The Works of DANTE - Issue 3
Welcome
Welcome to the Spring 2005 edition of The Works of DANTE. In this edition we bring you news on the status of GÉANT2, DANTE’s involvement in the SEEFIRE project, and new connections and upgrades to the EUMEDCONNECT network.
Results of a joint GÉANT2-Internet2 initiative are revealed within. The collaboration has developed a new tool for network users, to provide a “whole picture” view of performance measurement across different network domains.
We profile a PERT (Performance Enhancement and Response Team) duty manager, to learn more about what the service does, how it operates and who can use it. The development of the team is demonstration of GÉANT2’s commitment to focus on the network’s users.
In September 2004, the ALICE project created the RedCLARA network for Latin America. It has now been up and running for over eight months, and is already demonstrating concrete results of research networking in both the academic arena and the wider community. We speak to Florencio Utreras, RedCLARA’s Chief Executive, who explains why the project has been such an immediate success, and relives the journey to get there.
As always, we hope you find this edition a useful source of news, and welcome any comments or feedback that you may have. Contact us at www.dante.net/feedback.
The Works of DANTE editorial team
The DANTE View...
The GÉANT2 network will be the first trial hybrid network on an international scale in the world. Although much of the initial usage of GÉANT2 will continue to be IP, the interesting and fundamental development is the provision of point-to-point services, where a path is guaranteed on an end-to-end basis. The portfolio of GÉANT has now evolved to the point where, for most countries, the basic subscription will be “GÉANT+”. This is a combination of 10Gbps access to IP, combined with 10Gbps access to point-to-point services. The point-to-point services will make use of a new platform of switches currently being procured.
Building a switched infrastructure is very different from building a routed one. From a connectivity point of view, although not necessarily from a user point of view, routed networks degrade gracefully; more precisely put, performance goes gradually from acceptable through to awful. In contrast the switched network requires the availability of capacity on an end-to-end basis. This requires considerably greater discipline in terms of provision, definition of quality and grade of services etc.
The fact that Erlang B1 may be difficult to understand and, for the non-mathematical among us, something of a black art, does not mean to say that it does not define how things work in practice. With a new hybrid architecture, we will relearn some of the experience which the designers of switched networks have faced for many years. There is, however, a significant difference. Previously, switched networks have been based on single services (e.g. telephony call or end-to-end 64Kbps connection). We now face the challenge of organising and managing portfolios of switched services on an end-to-end basis.
Unlike routed networks, switched networks do not degrade gracefully. They either work from a user’s perspective or they fail. In this context perception is much more binary. If you are convinced that a point-to point service does not work at all, you tend to forget the bad old days of IP packet loss and endless pings. The big challenge of GÉANT2 is to prove that it is possible to organise effective switched services. This requires attention to boring things such as dimensioning and operational discipline. It will be interesting to see if we again yearn for the happy anarchy of IP.
Dai Davies
DANTE General Manager
1 Erlang B is a method, based on queuing theory, for determining networks’ behaviour relative to the amount of traffic they are carrying. It can be used to determine the network capacity required to support a predicted level of traffic at a desired quality.
GÉANT2 – Internet2 Initiative Yields Success
A new measurement infrastructure designed to give users the “whole picture” of performance across several networks is currently in development, as a result of collaboration between GÉANT2 and Internet2. The infrastructure allows users to see performance measurement data across different network domains.
Currently there is a lack of co-ordination for network management, because staff at the network operations centres (NOCs) at the national, regional and campus level do not have a global view of the network, and may spend considerable time troubleshooting problems which are often out of their scope.
Typically, in connecting two end-users, several different networks (or domains) will be used. In many cases, at least five domains are involved: GÉANT, the two NRENs and the two campus/university domains. Each of these domains may make use of diverse tools for monitoring a variety of network characteristics. The mechanisms used to collect this data, and their presentation to users, differ quite significantly between different network domains.
A NOC which has to troubleshoot an end-to-end performance problem does not have standard access to network performance data all along the path to help understand and identify where the problem lies. Each network domain along the path between the two users has its own set of performance data and its own policies to access this data.
The joint initiative between GÉANT2 and Internet2 has addressed this problem. The main objective of the activity is to provide the design and the implementation of a middle layer between the visualisation tools of a user and the measurement tools deployed within the networks.
The joint work proposal was suggested in July 2004, and was agreed during a technical meeting held in September 2004. To consolidate the joint approach a development week took place in mid-May 2005 in the USA. It is intended that a prototype will be deployed later in the summer.
GÉANT2 Topology Update
Final procurement negotiations are underway for the GÉANT2 network.
The topology will have a total of 44 routes, using a mixture of dark fibre and leased circuits. 18 routes will be connected with dark fibre and 26 links will use leased circuits initially.
15 suitable vendors have been identified and final negotiations are currently in progress. The preferred providers of network operating services and transmission equipment have also been identified.
The announcement of the initial planned topology for GÉANT2 is expected to be made in mid June.
Visit www.geant2.net for further information on the project and its services.
GÉANT Upgrades and New Connections
Bulgaria directly connected to GÉANT!
On 18 March 2005, our Bulgarian partner, the Information Society Technologies Foundation (ISTF), became directly connected to the GÉANT network.
The new link is connected at 155Mbps to Sofia, and smoothes the way for increased collaboration between the Bulgarian academic community and their European colleagues. The move will also support the work of the ISTF to facilitate the integration of Bulgarian educational, research and cultural resources into the international arena.
With support from the DANTE operations team, the link between Sofia and Budapest started production use at 01:00 EET. DANTE would like to welcome ISTF in becoming the latest directly-connected member of the GÉANT network. Prior to this new, direct connection, the link to Bulgaria was kept active by GRNET and the SEEREN partners.
A partner in GÉANT since January 2004, ISTF is also one of 32 project partners in GÉANT2, which will provide connections to a total of 34 European countries.
For further information on ISTF, please visit their website at www.ist.bg
Estonia upgrades its GÉANT link
A recent upgrade to the Estonia connection to GÉANT (Tallin-Stockholm) has resulted in an increase in capacity from 155Mbps to 622Mbps.
New Partners for GÉANT
The GÉANT Policy Committee recently invited the NRENs of Serbia and Montenegro (AMREJ) and Macedonia (MARNet) to attend future proceedings as permanent observers. This development will allow for more efficient information exchange and enable these NRENs to expand their knowledge base. DANTE would like to welcome both AMREJ and MARNet to the GÉANT Policy Committee.
GÉANT2 Launch Readies for Lift-Off!
Preparations for the official launch of the GÉANT2 project are continuing. The event will be held in Luxembourg on 14-15 June 2005, at the Abbaye de Neumünster. Opening the event and giving the keynote presentation will be Commissioner Viviane Reding, EC Commissioner for Information Society and the Media. Highlights from the agenda include:
- A session on global research networking which will look at the benefits and challenges of international cooperation
- A session titled “User Support: From Technology to Service” which will examine issues relating to understanding and meeting user requirements as research networking matures into a more customer-oriented service.
A GÉANT2 launch event website has been created at www.geant2.net/launch, which provides the latest information leading up to the event. Attendance at the event is by invitation only.
GÉANT2’s PERT People Tackle Network Troubles
The Performance Enhancement and Response Team (PERT) is a new service established as part of the GÉANT2 project. Here, Simon Leinen from the Swiss NREN SWITCH explains more about the initiative.
1) What is PERT?
PERT is the Performance Enhancement and Response Team, which is developing as part of the GÉANT2 project. Its purpose is to help investigate and resolve any system performance problems a user is experiencing, which might be caused by the equipment used, the applications being run, or a networking issue. The PERT will identify if the problem is caused by the network and aim to resolve it.
2) Why is it needed?
Many end-systems are not optimised to make proper use of Europe’s high-capacity, long-distance networks. Fitting a Gigabit Ethernet card to your computer does not mean you will automatically be able to download data at 1000Mbps - but the reasons why this is so are quite subtle. Without expert help end-users - even technically competent ones - will not be able to achieve the full potential offered by their networked systems.
3) What is your role?
I actually have two main roles – PERT Manager and PERT Case Manager. They might sound the same, but in fact they’re quite different jobs. The PERT Case Managers take it in turns to be the Duty Case Manager, who is the main point of contact for the PERT for that particular week. The Duty Case Manager answers any new queries and works to progress any unresolved issues.
As a PERT Manager I am jointly responsible to the senior management of GÉANT2 for the proper conduct of the PERT. I also have special responsibility for the PERT Wiki2. The Wiki is mainly used to store network performance-related information and ‘lessons learned’, and as such is both a useful reference for Case Managers and a good self-help facility for end-users.
2 A Wiki is a website that can be edited by the user.
4) How is the team structured?
Apart from the Case Managers and the PERT Managers, the only other role in the PERT is that of Subject Matter Expert (SME). SMEs are people with expert knowledge in one or more specific areas who provide their help in answering questions and solving cases on a purely best-efforts basis (which is to say, only when they have time). This is in contrast to the Duty Case Manager, who for the duration of their week-long duty is dedicated to working on PERT issues.
5) How do you report a problem to the PERT?
Only the PERT’s “primary customers” may open a new case with the PERT. The primary customers are the European national research and education networks (NRENs) which GÉANT2 directly interconnects, the GÉANT2 peers (for example, Abilene in the USA) and certain large pan-European projects, such as EGEE (Electronic Grids for E-sciencE). Therefore any end user experiencing problems should first refer the issue to their NREN, using their normal reporting procedure. The NREN will then decide if the issue should be escalated to the PERT.
NREN staff and other primary customers can raise issues with the PERT by emailing pert-report@geant2.net, or better still by logging into the new PERT Ticket System at www.pert.geant2.net and creating the ticket themselves.
6) How soon would the problem be investigated?
The PERT will respond to all new queries by next business day, and all help provided is on a best-efforts basis. The more relevant the information that is provided to the PERT, the greater the chance of a quick and successful resolution to the problem.
7) What tools has the PERT developed?
Our Polish NREN partner, PSNC, is developing two main tools for the PERT: the PERT Ticket System (PTS) and the PERT Knowledgebase (KB). The PTS is quite simply the ticket system we use to track and manage the PERT cases, whilst the PERT Knowledgebase will be the successor to the current PERT Wiki, which I described earlier. The PERT KB will offer a more structured source of information than the Wiki. When the PERT KB is ready the Wiki’s data will be migrated to the PERT KB, where I will continue to oversee its development and growth.
PSNC is also putting in place a publicly accessible forum, the PERT forum, where anyone can post a question. The Duty Case Managers will monitor the forum and offer advice and suggestions when they can, but the hope is that the forum will become self-sustaining, with forum members providing the answers themselves. Once this stage is reached then some of the more active contributors to the forum will be invited to become PERT Associate Members, which means they will be forum moderators.
8) How will the PERT progress in the future?
As the PERT learns from experience, it will become increasingly efficient and successful in solving performance problems, and so will attract more customers wanting to use it. As the PERT KB grows in parallel with the PERT, more and more people will be able to find the answers they need without the help of the PERT staff, and ultimately we hope to put ourselves out of a job! But for that to happen there is a lot to be understood and a lot to be done, and so what we really need is a large number of capable SMEs who can give just a little of their time to help us solve cases and grow our shared knowledge.
The PERT is just one of the new initiatives being developed as part of the GÉANT2 project. To find out about the others, please visit the Research section of the GÉANT2 website at www.geant2.net.
EUMEDCONNECT Spreads Its Net
New links to the EUMEDCONNECT network have recently increased the number of project partners now connected to nine.
The planned 34Mbps connection to Egypt began operating in March 2005, and is connected via a point of presence (PoP) in Catania, Sicily. In addition an 8Mbps link to Syria is also operational via the new hub in Nicosia, Cyprus, which entered service in January 2005. A 45Mbps connection between Jordan and France is also in development.
As well as these new links, an upgrade to the Algeria-Madrid link has been implemented. This increase in capacity to 155Mbps is evidence of the success of the network - the demand for network development is stimulated by users and vice versa.
At a recent project meeting in Brussels, at which all project partners were represented, the success of the project so far was celebrated by all. The benefits the network is delivering to the Mediterranean region are recognised, and the priority now is to secure continued funding, to ensure the project’s achievements can be sustained and built upon.
A new EUMEDCONNECT leaflet has recently been produced. It can be viewed from the Newsroom section at the new-look website, www.eumedconnect.net. Free printed copies can also be ordered here.
First EUMEDIS Conference Hailed a Success
DANTE attended the First EUMEDIS International Conference in Jordan on 17 and 18 April 2005. The conference provided a forum for reflection on four years of EUMEDIS activities, whilst at the same time strengthening the visibility of the programme. The EU’s EUMEDIS programme aims to develop the information society in the Mediterranean region, by funding IST projects in areas such as education, healthcare, culture and tourism. At the conference stakeholders were able to convene with a group of local and international policy makers, to consolidate achievements and drive future development.
Several EUMEDIS pilot projects expressed their intention to use the EUMEDCONNECT network, including MEDFORIST, a Euro-Mediterranean project developing and deploying shared IST learning resources. MEDFORIST (www.medforist.net) now hopes to move its data centre to Morocco to make use of EUMEDCONNECT.
MEDFORIST will join projects such as Strabon, which are already benefiting from the advanced bandwidth and international connections offered by EUMEDCONNECT. Strabon aims to encourage the expansion of the information society within the region. It will also develop multimedia information systems for cultural heritage and sustainable tourism. Consisting of 19 partners in 12 countries, the project brings together researchers, historians and archaeologists to create a cooperation network. Further details on the Strabon programme can be found at www.strabon.org
Additional information on the outcomes of the conference is available from the conference website (www.eumedisconference.org/)
TEIN2 Tender News
Following a connectivity tender announcement in January, DANTE is now evaluating the encouraging responses. Over 30 telecoms providers expressed formal interest in providing connectivity for the TEIN2 network in southeast Asia.
An additional tender call for network operations centre (NOC) services was also made and results from this are currently being analysed.
DANTE is the co-ordinating partner in the TEIN2 project, which will create a regional research network able to connect the following partners to one another and to Europe: Brunei, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Direct connectivity to the pan-European GÉANT2 network will allow unprecedented Asian-European research collaboration. The project is jointly funded by the European Union and the project partners, and will run until the end of 2007. European NREN partners in the project are RENATER (France), SURFnet (the Netherlands) and UKERNA (United Kingdom). The TEIN2 network will be operational from late 2005.
DANTE Commits to SEEFIRE Project
DANTE joins ten other partners in the SEEFIRE project (South-East Europe Fibre Infrastructure for Research and Education), which launched on 1 March 2005. Building on the success of the SEEREN network, SEEFIRE will study the options for the deployment of dark fibre and the management of optical transmission by NRENs in the region. Placing a specific emphasis on the Western Balkan Countries, it will also look at the possible strategies for the development of research and education networking in the area.
The project is co-ordinated by TERENA, with the ultimate aim of addressing the digital divide that affects many countries in South East Europe.
DANTE will be providing specific advice on network procurement and financing, and is also a member of the SEEFIRE steering committee. Please visit the SEEFIRE website (www.seefire.org) for further details.
SEEREN2 - the Sequel
A proposal for the successor project to SEEREN (South Eastern European Research and Education Network) has been submitted to the European Commission for consideration. The original SEEREN project ended in December, at which point connectivity contracts were taken over by GÉANT, to ensure continued provision of connectivity in the region.
As with its predecessor project, SEEREN2 will be lead by GRNET, the Greek national research and education network, and involves the active participation of eight organisations representing the NRENs of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Serbia-Montenegro. Of the eight NRENs, four are connected to GÉANT2 (Greece, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria); four are not, and consequently will be the main beneficiaries of SEEREN2. The consortium is complemented with the vast experience of the pan-European research and education networking bodies DANTE and TERENA.
The aim of SEEREN2 is to further the benefits achieved by SEEREN in an attempt to ease the “digital divide” that still separates most of the southeast European countries from the rest of the continent. Jorge Andres Sanchez Papaspiliou, the SEEREN Project Manager, said, “With respect to its predecessor (SEEREN), the infrastructure will be substantially enhanced in its performance, but more significantly will add a new key item to its fundamental characteristic - the consolidation of the networking and Grid infrastructures into an eInfrastructure for southeast Europe, fully integrated with the pan-European efforts (GÉANT2, EGEE, SEE-GRID etc). The latter will be achieved with the support of services and tools empowering the end-user (researchers, professors, students, etc), responding to dynamic bandwidth requirements, and guaranteed and seamless service quality. In this trajectory, SEEREN2 will continue to assist the incubating and existing NRENs in southeast Europe to fully establish themselves, and to integrate with related European-wide organisations and initiatives (TERENA, CEENet, e-IRG, EUGridPMA, etc) and eventually become full members of the GÉANT2 community by the end of the project.”
“The ultimate goal is to consolidate the network and services into the pan-European eInfrastructure and the end-users into the European Research Area.“
More information on SEEREN and its successor can be found at www.seeren.org.
RedCLARA in Review
The ALICE project created the RedCLARA network for Latin America. It began operating on 1 September 2004, and has already produced important and tangible results. Florencio Utreras, Chief Executive of CLARA (the research and education organisation established to co-ordinate activities within Latin America), visited the DANTE office recently. We took the opportunity to sit down with Florencio and review RedCLARA’s first few months of operation.
What is the current status of research networking in Latin America?
I would say that the current status falls into three broad categories within the region.
Firstly there are some countries where research networking is a very important national policy, and there is strong awareness. These include Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. In the first three countries, research networks have been in existence since the 1990s. The Mexican research network CUDI started later in 2000, but has developed very quickly.
In the second group of countries, there have been national policies for research networking, but until recently, funding was insufficient to support their scope. Countries such as Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay fall into this category. Once ALICE began, they immediately said, “We want that”. Uruguay, for example, is now developing a very good network, motivated by the ALICE project and by CLARA. The same is true for Colombia. When the ALICE project started, it brought together different working organisations, and motivated them to agree on a protocol to build a national network. In the case of Peru, networking was born in the 90s. At this time it was essentially an initiative of NGOs (non-governmental organisations). The focus was more on communication than research. Now the government is pushing for technological development in research and innovation. They receive grants from the World Bank and from other sources to enhance research capacity in Peru. These grants, in conjunction with the ALICE project, have provided a real catalyst for development.
For the third group of countries, until very recently national policies and funding for research were weak. This was the result of a combination of low economic performance and little official national commitment to research. Most of Central America, with the exception of Costa Rica and Panama, would fall into this category. However, since the start of ALICE, many countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, have built networks. For these countries, being able to connect to RedCLARA has been a real drive for development. In Guatemala, for example, seven universities got together and decided to connect solely for this purpose. The development of these national networks is a direct result of the ALICE project.
How were project partners identified?
Within Latin American academic research networking, the motivation to create a regional network already existed. DANTE contacted some of the more developed networks, such as REUNA in Chile, and asked us to identify who could be invited to join the project - we simply got in touch with those who we’d already been talking to. That’s why the answer to the European Commission’s invitation was so immediate – “Let’s go for it!”
The European Commission played a very important role. They contacted national governments through their national offices. Through the ALICE project we have been able to bring together academics, research experts and governments. Even with the national differences in economic policies and political situations, each partner has been able to create its own model for a research network.
The generous offer of help came at a very crucial moment. If this offer had been made five years ago, it would not have been possible because telecoms infrastructure prices were ten times higher or more. The drop in the cost of connectivity in the last five years has helped to make it possible.
What applications do you see benefiting from the network?
That will vary from country to country, but basically I foresee two levels of applications.
Firstly, there are visible, high-science applications, which are technologically advanced, transferring large amounts of data between huge scientific facilities - astronomy, oceanography and seismology, for example. Also, regionally important issues will benefit, including research into El Niño, climate change and biodiversity loss in the Amazon. The fostering of the development of clusters of scientists is going to be a big benefit of the network for these sorts of applications - developing strong people networks as well as the physical ones.
Secondly, you have applications which are enabled by the high-speed network, but that are not necessarily high science - for example, applications such as videoconferencing, virtual reality, e-learning, digital libraries and telemedicine. These may already be available via the commercial Internet but not with the quality or capability that research networks offer. These types of applications will reach more people, utilising the expansive geographic reach of RedCLARA. We need to identify who needs them, because it is these people who will be covering the costs of the network. We cannot pay for this type of infrastructure with high-science projects alone.
What are the main problems that the project has faced?
In general the project has run smoothly. Of course there have been problems - it was quite complicated to carry out the tender process, and it took us longer than we had expected. It’s a complex project – there are 18 different nations involved, with different rules and different cultures. Even though they are similar, they are not the same.
Funding for the project ends in May 2006. How will the network be sustained after that date?
It’s a huge challenge. We have not yet fully deployed the network, and cannot carry on with a lot of sustainability work until that point. We are introducing, in a certain sense, a new service, and we have to develop a customer base, to prove that there are the customers for this service. We may need three years or so to develop a large enough community to pay for this type of network.
We have to learn the needs and the problems in each country. There will be commonality, but there will also be some differences. According to that, we first need to design the marketing and support activities we are going to foster in each country.
The second phase involves designing a business model for the network in each country to allow them to self-sustain. CLARA has been created to co-ordinate activities, while taking care of the differences. Our community can work together, but we have to be careful to design a process that can be adapted to specific cultures, economic situations and regulations - you can’t necessarily copy a model from one country to another. It would be nice if we could change these circumstances, but that is easy to say and not so easy to do!
Several groups of people already have a high awareness of ALICE and RedCLARA. Now we have to increase awareness amongst political authorities, and in the scientific and academic community, and to communicate the new possibilities that the network offers. To do that there are different levels of work – with communications tailored to the group, both scientific and political, and at a regional and international level.
Are you looking to use the GÉANT connection to Europe to extend collaboration with European researchers?
Of course - Latin America has been in touch with Europe for all its history, and we are seeking opportunities to create joint projects and strengthen those links. We know there are interesting funding possibilities within Europe, where we can participate. Some countries have signed science and technology agreements with Europe. However, there needs to be the underlying infrastructure there to allow these people networks to develop.
How do you see future collaboration between DANTE and CLARA?
Working with DANTE has been great. We have been able to build the network and always with excellent support. We see ourselves as part of the international networking community, and organisations like DANTE, and APAN in Asia, as our natural partners. We feel we need to work more with international networks and partners to ensure sustained connectivity.
There are clear benefits on both sides. There are a lot of interesting things going on in Latin America, in climate change, deforestation etc. There are many high–scale problems where the whole world has to be involved, and we want to be part of that.
We need to strengthen and continue to build the infrastructure that we need for our own scientists. This will allow us to contribute to global research networking.
Recent network developments include a new connection to Peru at 10Mbps, which became operational during April 2005. Uruguay will also shortly join RedCLARA. Equipment is being installed and testing began in the first week of May.
Hot Off the Press!
A number of new print materials have been produced recently. These include a new leaflet and an updated topology poster for EUMEDCONNECT. All items can be downloaded from the DANTE website, or if you prefer FREE hard copies, complete the appropriate order form at www.dante.net/order.
