News in year 2006

Successful yearly evaluation of the GN2 project

November 29., 2006

Regular yearly evaluation of the European GN2 project on which we participate was successful. The evaluating comission stated achievement of significant results and made some recommendations regarding the project management. We published a press release providing detailed information regarding this.

Datagram No. 13

November 23., 2006

The fresh issue of our Datagram bulletin (in Czech) brings articles about our membership in the PlanetLab consortium, development of the eduroam network, GlobalSign certificates and two workshops: CEF Networks and IP telephony.

Speech recognition seminar

November 14., 2006

The seminar entitled "Speech recognition and automatic processing of lessons videorecordings" was focused on the problems of automatic conversion of spoken Czech language to the written form, subtitling and searching of audiovisual recordings. About 35 visitors took part on this workshop organised by CESNET.

Workshop of CESNET researchers

November 6.–8., 2006

We organised another three-day internal workshop of reserachers collaborating on CESNET's research activities. Major topic discussed was the future orientation of our research in period 2007–2010.

ACOnet–CESNET–SANET triangle

November 6., 2006

The ACOnet (Austria), CESNET and SANET (Slovakia) networks have been interconnected by triangle of dark fibres enlighted by advanced photonic technologies. The lines are able to provide multiple 10Gbps channels without the in-line equipment. See more in the press release.

IP telephony workshop

November 3., 2006

We organised a workshop providing information about the technologies, protocols and deployment examples regarding voice over IP services. Additional information is available in the press release.

GlobalSign server certificates

November 1., 2006

After four-month trial we opened the Server Certificate Services (SCS) to all CESNET members. They are now able to get SSL/TLS server certificates released by GlobalSign for their services. These certificates are trusted by default by majority of web browsers, e-mail clients and other user software. Visit the CESNET CA site for more information.

Luděk Matyska elected chairman of the EGEE II project management board

September 18., 2006

Luděk Matyska, leader of CESNET's grid research activities, has been elected chairman of the EGEE II project management board. Detailed information is contained in the press release.

2005 annual report

September 4., 2006

We published the annual report (PDF, 1.5 MB) summarising the company status and achievements in 2005.

CESNET became member of PlanetLab

August 9., 2006

The CESNET association became a member of PlanetLab consortium which operates the first global virtual network laboratory. PlanetLab solves future applications focused on eliminating the main problems of Internet. Additional information is provided by the press release.

CESNET2 switched to GEANT2

July 10., 2006

The migration of GEANT2 Prague node has been finished at the end of June. The CESNET2 network is now fully connected to the GEANT2 – the next generation of European research and education backbone. The related press release provides more information.

ID cards workshop

June 29., 2006

We organised a workshop titled ID Cards Using Applications in the University Environment. Programme, presentations and photographs are available on the workshop page (in Czech).

New access policy and acceptable use policy

June 9., 2006

New access policy and acceptable use policy for the Czech NREN is valid since the beginning of June. Its English translation has been published now.

EGEE II starts

June 2., 2006

EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-SciencE) project focused on European grid infrastructure building finished successfully. Its successor named EGEE II started imediately to further develop and use the created infrastrukture. CESNET association participates in four activities of this new project. See more in the press release.

CEF Networks Workshop 2006

May 29.–31., 2006

We organised next year of the successful Customer Empowered Fiber networks workshop. Participants coming from Europe, U.S. and Canada interchanged experience in this field and information on current activities. Programme, presentations, photographs and workshop recommendation are available on the workshop webpage.

EU and China interconnect their high-speed networks

May 21., 2006

ORIENT project will interconnect the Europe's GÉANT2 network with the Chinese research networks CERNET and CSTNET. Communication and collaboration among 45 million researchers and students across Europe and China will be greatly facilitated by this interconnection. See the press release for detailed information.

EGEE helps in fighting tha avian flu

May 21., 2006

During April, a collaboration of Asian and European laboratories has analysed 300,000 possible drug components against the avian flu virus H5N1 using the EGEE grid infrastructure. Grid usage helps the laboratories to accelerate the development of drugs against the influenza virus. You can find more information in the press release.

TERENA Conference 2006 live broadcast

May 15., 2006

You may visit the TERENA Networking Conference 2006 on-line. Link to the live broadcast is available at our live shows portal.

Czech TV interview with Jan Gruntorad

May 3., 2006

The CT24 news channel of Czech television broadcasted an interview with Jan Gruntorad, the director of CESNET. It was a part of the regular By Noon show focused on the 14th anniversary of Internet in the Czech republic. If you want to exercise your Czech skills, you can watch the ineterview videorecording: higher quality, lower quality.

The Ministry of Informatics supports eduroam

April 25., 2006

The Czech Ministry of Informatics decided to support financially the network infrastructure of the eduroam project. Press release contains detailed information.

Globally accepted server certificates

April 24., 2006

CESNET is able to release certificates accepted by common client programs to connected servers. It is possible thanks to the contract between TERENA and GlobalSign organisations which enables eight European national research and education networks (NRENs) to release globally accepted certificates. Participation of more NRENs is expected in near future. See the press release for more information.

NETC@RDS project pilot started

April 21., 2006

Pilot operation of NETC@RDS workplace in Znojmo hospital was officially launched at March 29th. The geographical location of Znojmo and Hodonin hospitals makes them feasible participants of the project. Foreign patients (mostly the victims of car accidents) are quite frequent here due to the nearness of the Czech-Austrian border. CESNET operates for the NETC@RDS project the national server and provides the communication infrastructure.

2005 annual research report in English

April 19., 2006

English version of our annual research report has been published. It provides detailed information about our research activities and results achieved in previous year. The 202-page long report is available both in HTML and PDF formats.

Datagram No. 12

March 7., 2006

The new issue of our Datagram bulletin (in Czech) provides summary of the CESNET Conference 2006.

Workshop of researchers

March 27.–29., 2006

Three-day workshop of researchers cooperating with CESNET took place in Tabor. Leaders of our activities presented the achieved results and future plans during the plenary sessions. Workgroup meetings followed focused on the coordination of participating researchers.

RSS channel

March 28., 2006

We started announcing of happenings on www.cesnet.cz using RSS to make the news watching easier. Add our RSS channel to your reader to be informed. Are you not using RSS? May be our explanation what is RSS motivates you.

CESNET Conference 2006

March 6.-8., 2006

We organised a technical conference focused on optical networks, middleware, grids and networking applications. More than 100 participants from 16 countries joined the event. More information and materials are available at the conference pages.

10 years of CESNET

March 6., 2006

The CESNET association celebrated 10th anniversary of its establishment.

Datagram No. 11

February 28., 2006

The new issue of our Datagram bulletin (in Czech) contains articles about the completion of backbone DWDM ring, successful evaluation of 2005 research results, tenth anniversary of CESNET establishment and the coming CESNET 2006 conference.

CESNET in the NETC@RDS project

February 23., 2006

CESNET – represented by Milan Sarek and Tomas Mrazek – is participating in the NETC@RDS project which first workshop took place on January 25. CESNET provides support, national NETC@RDS server hosting and communication infrastructure for the project. The NETC@RDS project is currently in pilot phase focused on the evaluation of administrative procedures in public health insurance and healthcare providers (hospitals, ambulances) related to the care provided for EU citizens abroad of their domectic countries. NETC@RDS is considered to be pioneer demonstrator of the European health insurance card functionality.

10 Gbps to SANET

February 16., 2006

The cross-boarder connection to the Slovak academical network SANET has been upgraded to 10 Gbps. Read the press release for more information.

Successful evaluation of 2005 results

January 30., 2006

The evaluation of our research plan Optical national research network and its new applications took place on Thrusday January 26. The evaluation committee stated that all goals designated to 2005 have been fulfilled. The results achieved have been declared excellent, of internetion importance. The evaluation protocol (in Czech) contains more information including the reviews and our annual research report (all materials are in Czech only, the English version of the annual report is beeing prepared). There is a press release describing this event.

First phase of the GEANT2 network goes live

January 17., 2006

DANTE announced in its press release the deployment of first phase of the next-generation European research and education backbone GEANT2. This phase encompasses about one third of the planned backbone. See more in the DANTE press release (PDF, 100 kB).

Backbone DWDM ring operational

January 3., 2006

We deployed a backbone DWDM ring interconnecting CESNET2 nodes at Prague, Brno, Olomouc and Hradec Kralove. Thanks to the ROADM technology it offers a flexible provisioning of network paths based on current needs. The maximum ring capacity is 32 channels 10 Gbps each. More information is available in the press release.