Activities
The major framework for CESNET's research is the research plan titled Optical national research network and its new applications. This seven-year research plan (2004-2010) represents a significant part of CESNET's working, so you can find information about it on many places on this Web site.
Because the volume of research related to this research plan is huge, we defined following particular activities:
Optical networks
The activity is oriented to extension of the Czech Republic participation on research and development of global experimental lambda network TransLight and on research and development of CEF (Customer Empowered Fibre) networks. Primarily it is focused on pure optical transmission and switched systems.
The most important part of the activity is extending of access to CzechLight in the Czech Republic, that can be used for access to TransLight, for national extension of GN2 testbed, for connecting of supercomputer clusters, for remote availability of National supercomputer centre, for remote control of experimental and measurement and other applications. The goal is availability of CzechLight for all working groups capable of participating on international application projects using such networks. We prepare design and testing of the components based on PC, allowing the realization of light paths for approach to CzechLight in metro and intercity area.
The parts of activity there are also development and testing of WDM system tailored on customer demand and designed on the level of recent scientific knowledge of optical transmission. Concurrently we will evaluate new methods of chromatic dispersion compensation, decreasing of inserted DCF attenuation, increasing of NIL distances, 10 Gbps transmission on 1310 nm, PDFA testing and possibilities of using lower chromatic dispersion of G.652 fibre on 1310 nm.
We would like to support CEF-network deployment internationally and to intensify our collaboration on international projects of experimental network development, e.g. TransLight, GN2 and others.
| contact: | Stanislav Šíma |
| reports: | 2003 annual report |
Programmable hardware
The general aim of this activity is the development of specialised network devices based on the principle of hardware-software codesign. On the hardware side, we plan both to reuse the existing COMBO family of cards and also to create new designs utilising primarily high-performance programmable hardware components (FPGA, CPLD, TCAM etc.). Thanks to their flexibility, very different functions can be realised on the same hardware just by changing the appropriate microcode. A significant part of software development efforts will thus be spent on programming the microcode in the VHDL language, but we will also address the system and application software necessary for each particular device.
Our short-term goals are mostly related to our (ongoing or future) participation in EU projects. In 2004 we will continue the development of an IPv6 router (Liberouter) for the 6NET project, a traffic monitoring device for the SCAMPI project and start the development of a stand-alone NetFlow collector in the frame of the GN2 project. Also, we will finish a prototype of an optical repeater.
In a longer term, our goal is to build a sophisticated team consisting of researchers and students from several universities, CESNET and possibly other institutions. This team will cooperate closely with other CESNET research activities on the development of new devices, for example in the areas of optical technology, multimedia, security, large-scale computation etc.
Virtual collaborative environment
The activity is focused mainly on transport of multimedia data and their applications. In the centre of our attention are videoconferencing tools, mainly the advanced ones encompassing high-speed videoconferencing, Access Grid videoconferencing rooms, connection of lecturing rooms or stereoprojection. Besides of them we continue the development of MIRO videoconferencing reflector and our H.323 platform.
We further develop the tools and infrastructure for videostreaming and high-quality audio/video signal broadcasting. We try to support some pilot groups of user of collaborative technology and support the applications for science, research and education.
MetaCentre
The major goal of this activity is to develop and run the Czech academic Grid environment. More specifically, at the equipment level the activity focuses on cluster based systems within the Grid and their integration with other computing resources, like large SMP multiprocessor computers. Also, large scale data storage is becoming more and more important part of the Grid environment and its management and further extension is also part of this activity.
The activity also takes care of the Grid middleware development and deployment. While this is done in strong collaboration with international projects, specific solutions tailored to requirements of Czech users, are also developed and pushed at international levels. Security, information services, scheduling are just few important examples of the areas covered. MetaCenter also closely cooperates with academic high performance centers and expects very strong cooperation with the forthcoming National Supercomputer Center project.
Substantial part of the MetaCenter activity lies in the participation in the 6FP project EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-science and industry in Europe). There, a large scale pan European production oriented Grid will be build and operated. However, half of EGEE related capacity of the MetaCenter will go to participation on further development of the appropriate middleware, most specifically to extensions of logging and bookkeeping service and related middleware components, including security.
| contact: | Luděk Matyska |
| web: | meta.cesnet.cz |
| reports: |
2003 annual report Aktuální stav LDAPu MetaCentra IBP Deployment Tests and Integration with DiDaS Project |
IP telephony
Aim of our research is further development and quality enhancement of our IP telephony infrastructure. Several trends could be observed within the activity: quality of service research (QoS, alternative network peering, advanced signaling techniques), support of new protocols and services (SIP, ENUM), IP phones support, integration.
IP telephony infrastructure connects together more than twenty branch exchanges (PBX), what makes our IP telephony network one of the European largest. Newly we will focus on IP phone support with PSTN reachability. Closed IP telephony networks restrict ways of communication. Therefore we try to interconnect our IP telephony network with other NRENs and academic institutions and integrate endpoints with different capabilities.
By taking advantage of modern means of communication we are creating a high quality environment for research and infrastructure tasks.
| contact: | Jan Růžička |
| web: | activity site |
| reports: | 2003 annual report The Peering with CESNET VoIP Network |
Development of the NREN
This activity aims at development and deployment of the new integrated IP/Optical technologies in the production environment of the CESNET2 backbone. The result of this work will be advanced network infrastructure that delivers both IP and lambda services for advanced network applications.
On the higher functional levels we will focus on new internet features and protocols such as IPv6 and multicast and QoS. In addition is a very important to improve the network preformace and service stability for the network researches and other projects.
| contact: | Václav Novák |
| web: | information about Czech NREN IP version 6 |
| reports: | 2003 annual report |
Network communication performance monitoring and optimization
An overall goal of this activity is research and development towards providing required performance characteristics when communicating over fast long-distance networks. The activity can be divided into two parts - performance monitoring and performance provisioning.
The goal of performance monitoring is to obtain general knowledge and current data about properties of network traffic and network behaviour to ease locating of problem or overloaded points.
The goal of performance provisioning is to actively contribute to enhancing communication performance characteristics by improving congestion control, research in parallel communication possibilities and cooperation with the PERT group.
Network and traffic monitoring
The network infrastructure monitoring area concerns with the development of monitoring systems which gather, process and present information primarily obtained from network infrastructure components (e.g., routers, switches). Unlike other measurement systems, we analyze long term trends of network infrastructure behavior and provide an overall views on particular item or parameter with its maximum variations in aggregated form, rather than its specific real-time course. The major keys of success are, among others, measurement methodology and strategy, quality of selected data model, storage and aggregation techniques, identifier tracking strategy, tasks distribution and last but not least a suitable level of abstraction.
The traffic monitoring area concentrates on development of efficient flow-based measurement and processing tools. The massive traffic growth in contemporary networks focuses in distributed open systems with powerful classification, filtering mechanisms and intelligent data storage. We intend to give a long-term overall view on IP traffic (v4,v6) structure and trends as well as a step-by-step microscopic analysis of particular network interactions.
| contact: | Tomáš Košňar |
| web: | traffic statistics |
AAI and mobility
This activity aims at development and deployment of inter-domain distributed infrastructure providing authentication and authorization services to support cooperation of users registered within different institutions. This infrastructure is planned to be used by WWW applications, by roaming control services, and by some IP telephony services (e.g. users registration, control of connecting to public telephony network). The compatibility with similar international activities (TERENA, GN2, Internet2) is the essential requirement.
The inter-network WiFi users roaming makes an excellent example of a service requiring a distributed authentication and authorization infrastructure. Recently, a RADIUS-tree based pilot structure is being built within European NRENs to enable secure and transparent access to hosting networks. Although this particular solution may be replaced by the general AAI when it is ready, deploying and operating such a broad-scope infrastructure is expected to bring up a valuable experience employable in both technical and organizational implementation of new-generation AA services.
| contact: | Milan Sova |
CESNET CSIRT
The main CERT activity goal is to achieve a better internal organization of security activities, mainly to establish the team within organisation that deal with computer, services and network security incidents, partly formalize these activities and try to prevent incidents from happening and coordinate the handling incidents, when they do occur. The next goal is to establish contact and cooperation with the current european security activities and projects, e.g., Terena.
| contact: | Vladimír Třeštík |
Distance education support
The activity is related to the projects Infrastructure and Technology for On-Line Education running between 2002 and 2003 and collaborates with the present activity Virtual Collaborative Environment.
The main goal is a qualitative shift in electronic support of education at university level, maximally utilizing current possibilities in the area of progressive network and local digital technologies, such as systems and tools for recording, processing, storing and presentation of multimedia data and tools for remote collaboration.
This activity will show methodology, pilot projects and case studies how to use the technologies in education in the way it can be reproduced in the frame of CESNET. The activity will also target the broad students' community at the Czech universities - members of CESNET.
| contact: | Boris Šimák |
Telemedicine
The general aim of this activity is oriented on applications from healthcare area. The main topics are oncology, genetics, and processing of medical images.
In 2004 we will continue in projects ESGM (European School of Genetic Medicine) and MEDIMED (applications of Picture Archiving and Communication Systems).
| contact: | Milan Šárek |