CEF networks worldwide. Presentations are available at http://www.ces.net/doc/seminars/20060529/.

The workshop participants confirmed that CEF networks have been successfully implemented at metropolitan, national and continent-wide level of research and education networks, and now CEF approach is followed by city authorities, companies, hospitals, etc. Some vendors recognized this emerging market segment.

Participants

• appreciated presentations and workshop preparation,
• recommended next CEF Networks workshop,
• recommended to support
  • investigation of dark fibre availability and deployment of CEF Networks for research and education in remaining countries and regions including cross-border dark fibres
  • evaluation and deployment of advanced fibre lighting technologies for research and education network
  • interoperability request specification and rules for procurement of equipment and device and standardisation work
  • research of networking including wide area dark fibre testbeds and networking facilities development
  • improvement of sharing and lighting of dark fibre footprint for research activities
  • mutual research cooperation
  • continue with information exchange.

The basic characteristic of CEF networks is the fact that the operators are the actual users, who just lease the fibre (or have it laid) and take care of the technology that transmits data over it on their own. Thus they have fibres at their disposal, or the right to use them, making their own decisions on the method of construction of the network (in particular, its optical transmission system) and on network control. As the users of customer empowered networks – often scientific and research facilities – have specific requirements for transfer parameters and prices, CEF networks are tailored to their actual needs.

The CESNET association has been founded by universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The association is currently financed mainly from the resources of the governmental Committee for the Research and Education and the resources of the members of the association. The association performs research and development in the area of information and communication technologies, building and developing the national gigabit optical network, CESNET2, designed for research and educational purposes. Due to the research activities and results achieved, the CESNET association acts as a representative of the Czech Republic in the project within which a pan-European network called GEANT2 is constructed, actively taking part also in the implementation of this project. Besides other activities, the association partakes in the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) project.