Prague hosts talks about experiments targeted at the future of the Internet

From today to Wednesday (from 1 to 3 March 2010) Prague is hosting the fifth general assembly of the FEDERICA European project, the aim of which is to develop an experimental testing environment for testing new network technologies. The meeting is being held by the CESNET academic association, which joined the project immediately after it was launched in November 2008. The Czech Republic is, besides Germany, Italy and Poland, one of the four locations where the project has installed its key resources. The project features a total of 23 participants from all over Europe.

The FEDERICA project (Federated E-infrastructure Dedicated to European Researchers Innovating in Computing network Architectures) stems from a global cooperation of researchers, suppliers, national research and education networks and the broadband pan-European network GÉANT. The FEDERICA project is based on a part of the GÉANT infrastructure. The resources available for this thirty-month project funded by the European Union can be allotted to researchers dynamically on the grounds of multi-level resource virtualisation.

The FEDERICA project is intended especially to users who carry out experiments targeted at the future of the Internet. Network researchers from many different fields and research groups can access the experimental network infrastructure via their national research networks, i.e. via the CESNET2 optical gigabit optical infrastructure in the case of the Czech Republic. The CESNET association is within the project responsible for the development of a monitoring system providing all users and administrators with information necessary for the so-called physical layer as well as all virtual levels.

The CESNET Association was founded by Czech universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The association is currently financed mainly from the resources of the governmental Research and Development Board and funds of the association members. The association undertakes research and development in the field of information and communication technologies, and develops a national multi-gigabit optical network CESNET2, designed for research and educational purposes. With respect to its research activities and accomplishments, CESNET represents the Czech Republic in the development of the pan-European network GÉANT and participates actively in the project implementation.