European Commission to earmark Euro 93 million for further GÉANT network development

In a contract signed in Brussels this August, the European Commission professed to provide funds for further development of the most powerful communication infrastructure - the pan-European scientific research network GÉANT. The European Commission will contribute Euro 93 million to the project named GN2, which was started on 1st September this year and will be finished in August 2008. That is more than half of the expected costs; the rest should be covered from contributions by the cooperating countries. GÉANT and its partners - national research and education networks (NRENs) - currently provide services to the academic community in 34 countries. The Czech Republic is represented in the project by the CESNET association with its CESNET2 network that is connected directly to the network core with a 10 Gbps circuit. The project is coordinated by the DANTE association.

GÉANT is the most important international project of the EU's 5th framework programme. It was started on 1st November 2000 and will finish this year, on 31st October. GÉANT backbone lines have a bit rate of at least 2.5 Gbps; the network core consists of 10 Gbps circuits. The unique parameters of the network allow scientific institutions to work on tasks that they could not handle individually, such as projects concerning space research or the migration to the Internet Protocol version 6.

To maintain continuity in the development of a European academic network, a new project proposal was prepared and submitted to the EU's 6th framework programme, named Multi-Gigabit European Academic Network (GN2). It should continuously follow up the GÉANT project. Its objective is to offer European scientists an infrastructure that will allow transmitting large volumes of data in a short time, servicing advanced network applications such as computing grids and real-time collaboration environment. The GÉANT upgrade will involve providing access to highest-quality services intended for the most demanding users, i.e. scientists and researchers. They will obtain their dedicated "wavelength" running across the entire continent - end-to-end connectivity that will provide them with direct access to the advanced communication parameters of GÉANT and the national research and education networks, allowing them to create their own "virtual" network. Developed mobile and roaming services will allow European scientists to connect to GÉANT wherever they need. Guaranteed end-to-end performance and solving requirements for mobility will be among the priorities of the project. It will be commonly executed by 31 organizations dealing with high-speed scientific and research networks.

CESNET's participation in the GÉANT project has brought the Czech Republic an opportunity to actively participate in the creation of international infrastructure interconnecting research facilities throughout Europe, providing the users of CESNET2 with high-quality access to information sources abroad at favourable prices. In addition, the results of its research have won CESNET an excellent reputation internationally, allowing it to take part in many important multinational projects, including the preparation of the GN2 project. Within this project, CESNET wants to participate in research activities concerning, in particular, monitoring, network security, authentication and authorization, and mobility as well as end-to-end performance.

The CESNET association was founded by Czech universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic to operate a national scientific and research network. It is funded by the Government Council for Science and Research and by its members. Today it operates the national CESNET2 gigabit network and cooperates with Canada, the Netherlands and the U.S. in building the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) network. With its research activities in the field of telecommunication and Internet technologies, CESNET is the Czech Republic's representative in the European GÉANT project and actively participates in its implementation.