The Works of DANTE - Issue 5

Welcome

Welcome to the Spring 2006 edition of The Works of DANTE. In this issue we have an update on the rollout of the GÉANT2 network. More than 40% of the connections have now been installed and are operational. Testing of the revolutionary point-to-point connections is also continuing.

The first GÉANT2 Technical Workshop was held in Cambridge in January. It brought together engineers from across Europe, and saw the unveiling of a new traffic provisioning system for multiple domains.

We also report on an extension to the ALICE and EUMEDCONNECT Projects, which will see project funding continue into 2007. This is a huge vote of confidence from the European Commission, and a just reward for the hard work of everyone involved. An interview with the ALICE project manager, Cathrin Stover, reveals what the funding extension will mean for research networking in Latin America.

December saw deployment of the TEIN2 network commence – a feat which was marked at a ceremony held in Japan at the 21st APAN meeting. Compelling demonstrations at the event highlighted the exciting potential of the network in the region.

The Partner Profile for this edition features Prof Jan Weglarz, Director of PSNC, Poland and there is community news from BELNET, UKERNA and SEEREN2, amongst others.

As always we hope you find this edition of the newsletter a useful source of information. We welcome your comments and feedback, and you can contact us at www.dante.net/feedback

The Works of DANTE editorial team

The DANTE View on...

A recent EU-supported survey suggests that Europe's citizens see research across Europe as critical to the continent's competitiveness – an opinion not unfamiliar to all of us who work in the Research Networking arena.

The research carried out across all EU member states suggests real confidence in the future growth and the benefits of research and development.  Eighty eight percent of those surveyed recognise the importance of pan-European collaboration and believe that it will better serve both European industry (69 per cent) and the national interest (65 per cent) of member countries. Interestingly 60 per cent of the interviewees feel strongly that research is currently under funded and that more money should be allocated to this area.

This survey demonstrates the importance European citizens place on research and scientific development, and that it acts as a driver of economic competitiveness in 21st Century Europe. Collaboration across the EU will not only lead to a stronger economy, but will also result in advances that benefit all citizens in their daily lives. Research networks are a key enabler of this, keeping European researchers at the forefront of research and development.

Creating a seamless working environment, where researchers have the mobility to roam across network boundaries (both human and technical), will help realise the EU's vision of a European Research Area (ERA). The collaborative working approach pioneered by the research networking community, and the results achieved so far, are helping to make Europe a truly dynamic knowledge economy. It is welcome news that our efforts are so widely supported by the community at large.

Full results of the survey can be found here

The Works of DANTE editorial team

GÉANT2 Network status update

 As of February 2006, 15 SDH routes are now fully installed and operational. Seven of the 18 dark fibre links are also now live, delivering greater control over performance and costs than traditional networking methods. An additional five dark fibre links are currently under test and should be operational shortly. In total 44 links make up the initial topology. 

"Building the first international hybrid network of its kind is a massive technical challenge," said Marian Garcia Vidondo, DANTE’s Operations Manager. "Above all, it has been important to ensure continuity of service as we migrate the connected national research and education networks from GÉANT to GÉANT2. Through extensive testing and stringent quality control we are ensuring that GÉANT’s reputation for excellence is maintained during this transition."

The GÉANT2 network is the largest ever built for the European research and academic community and offers unrivalled geographical coverage, high bandwidth, innovative hybrid networking technology and a range of user-focused services. The network interconnects with other world regions, enabling global collaboration. GÉANT2 will offer point-to-point services to projects such as DEISA, to connect distributed computing centres with high capacity links at a far lower cost than running a private network.

A new leaflet on GÉANT2’s point-to-point connections is in production and will be available shortly. An electronic version will be available from the GÉANT2 Media Centre, at www.geant2.net/media

First GÉANT2 Technical Workshop held in Cambridge

 The first ever GÉANT2 technical workshop was held in Cambridge on 9-13 January 2006. The week-long event brought together network users and engineers from the project’s partners to participate in development workshops and cross-topic discussions. More than 180 participants from all over Europe attended the workshop.

   "GÉANT2 is a huge project with ambitious aims, and its many participants are spread across the continent. The event provided a forum for information exchange and discussion across the project and the NREN partners.  The aim was to ensure maximum benefit is derived from the project’s various activities by targeting them in the most appropriate directions and benefiting from cross-fertilisation opportunities." said Roberto Sabatino, GÉANT2’s Chief Technical Officer, "It is also important that all project partners are aware of what is happening throughout the GÉANT2 project, and how the tools and services developed in each activity may benefit all the NRENs and their users."

A number of "Meet the NRENs" events were held, which allowed each activity leader to present their activity’s achievements and outline future developments to an NREN audience, with the aim of increasing uptake and rollout of these services. Toby Rodwell, who presented on behalf of the PACE activity (Performance and Allocated Capacity for End Users) said "One of the aims of our session was to bring the PERT (Performance Enhancement and Response Team) to a wider audience, and to increase uptake of the service among the NREN partners. The immediate response was positive, and we believe the coming months will see an increase in the number of cases reported to the PERT and an expansion of the PERT’s virtual team."

The second GÉANT2 Technical Workshop will be held in June 2006.

Send us your photos!

If you attended the first Technical Workshop and have any photos for the website please send them to prm@dante.org.uk

 
New Traffic Provisioning System unveiled at Tech Workshop

The first GÉANT2 workshop saw the unveiling of AMPS - the Advance Multi-Domain Provisioning System. The successor to GÉANT’s Premium IP Provisioning (PiP) service, it allows for regulation of prioritised IP traffic in multiple domains. For the first time, users will be able to book bandwidth in advance, at Premium IP quality, across multiple domains. A user only needs to know the network status in their own domain, as the AMPS system automatically passes the request along to neighbouring domains. This allows new networks to more easily join the service.

The system has been developed by GRNET (Greece), PSNC (Poland), RENATER (France) and DANTE. AMPS is already a production service in GÉANT2, and a pilot service will shortly be implemented by GRNET, PSNC, UKERNA (UK) and GARR (Italy). A full production service across multiple domains will be dependent on the uptake of the system by other NRENs.

The team behind AMPS have been liaising with counterparts in ESnet and Internet2 on deployment of the service, and transatlantic trials will begin shortly. Other future developments to the service include implementing a usage policy and integration with results from other research activities, such as Bandwidth Allocation and Reservation, and Roaming and Authorisation.

Development week aims to perfect perfSONAR

The perfSONAR Team met up during the weeklong GÉANT2 Technical Workshop to discuss current and future work in perfSONAR. The main focus of the meeting was to discuss quality and ease of use issues. PerfSONAR is the monitoring tool developed jointly by GÉANT2, Internet2 and ESnet, and for the first time, will enable an end-to-end view of network performance between interconnected networks. Until perfSONAR was developed, there was little consistency in the presentation of monitoring data, requiring network managers to use different tools for each network they monitored.

Based on the feedback received from early adopters of perfSONAR services, the team decided to focus more effort to improve not only the quality of their products but also the ease with which these products can be installed and used. The need to incorporate security features (Authentication and Authorisation) within perfSONAR was also prominent on the list of actions.

Discussions with members from GÉANT2’s research activity on Mobility and Roaming (who are working on the eduGAIN Authentication and Authorisation infrastructure) helped both teams in charting the way forward on this front. Meetings with engineers from GÉANT2 research activities "Bandwidth on Demand" and "Test Beds" were also held to ensure good knowledge transfer within the project’s various engineering teams.

The effort within perfSONAR to develop new services will continue. Services are currently being designed to export measurement data from point-to-point, SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) and Gigabit Ethernet circuits. The perfSONAR team and DANTE are working on implementing a pilot service, which can provide access to GÉANT2 SDH data. For more information on GÉANT2’s joint research activities visit www.geant2.net/research

International Co-operation strengthens global research

 With much of today’s collaborative research taking place on a global stage, international co-operation is integral to the success of that research. Recognising the importance of the "global dimension", regular meetings are held between GÉANT2, Internet2 and ESnet (US), and CANARIE (Canada), to foster closer working relationships. The most recent meeting was held in Ireland on 18-19th January 2006. Topics on the agenda included transatlantic connectivity, performance monitoring and network security.

 Configuration plans were outlined for the interconnection of GÉANT2, Abilene and ESnet in Washington, DC. The meeting also looked at collaboration on the development of hybrid network services and the interconnection of testbed and production capabilities. DANTE‘s Anand Patil outlined the potential use of GÉANT2’s AMPS service within the ESnet and Internet2 environments. Internet2’s Eric Boyd and ESnet’s Joe Metzger gave an update on the perfSONAR joint activity and highlighted the creation of user cook books, and the organisation of performance workshops. Plans for a joint network security exercise were also discussed as a potential area for future collaboration.

 Another topic on the agenda involved the management of end-to-end (e2e) services across multiple domains. All parties intend to co-operate in this area to ensure that e2e connections are managed in a way that optimises fault identification (based on advanced network monitoring using perfSONAR infrastructure), and to ensure effective communication between all parties.

To achieve maximum efficiency in global networking, continued collaboration on the development of new technologies, and cooperation on deployment of networking services, is essential. The next international collaboration meeting will take place in July in North America.

E-Concertation collaboration continues

 Representatives of various FP6-funded research infrastructure, grid and broadband technologies projects gathered on 14th December 2005 for the 2nd Concertation workshop on eInfrastructure. Held in Bordeaux, France, the meeting discussed topics of common interest and explored synergies in tackling them.

Organised by DANTE on behalf of the GÉANT2 project, the event furthered the European Commission's eInfrastructure Concertation initiative, which is aimed at stimulating cooperation and knowledge exchange between members of FP6-funded projects. Attendees included representatives from projects including GÉANT2, EGEE, SEEGRID, DILIGENT, and EXPReS.

To read a full report on the Bordeaux meeting, go to http://www.geant2.net/server/show/ConWebDoc.1631

Interoute announced as a supplier for GÉANT2

• 4,000 km fibre routes contracted with telecom supplier

 DANTE has selected Interoute to supply dark fibre and managed wavelength services on part of the GÉANT2 network. Interoute will provide 25% of the 12,000 fibre route kilometres contracted by the project. They will supply dark fibre in Austria, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, as well as wavelength services linking Austria and Germany.

 "We are proud to be working with DANTE on the next generation global network" says Jim Kinsella, CEO of Interoute.  "Networking excellence is at the core of our business so we can ensure that the network speed and reliability is always at an optimal level."

 

Extensions to ALICE and EUMEDCONNECT Projects announced

 Research and development collaboration in Latin America and the Mediterranean/North African region has been safeguarded by the extension of European Union-funded networking projects into 2007.

RedCLARA, the network created by the ALICE project, went live in 2004 and funding has now been extended until 31st March 2007. Cathrin Stöver, ALICE project manager, said "This is great news for research networking in Latin America. Thirteen of the partners are already connected, and more will join in the coming months. The funding extension will support ongoing initiatives to build the RedCLARA user base, develop the national networks of the newer partners, and facilitate upgrades to some partner connections."

 ALICE has already enabled both educational and social projects such as the T@lemed initiative. This provides e-health services to isolated regions of Brazil and Colombia, allowing doctors to remotely diagnose conditions and prescribe treatments to patients from thousands of kilometres away. Other projects to benefit from the network’s link to Europe, via GÉANT2, include AUGERACCESS and EELA, which both aim to develop shared e-Infrastructures between Latin America and Europe.

"We congratulate you on your achievements thus far and look forward to seeing the research and education communities of Latin America and Europe benefit from further strong results," said Riccardo Gambini, head of unit, AIDCO B.2, the EU body responsible for funding ALICE. "The development of new national networking organisations across the region and planned EU-Latin American research projects demonstrate the benefits that close collaboration has for both the academic and wider communities."

 The EUMEDCONNECT project has also been extended until July 2007 or later and currently covers 11 countries. Co-ordinated by DANTE, the network is supported by the national research networks RENATER (France), GRNET (Greece), GARR (Italy) and RedIRIS (Spain).

Current EUMEDCONNECT users include the Strabon e-culture project, which brings together researchers, historians and archaeologists to support sustainable tourism, AVICENNA, which has created a virtual campus for open distance learning and the planned connection of Egypt’s Alexandria Library to the network allowing the region’s rich cultural history to be shared online.

"Bridging the digital divide is key if the wider global community is to reap the benefits of information technology," commented Dai Davies, general manager, DANTE. "The contract extensions for ALICE and EUMEDCONNECT build on the strong successes these networks have already achieved and enable true collaboration between researchers across the globe. They demonstrate that the approach we pioneered with GÉANT in Europe can form the template for a worldwide research community."

Read the latest news on ALICE at www.dante.net/alice  and on EUMEDCONNECT at www.eumedconnect.net

 

EUMEDCONNECT supports EUMEDGRID project

The kick-off meeting for the EUMEDGRID project took place in Malta, on 6th-7th February, to mark the launch of the initiative, which officially began on January 1st 2006. The agenda included a presentation from the EUMEDCONNECT project manager, David West. The EUMEDCONNECT network supports EUMEDGRID, providing the essential underlying infrastructure on top of which the grid applications will run.

The EUMEDGRID project aims to assist the participation of researchers in the Mediterranean region in pan-European and worldwide Grid initiatives, thus expanding and supporting the European Research Area (ERA) in the region. The initiative will establish a Mediterranean grid infrastructure, which can become part of EGEE, which utilises GÉANT2, and be integrated with analogous initiatives in the Balkans, North Europe, Latin America and Far-East Asia.

It is co-ordinated by INFN (Italy) with support from NRENs including Consortium GARR (Italy), CYNET (Cyprus) and GRNET (Greece). Additional project partners come from across the Mediterranean region, including Tunisia, Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Malta. DANTE is also a partner in the project, providing networking expertise as the operators of the EUMEDCONNECT network.

EUMEDGRID has been designed to work in synergy with EUMEDCONNECT, and the continuation of the network beyond 2006 is central to the success of the grid initiative. Learn more at www.eumedgrid.org

 

 

 

 

Focus on: The ALICE Project

 An extension to the ALICE project was recently announced, with funding secured until 2007. We spoke to Cathrin Stöver, the ALICE project manager, to find out what impact the continuation would have.

How long has the project been extended for and how much is the continuation worth?

The project has been extended for 10 months. ALICE was originally planned to run from June 2003 to the end of May 2006 and has now been extended to 31 March 2007. The extension is within the original project budget and will allow the partners to make use of the entire funds available to ALICE.

What will the money be spent on?

Most of the money will be spent on the connectivity which RedCLARA offers in Latin America and its trans-Atlantic interconnection to GÉANT2.

But ALICE is more than an interconnection project. The ALICE project partners will also be able to further develop and execute the training programme for engineers mainly in those Latin American NRENs that have recently started their operations. In January 2006, we carried out a local training course in Cuenca, Ecuador which was attended by about 45 Ecuadorian engineers working in the universities and institutions connected to the Ecuadorian NREN, CEDIA. The one week training programme was carried out by CLARA engineers and focused on advanced routing and was very well received by the engineers. This local training is in addition to the training that ALICE funds at the bi-annual CLARA technical meetings. Last year, the ALICE project funded training on Security, IPv6, VoIP and video-conferencing during the CLARA Technical meetings in Mexico and Venezuela. The training is always coordinated and carried out by CLARA-Tec, CLARA’s technical management group.

What developments will now be possible because of the extension?

 Please remember that RedCLARA is a very young network and CLARA, as the organisation to develop Latin American research networking, is a very young organisation. RedCLARA will be able to mature in the next year. The CLARA Network Engineering Group and the CLARA Network Operations Centre will be able to improve the operations of the network and introduce new services into the backbone. As for CLARA, the extension will allow it to develop further as an organisation and to achieve complete independence from DANTE which at the moment is running most of the administration of the ALICE project and the RedCLARA network.

One also has to see that those NRENs that have connected to RedCLARA in the past three months, like Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador and Colombia, have been given extra time to positively establish themselves as organisations in their countries and to prove to their funding members the usefulness of being connected to RedCLARA. This is decisive as for these countries it is the first time that their universities and research institutions have direct access to an international research network backbone. Time is needed to study the impact such a connection has on the research and education communities in these countries and to ensure that benefits can be demonstrated.

What projects will benefit?

The benefit to existing projects that rely on the RedCLARA infrastructure and the interconnection to GÉANT2 was one of the main points of the argument for the extension. The @LIS demonstration projects that typically have partners in Europe and Latin America are running well into 2007and some of these projects are using RedCLARA and the interconnection to GÉANT2 for their data communications. These are for example the @LIS-TechNet project in which various European and Latin America universities collaborate to create innovative teaching platforms, or the T@lemed project which is focusing in the area of public health.

But in addition, there are several projects now where the EC has awarded IST funding to partners in Latin America and Europe for collaborative projects in Grids (EELA), Astronomy (AUGERACCESS) and e-VLBI (EXPReS). These projects count on the RedCLARA and GÉANT2 infrastructures.

A number of these projects involve close collaboration with European partners. Will the link to Europe be increased in capacity?

The RedCLARA link to Europe is currently at STM-4 speed, i.e. at 622Mbps. This capacity has now been available for slightly over a year. I believe that we will soon need to look at the dimensioning of the transatlantic link and also of the RedCLARA ring between the PoPs in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Panama and Mexico. In fact, the ALICE project will fund a study on the availability of dark fibre in Latin America which is to be carried out by CLARA during early 2006. This study should give us a good indication how RedCLARA can grow in the future.

The CLARA partners are currently building a user database. Can you tell us more about this, and what results have been achieved so far?

 This is a very ambitious project, but it is fundamental to understanding the RedCLARA user base. On behalf of CLARA and the ALICE project, the Chilean partner, REUNA has been building a database to gather information on projects and users that are working in international collaborative projects, thus making use of RedCLARA. The work on the database itself is done, but it will now need to be populated. To that end, the Latin American ALICE partners are currently committed to install local copies of this distributed database which will then allow each NREN to input their national data. There is still quite a lot of work to be done, but I believe that it is essential for the future of RedCLARA and CLARA’s relation to the end-user in Latin America.

TEIN2 network deployment marked at APAN meeting

 The launch of the TEIN2 network was marked at a ceremony held in Japan on 24th January 2006. The ceremony, part of the 21st APAN meeting, included a live demonstration of the network’s potential, where an endoscopy and tele-consultation were conducted. High definition video was transmitted simultaneously to the conference centre, and to Korea where a medical team observed the procedure and gave instant feedback. The demo highlighted a project to connect hospitals throughout the Asia-Pacific region with high capacity networking, which is then utilised as a teaching tool. A second demonstration involved a 10-way video conference, which was organised between different medical teams in hospitals across Asia-Pacific, including sites in Japan, Korea and Australia. Another exciting application with the potential to utilise the TEIN2 network is remote surgery, where the patient and operating surgeon may be in separate locations. Critical applications such as this would naturally rely on connections that operate on high bandwidth, secure and stable links.

An operations agreement between TransPAC2 and DANTE was signed at the APAN meeting. TransPAC2 are supporting TEIN2 by donating capacity on a link between Japan and North America. 

 TEIN2 creates the first large-scale research and education network for the region, linking ten countries at speeds of up to 622 Mbps. The new network will link national networks in China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia. The high capacity network aims to bridge the digital divide between different countries across the region, and enable faster collaboration on projects across the globe through links to Europe and GÉANT2.

"DANTE is using the experience it has gained from setting up regional research networks in the Mediterranean and Latin America to bring TEIN2 into service quickly, cost-effectively and in partnership with the region’s national research networks," commented David West, TEIN2 project manager, DANTE. "By providing a powerful and reliable communications channel, TEIN2 will bring together Eastern and Western regional academic communities for the first time."

The network, which was initiated in 2004 and will run until 2008, is part-funded by the European Union’s EuropeAid programme, which is contributing up to €10 million towards the costs of connecting partner countries. Additional support has been provided by the Japanese networks NII and Maffin, who are contributing regional connectivity to TEIN2. Further assistance comes from Juniper Networks, who are sponsoring the Internet routing equipment located in TEIN2’s three network hubs in Beijing, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Working in collaboration with DANTE are RENATER (France), SURFnet (Netherlands) and UKERNA (UK). As part of the deployment DANTE has awarded a contract to operate the Network Operating Centre (NOC) that manages TEIN2 to Tsinghua University, China. Visit www.tein2.net for more details and to see the topology.

Networking Community Round-Up

GÉANT2 Partner profile

Continuing our series on "Partner Profiles" this edition, we speak to Prof Jan Weglarz, Head of PSNC, Poland.

1) What is PSNC?

PSNC stands for Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Centre, a Research and Development Center in the new generation of networks, grid technologies, portals and digital assets. Our centre (formally part of the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences) is mostly performing R&D activities dedicated to its deployment. Thanks to its experience, PSNC has been entrusted with the construction and development of the Polish national network, namely PIONIER – (Polish Optical Internet) – and it is the operator of that network.

PIONIER is dedicated to serving the research and education community, interconnecting (via Metropolitan Area Networks, or MANs) all Polish universities and research institutes, schools and public entities (such as hospitals, libraries, local governments) and providing access to the Internet. In total PIONIER is indirectly connecting more than 700 R&D institutions and more than 2 million end-users (students mostly).

2) What's new in Research Networking in Poland?

 When we look at the current "hot topics", the most attractive for the wider audience is probably iTVP, a project realised in cooperation with the Polish television industry. From the technical perspective this is a system of audiovisual streaming services providing the next generation of interactive television over the Internet. From the user side we can see some services at www.itvp.pl where the most important national and international events are broadcasted. Some iTVP transmissions generate over 2 Gbps traffic. For example, the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition held in Warsaw in October 2005 was streamed to Japan. Just recently we were asked to support the Torino2006 Winter Olympic Games broadcast which is a huge undertaking and a great challenge.

Network development also remains a significant research area for PSNC. Since the year 2000, PSNC has participated in several IST research projects, including ATRIUM, SEQUIN, 6NET, MUPBED, GÉANT and GÉANT2. Within the GÉANT projects we are actively involved in research and service development. PSNC is a key contributor in creating advanced network monitoring tools such as perfSONAR, and is heavily involved in research into capacity provisioning.

The Polish speciality is research in grid computing and it is still very popular and exciting. The Polish research community continues its active participation within grid research funded by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme. In the 5th FP there were very few grid projects without Polish participation and some of them received very high assessment during its final reviews, e.g. GridLab (coordinated by PSNC) and CrossGrid (coordinated by Cyfronet Cracow). We are presently involved in at least 8 grid IST projects, which include EGEE, COREGRID, and, BALTICGRID, and a few further projects are being negotiated with the EC. We have to mention the most important national grid projects like CLUSTERIX and PROGRESS as well.

3) What's most important to your end users?

 Our end users are of course concerned with things such as the size of bandwidth available, regional connectivity, services and support etc. However, the international connection is maybe the most evident concern because it allows for access to colleagues in Europe and throughout the world as well. Thanks to the connection to GÉANT2 many Polish scientists can participate in international research consortia, such as the eVLBI network dedicated to radio astronomical observations, or the Atlas project in high energy physics. Notice that in such projects the dedicated bandwidth is important as well, e.g. the astronomical observations require at least 1 Gbps for efficient working.

PSNC and other Polish MANs are supporting the use of direct fibre to achieve last-mile connectivity. In our province (Wielkopolska) we are supporting the smaller local towns to build the fibre connections and the metropolitan area networks. There are two such fibre infrastructures already built: in Piła and in Gorzów Wielkopolski. We are working on making wireless technologies more flexible: Wi-Fi tests are in progress and WI-MAX technology is also being considered.

4) What other activities do you undertake for the academic community in Poland?

As well as the large research projects realised under the EU and national umbrella, the PIONIER consortium members are very active in developing solutions supporting local communities, schools and public entities. The services include a system supporting the recruitment process for each education level, the educational portal interkl@sa, and e-Learning portals like FRANTICE – supporting French language learning (awarded with the EC’s European Language Label for innovative and effective learning projects). In all Metropolitan Area Networks there are city information portals delivering current local information.
Like the other NRENs in Europe we organise a national conference each year and several national and international workshops. In 2005 PSNC organised three important conferences which included the TERENA Networking Conference, held in Poznań.

5) How do you communicate with your end users?

We invite our users to the annual conference and to the most important workshops. PSNC attempts some segmentation of the user base and invites people deeply interested in the subject of the given seminar. The annual conference is dedicated mostly to network development and each year a different topic is defined. Dedicated seminars and workshops are more efficient for the end users since they may gain more specialised knowledge. Like in the case of the digital libraries workshop organised in Poznań in December 2005. It had a great implication for the future as well – as a result of the workshop a dozen or so digital libraries will be established.

We are currently maintaining two main web sites: PSNC’s and PIONIER’s. We also issue many papers, brochures, leaflets and gadgets, mostly dedicated to the projects results. Some of them were highly accessed by the EC, like the GridLab brochures, for example. Wide cooperation with the press is also very important. For example during the TNC2005 we organised a press conference, which included attendance from Polish TV crews. We have established a good relationship with local news outlets that have carried out follow-up stories since the event.

6) What kind of applications do you support?

We support most of the possible network uses and applications. We have prepared a special programme to work on the deployment possibilities in grid technologies called "Gridge – Enterprise solutions". This intends to bridge the gap between the grid technology and the applications that can run on them. They include solutions like authorization services, resource management brokering, data management systems and monitoring, new generation portals, and mobile access.

An example of grid technology exploitation is the Virtual Laboratory system (VLAB). It offers a flexible system for allowing remote access to the most advanced (and expensive) scientific devices, such as radio telescopes, spectrometers, microscopes etc. The system becomes more and more popular and many scientists are asking for its deployment.

PSNC is also working on a special Telemedicine portal for surgery, in cooperation with the Karol Marcinkowski University of Medicine in Poznan and the Poznan University of Technology. It is to support on-line consultation in the hospital treatment process and to provide mobile access to medical data bases.

Learn more:
• PSNC - www.man.poznan.pl
• iTVP – www.itvp.pl  
• FRANTICE -  www.frantice.interklasa.pl  (Polish only)
• Digital Libraries, e.g. dLibra - http://dlibra.psnc.pl  
• VLAB - http://vlab.psnc.pl  

Belgian connection to GÉANT2 launched

 BELNET, the Belgian NREN and partner in GÉANT2, has announced its connection to the network. The link came into operation at the end of January, and sees Belgium connected to GÉANT2 at 10 Gbps.That will offer a capacity thousands of times higher than commercial broadband Internet in Belgium.

"We expect that the lightning-fast connection speed will strike a chord with universities and research groups who need permanent, constant and exceptionally high bandwidth to do with as they wish," says Pierre Bruyère, director of BELNET. "We are continuing to invest in highly advanced Internet infrastructure destined to lead to innovative scientific experiments, new applications and revolutions in the way we use the Internet," says Bruyère. "BELNET's key objective, after all, is to pioneer the way forward."

The next generation of Belgium’s national network, called GigaNet2, is currently being designed by BELNET, and will likely enter into production at the beginning of 2007. Like GÉANT2, it will be a hybrid network offering both standard IP and point-to-point connections. More information on BELNET and GigaNet2 can be found at www.belnet.be

Conference celebrates CESNET’s 10 year anniversary

 CESNET’s international conference will be held in Prague from 6th- 8th March, and marks the ten year anniversary of CESNET’s foundation. Topics covered at the conference include optical networking, IPv6, network monitoring, Grids, middleware developments and network applications.

DANTE’s Loukik Kudarimoti will be part of a team presenting a paper titled "Bridging Network Monitoring and the Grid." It analyses the requirements of important Grid middleware components such as job scheduling and data transport, and proposes a set of services for the publishing, discovery and gathering of information about network performance and framework capabilities.

 The CESNET association was established on 6th March 1996 by universities, colleges and the Czech Academy of Sciences with the aim of building and developing the national broadband computer network for science, research and education. It quickly established itself as a leading organisation in the Czech Republic, and at an international level. CESNET specialists are involved in international research projects targeting networking and communication technologies and they also participate in Grid and network application-related projects.

Currently, CESNET is building and developing the CESNET2 national gigabit research network, based predominantly on optical technology, and is also developing a national Grid infrastructure. CESNET is the representative of the Czech Republic in the GÉANT2 project, and will benefit from dark fibre links to Germany and Slovakia, as well as a 10 Gbps connection to Poland. 

Further information about event is available on the website at www.ces.net/conference06

SEEREN2 Topology announced

The topology for the new SEEREN2 network has been agreed and will soon be published by the project partners. The agreement follows a meeting with connectivity suppliers that took place in Amsterdam in November.

The content of the connectivity tender was based on an analysis of regional market conditions, and supplier capabilities. The networking requirements of the beneficiary countries were also analysed. The tender was conducted by GRNET (Greece), the project co-ordinator, with assistance from DANTE and the SEEREN2 Project Steering Committee. Six potential suppliers were invited to participate in the negotiations in Amsterdam, to discuss the procurement of international connectivity between the following SEEREN2 beneficiary countries: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, FYR of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro.

SEEREN2 will provide connectivity for eight countries in South Eastern Europe, extending the reach of GÉANT2 and will give the region networking access to the rest of Europe. The project aims to further ease the "digital divide" that still separates parts of south-east Europe from the rest of the continent. 

To learn more about SEEREN2 please visit www.seeren.org  

UKERNA announce MCI as supplier for new network

 UKERNA, the UK NREN, has announced that MCI have been awarded a £29 million contract to deploy a new state-of-the-art fibre optic network. It will connect 19 regional networks across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. UKERNA manages and develops JANET, the UK’s education and research network, which provides connectivity for all further and higher education institutions, research councils and schools.

"This upgrade is not just about connectivity, it is also about providing the infrastructure to support quality teaching and learning across all sectors of education in the UK." said Tim Marshall, Chief Executive, UKERNA. More information about UKERNA is available at www.ukerna.ac.uk

SURFnet6 launched in Amsterdam

 The next generation of research network in the Netherlands, SURFnet6, was launched on 23rd January 2006. A total of 750,000 students and staff of Dutch institutes for higher education and research can now use one of the most innovative national networks in the world. 

The network connects 180 universities, research institutes and academies for professional education to one another and to the Internet. SURFnet realised the network within the GigaPort project, which involves both private and government funding, with the aim of strengthening the national knowledge economy.

More on SURFnet6 and GigaPort can be found at www.surfnet.nl

Latin American launch events celebrate RedCLARA connections

 Venezuela and Colombia recently played host to events to celebrate the launch of new national networks. Launched in Caracas, Venezuela, the first phase of REACCIUN2 connects eleven universities and research institutes with speeds between 8 – 155 Mbps. Its connection to RedCLARA operates at 45Mps via the Brazilian node in Sao Paulo. Phase 2 of the national rollout will continue throughout 2006, with connections to the remainder of public universities in Venezuela. Marian Garcia Vidondo, DANTE’s Operations Manager gave a presentation via video link on the hybrid nature of GÉANT2 and its international links to other networks like RedCLARA.

 January 24th saw the official launch of the new Colombian network, RENATA. The new network connects six regional infrastructures, and through them, 50 institutions. Colombia’s connection to RedCLARA is via Panama at 10 Mbps.

These two launch events further demonstrate the benefits of the RedCLARA network created by the ALICE project. The initiative has provided not only a stimulus for regional networking, but has also driven development at the national level. Thirteen national networks are now connected to RedCLARA. This far exceeds the original goal of seven given to DANTE by the European Commission at the project’s inception.

More on REACCIUN2 at http://www.reacciun2.edu.ve  
More on RENATA at http://www.renata.edu.co/

The Back Page

Are you cl.eu-d up?

 December 7th saw the start of phase 1 for early "sunrise" registrations of domain names ending in ".eu." Launched by the European Commission to "give European citizens and industry a safer place in cyberspace", more than 170,000 registrations have been submitted so far. Commissioner Viviane Reding outlined the benefits of the new domain name. "For businesses, ".eu" will extend their marketing reach, while protecting them under EU law against cyber squatters." The ".eu" suffix will not replace national country codes such as Germany’s ".de", or Spain’s ".es" but is intended to complement the current codes.

Some of the GÉANT2 project partners have been designated ".eu" registrars. Customers of BELNET in Belgium for example, are now able to request that BELNET register ".eu" domains on their behalf.

Download the GÉANT2 Screensaver!

A GÉANT2 Screensaver is now available to download from http://www.geant2.net/screensaver. Available in both Windows and Mac versions, the screensaver is based on the animation that was produced for the GÉANT2 launch event in June, designed around the project logo and "Connect. Communicate. Collaborate." strap line.

Supported platforms are Windows 98/2000/XP and Mac OSX (version 10.2 or later), and installation instructions are linked from the main download page.

Coming to a DVD player near you…

In the last edition we trailed the new GÉANT2 movie, as part of the upcoming DVD. Filming for the new disc concluded in December with a visit to Radio-astronomers in Torun, Poland. The finishing touches are now being made to the preview disc and production copies will be available in the spring.

If you haven’t yet downloaded the trailer movie, visit www.geant2.net/media and get a glimpse of what is to come…