The Works of DANTE - Issue 6

Learn more at:

• www.geant2.net
  
  
• www.ernet.in
  
  
• www.dante.net

GÉANT2 Status update – Point-to-Point connections

 Recent developments include the first transatlantic point to point connections. Two “Optical Private Networks” (OPNs) now operate between Paris and Chicago, to support the work of particle physicists at IN2P3 in France and Fermilab in the United States.

GÉANT2 continues to deploy OPNs for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The following circuits are now in operation:

• DFN (DE) to CERN 
  
• GARR (IT) to CERN
  
• JANET (UK) to CERN
  
• SURFnet (NL) to CERN

Status information on these links feed into an “end to end monitoring system” – giving a clear view of the network status across the multiple domains involved. Additional connections for the LHC are due to come on line in the near future.

Hands-on workshop for perfSONAR participants

 

  Loukik Kudarimoti

The perfSONAR project is an ongoing effort. A development week will be held in Montpellier, France, in early November.

For further information and to view the presentations given, visit http://www.terena.nl/activities/seeren/programme3.html.

A full report on the SEEREN2 summer school can be found at http://www.terena.nl/news/fullstory.php?news_id=2008 and more on SEEREN2 is available at www.seeren.org

Visit the new-look perfSONAR website at www.perfsonar.net

Research Makes Mount Etna Sing!

GÉANT2 and RedCLARA networks supporting data-sonification to extend research to Ecuador’s volcanoes

Predicting eruptions will become easier now scientists are using technology to translate the patterns in a volcano’s behaviour into sound waves. The EU funded “Enabling Grids for E-sciencE” (EGEE) and the “E-Infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America” (EELA) projects, which are already investigating volcano sonification at Mount Etna, Sicily, are using the GÉANT2 and ALICE-RedCLARA networks to further extend this important study to include Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano.

 The research project, which brings together experts from Europe and Latin America, digitally collects geophysical information on seismic movements before using data sonification to transform them into audible sound waves, which can then be ‘scored’ as melodies. The resulting ‘music’ is then analysed for patterns of behaviour and used to identify similarities in eruption dynamics and so predict future activity.

The software used for sonification was first developed by Dr. Domenico Vicinanza at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) for use at Mount Etna, the tallest volcano in Europe. Following the initial work, Dr. Vicinanza and a team of scientists, led by Prof. Roberto Barbera from the University of Catania, are now collaborating with colleagues in Ecuador to study the Tungurahua volcano, transferring data across GÉANT2 to the ALICE-RedCLARA network using a transatlantic 622 Mbps connection. The Ecuadorian National Research and Education Network (CEDIA) is responsible for the connection to the scientists based at Tungurahua itself.

“Through expanding this research to include Latin America’s volcanoes we are hopeful we can build on and further develop the extensive data and information we have already obtained from the studies at Mount Etna,” said Prof. Barbera, Technical Coordinator of the EELA project. “Data sonification can be considered the acoustic counterpart of data graphic visualisation and is key to expanding our knowledge of volcanic seismic patterns to gain a deeper understanding of volcanic activity, especially when this activity precedes eruptive phenomena.” continued Dr. Vicinanza, now at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory.

Dai Davies, General Manager of DANTE, said: “This project is contributing new knowledge to volcanic research and we are delighted to be providing the networking support needed for the international exchange of scientific learning. The ability to be able to translate geophysical data into sound waves is not only exciting but could prove vital to predicting future eruptions, benefiting everyone in these regions.”

To listen to the melody created by Mount Etna visit:
grid.ct.infn.it/etnasound/page4/page8/etna.aif

To listen to the melody from Tungurahua visit:
grid.ct.infn.it/tungurahuasound/

GÉANT2 supports global networking initiatives

GMI 2006 Traffic Passes via GÉANT2 Network

GÉANT2 and JANET network links connect international sites for Global MSF Interoperability event
GÉANT2 was recently used to route traffic for the world’s first multi-vendor global IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) network interoperability trial, GMI 2006.

GMI 2006 was held between 16 and 27 October, and brought together a number of the world’s leading carriers and vendors to test the interoperability of IMS-based infrastructure components in a real-world setting. The event provided tangible proof of multi-vendor interoperability for carrier class, QoS enabled, end-to-end voice and multimedia services originating and terminating on fixed and mobile IMS networks, using MSF Release 3 Implementation Agreements.
GMI 2006 is hugely important to any carrier or vendor committed to building or implementing infrastructure elements compatible with IMS. The event was hosted by BT in the UK, Verizon and the University of New Hampshire Interoperability lab in the US, KT in Korea and NTT in Japan. Both KT and NTT used GÉANT2 and UKERNA’s JANET networks to route traffic during the event.

Dai Davies, DANTE's General Manager said: "Research Networks serve as a seedbed and testing ground for tomorrow’s networking technology. We are delighted to be co-operating with telecommunication service providers in GMI 2006 to prove new technology concepts.”

More at: http://www.msforum.org/interoperability/GMI.shtml

Korean culture streamed to Spanish centres via GÉANT2 and RedIRIS

GÉANT2 and RedIRIS provide European networking support for “DancingQ 2006” global demo

Coss-cultural understanding between Korea and Spain was the aim of a recent event, held simultaneously in Seoul and Barcelona. Research Networks from across the world collaborated on a demonstration which sent an uncompressed HDTV-broadcast from Korea to Spain, over the research and education backbones. The partners organising the show were i2CAT in Spain, and KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Sciences and Technology) in Korea.  

The event was held not only to test the technology, but in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Korea’s Nulhui Dance Company. A performance by dancers in Seoul was streamed in HDTV to Barcelona’s Mercat de las Flors theatre. Dancing performances such as these require the transmission of simultaneous sound and video. For a successful event there can be no delay or separation of the audio and video streams. Real-time high-density television transfers rely upon the availability of high bandwidth connections, low packet loss and an absence of jitter. This was achieved by creating MPLS and Gigabit-Ethernet circuits across several network domains, stitched together to join Seoul with Barcelona. The result is a demo which truly tested the boundaries of the current technology, the equipment available and the networking services provided.

The Spanish NREN, RedIRIS, provided connectivity from Barcelona to Madrid, with GÉANT2 creating a dedicated transatlantic path to New York. The traffic passed to Canada's CANARIE network, through CANARIE's direct peering with GÉANT2 in New York. The route configured for the data then headed West across North America, going trans-Pacific before landing in Korea.

GÉANT2’s ability to establish point-to-point connections, even for brief periods, opens up new possibilities for network users. This technology is now being embraced by researchers right across the world, creating all kinds of opportunities for e-science, e-health and e-culture.

A Day at DANTE…

Marian Garcia Vidondo DANTE works in a truly global environment, with partners and suppliers from all over the world, but what does that mean in reality? What does it take to operate research and education networks on the scale of GÉANT2? We spoke to Marian Garcia Vidondo, DANTE’s Operations Manager, to find out what’s involved.

What does the DANTE Operations team do?
Working in the Research and Education community is at the cutting-edge of telecoms networking. Together with the NRENs in Europe, DANTE is deploying technologies ahead of the commercial marketplace. With GÉANT2, we have created the first hybrid network on an international scale. GÉANT2 maps a network print of over 50,000 km, and deploying connectivity on this scale is a massive challenge. It’s also a great proving ground for the technology and as a learning environment for innovative network engineering. The Operations Team is responsible for the day to day running of the GÉANT2 network. Our challenge is to ensure an excellent level of service for network users and to resolve any performance issues at the same time as new services are introduced in the network. Increasingly this work focuses on implementing, monitoring and managing point-to-point services that extend into the NRENs’ domains, to provide support to high bandwidth users.

What's a typical day like in the Ops team?
Working in Ops is challenging, but definitely varied. One day you could be testing new equipment for installation in Copenhagen, the next ordering parts for a PoP in Beijing! We deal with suppliers and customers from all over the world, which presents its own challenges in communicating and understanding cultures.
We are also responsible for ordering and installing switching and routing equipment for GÉANT2. Ops engineers are required to evaluate this new equipment prior to installation. They also involved in designing and implementing advanced network services and technologies –like GMPLS, Layer 2 VPNS, and IPv6 multicast.

The project has an important role in networking research – developing and deploying new technologies well ahead of what commercial suppliers are currently offering. We are involved in an initiative known as PERT – Performance Enhancement and Response Team. Working with engineers from the European NRENs, this team investigates performance issues across the multiple domains that operate in connecting two international end users. This is to ensure that users can achieve maximum performance from their systems and our networks.

How do you find working in an international environment?
Working at DANTE allows you to meet people from all over the world. The staff based in Cambridge consists of 12 nationalities, and you work with international colleagues on a daily basis. It’s never boring! Its good to meet people from all kinds of cultures and from all kinds of backgrounds.

What sort of person fits into the Ops team?
DANTE’s Operations team works to very tight deadlines, so you need to be able to handle these. You also need to be flexible as the job is varied, and be able to work under your own initiative. Yet the ability to work in a team is also important - cooperation and collaboration are the foundation of our activities. Some international travel is likely, and you should enjoy the opportunity to meet new people.

DANTE's Offices 

DANTE has been in operation since 1993, so it has been at the forefront of research networking for many years. This in-house experience and our international environment offers something for both established network engineers, and those new to our community.

Matthew Wright joined DANTE's Operations team in August 2006. He graduated with a BEng(Hons) degree in Internet Engineering from the University of Essex, UK. We asked him how he was finding working at DANTE.

I’m enjoying working at DANTE as every day involves different tasks. It can be quite high pressure when deadlines are tight as you have to make sure that everyone knows what they are meant to be doing. The knowledge from my university course is useful as a background, but a lot of what I learn is on the job and through doing the different tasks here at DANTE. For example, there is quite a difference between knowing the theory of SDH circuits and actually troubleshooting a circuit error with a commercial supplier. Problem solving issues like this can be a fun challenge.

I’m currently commuting over 100 miles a day, but I much prefer working here at DANTE to a job closer to home, as DANTE is a unique company.

DANTE occasionally has opportunities for network engineers. Available vacancies are posted on the front page at www.geant2.net

TEIN2 receives endorsement from Asian and European leaders

Heads of State at ASEM 6 Summit acknowledge important role of TEIN2

Leaders from 38 European and Asian countries have endorsed TEIN2’s success in “extending connectivity between the two regions in the fields of research and education, and support “its application in broader areas”. The two-day ASEM 6 (Asia-Europe Meeting) Summit in Helsinki concluded on 11 September 2006, with a Chairman’s declaration that emphasised the role of TEIN2 in linking Europe and Asia.

Furthermore, Leaders “recognised that investments in know-how and knowledge infrastructures play a key role in the promotion of scientific excellence, competitiveness and well being in societies.” They also discussed ways to “enhance cooperation in the fields of innovation, science and technology between all ASEM partners, and emphasised the importance of EU Research Framework Programmes.”

DANTE’s David West, TEIN2 Project Manager said “I am delighted that the success of TEIN2 has been recognised at the highest levels of ASEM. TEIN2 already connects 30 million across region, and this is set to increase rapidly as partners' national networks grow, and as further partners join the programme in the future.”

As part of the Summit, a press conference was held to celebrate the official Press Conference Line-up (Left-Right): Dai Davies (DANTE), Vincent Piket (European Commission), Ulf Dahlsten (European Commission), Jyrki Kallio (ASEM6 Secretariat), Dr Bohuyn Seo (KISDI), Chee Kheong Foong (MDeC) launch of the network and to announce the latest candidates interested in joining the TEIN2 community. Discussions are on-going with several additional ASEM partners, including Brunei, Hong Kong, Laos and Cambodia. Speakers outlined the many benefits of TEIN2, and the applications that it supports. Mr Ulf Dahlsten, Director for Emerging Technologies and Infrastructure Applications, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission, focused on the potential of TEIN2 in post disaster crisis-support. Mr Vincent Piket, Head of Unit Centralised Operations for Asia, EuropeAid Co-operation Office, European Commission, stated TEIN2’s aims of expansion in the future. He announced that the project is preparing to welcome new ASEM members, and has received interest from countries beyond ASEM, including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and New Zealand.  India and Pakistan were also named in the declaration as future ASEM members, who will be cooperation partners by the next ASEM Summit, in Beijing in 2008.

Dr Bohuyn Seo, Vice President / Planning & Coordination, Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI), outlined the development of TEIN2 from its bilateral beginning in 2000 at ASEM3, as an initiative between France and Korea.

Mr Chee Kheong Foong, representing the Malaysian Partner MYREN gave an account on life before and after the implementation of TEIN2. The project has helped stimulate the development of national networks, in partners such as MYREN, who now have 14 universities connected to its national infrastructure, and uses TEIN2 for its international connectivity in the region.

Dai Davies, DANTE’s General Manager, spoke on the technical challenges of TEIN2, and how its success has helped balance the global view of research networking. TEIN2 now provides direct links from Asia to Europe, and its trans-Siberia route is a networking first.

You can read the Official ASEM6 Chairman’s Statement, view the presentations and see the photos, via the links alongside.

All routes lead to Rome?

Six of the EUMEDCONNECT Mediterranean partners have taken the first step towards forming an association of Mediterranean NRENS.

 The “Rome Declaration” was signed at a EUMEDCONNECT project meeting held in Italy on 13th September. It has been signed by the NRENs of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine and Syria. In their statement they recognise the importance of a regional infrastructure for data communication and the need to support the further development of a regional network. To achieve this aim, they also recognise the need to form a regional consortium to assume a leading and co-operative role in the continued development of research networking in the region.

David West, EUMEDCONNECT Project Manager, said “DANTE welcomes this initiative to develop research networking in the Mediterranean region in an inclusive way.  We hope it will lead to a sustainable solution which benefits all Mediterranean partners”

A copy of the full declaration is available to download here
 

RedCLARA supports EELA at first conference

RedCLARA representatives attended the first EELA conference in Chile to update Latin America’s grid community on the network’s status. RedCLARA is the underlying infrastructure and an essential tool for the region’s rapidly growing grid community. The EELA (E-Infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America) event was structured around four main sessions:

• RedCLARA status update from Network Engineer Eriko Porto, and an explanation of the current situation of the Latin American NRENs.
  
  
• Collaboration with other Grid Projects, including EGEE-II and SEEGRID2, and the potential for interaction between these and EELA.
  
  
• An update on EELA’s own activities, and the work packages operating within it.
  
  
• Grid Communities and applications. The long-term sustainability of Grid Infrastructures requires involvement and take-up by a wide range of disciplines and applications. This session gave a voice to these emerging communities.

The 2nd EELA conference will follow up on the importance of application-based Grids. Bernard Marechal, EELA Deputy Project Coordinator said “this conference should focus on applications relevant to Latin American countries from a sociological/human point of view (e-Health, e-Education, e-Government, e-Society etc)” with the aim of “opening doors to industry”.

The 2nd EELA conference will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2007. More at: www.eu-eela.org/chile/

TERENA 2006 Compendium – A clearer view of networking trends

 The 2006 TERENA Compendium has been published. The Compendium contains summary information and analysis of the data collected from close to 50 NRENs in Europe and the Mediterranean. For the first time, this year’s Compendium also includes some information from the NRENs of countries outside of Europe.

Key findings this year include:

• Increasing number of universities connected at gigabit speeds
  
  
• Connecting schools to the Internet via the NRENs is high on the agenda of many countries
  
  
• Increasing number of NRENs investing in dark fibre for network provision
  
  
• Network traffic continues to grow with a convergence in growth rates between “old” and “new” EU member states
  
  
• Networking services are receiving more attention from the NRENs.

The TERENA Compendium is also available from the TERENA website in PDF form (ISSN 1569-4496). http://www.terena.nl/activities/compendium/

News from the community

GÉANT2 finds favour with EU-IndiaGrid Initiative

The initial kick-off meeting for the EU-IndiaGrid initiative was held in Trieste, Italy, on 18th -20th October. The meeting included a presentation by DANTE’s Dai Davies, who outlined the latest developments in connecting the two regions with dedicated network connectivity. Utilising the recently deployed GÉANT2 link from Milan to Mumbai, the EU-IndiaGrid initiative aims to extend the EGEE European grid infrastructure to India. The creation of a grid infrastructure in India will support existing EU-India collaborations in areas such as Particle Physics, which have very demanding computing needs. Indian partners include; Indian Tata Institute for Fundamental Research; SAHA Institute Calcutta, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC); and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

Learn more at www.euindiagrid.org

SuperJANET5 Launched in London!

The next generation of research and education network for the UK officially launched on 26th October, at the National History Museum, in London. SuperJANET5 will deliver end-to-end networking and reliability to its end user. It also aims to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse user base with a broad spectrum of requirements. It will deploy point-to-point connections for demanding users, alongside an IP production network. SuperJANET5’s infrastructure has been procured from Verizon, with Lucent Technologies supplying Juniper T-640 routers.

Learn more at: www.ja.net

HEAnet annual conference

The HEAnet National Networking Conference 2006 took place on the 9th - 10th of November 2006 in Kilkenny, Ireland. Security and Roaming featured prominently in the conference programme with sessions including; “Securing Schools –firewalling and filtering on the schools broadband network”; “Wi-Fi Security”, and “eduroam –Roam in a day”. Network applications were also showcased with sessions on “Podcasting for Higher Education”, “Delivering IPTV and the Triple Play to students”, and “A supercomputer for Ireland”.

Further details of the programme can be found at:
http://www.heanet.ie/conferences/2006/programme.html

CARNet Users Conference 2006 –“Back to the Future”

This year’s Users Conference takes place on the 20th to 22nd November, in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The aim of this year’s CARNet Users Conference is to explore the challenges that users in the academic, scientific and educational community are facing in their everyday work, with the particular emphasis on themes concerning the support for new users. The Conference will also focus on the Croatian educational system's competitiveness and global trends.

Learn more about CARNet and see the conference programme at http://www.carnet.hr/CUC/eng/index.html

SWITCH makes lectures mobile – as a podcast

University students in Switzerland can now get lectures on their iPods thanks to a new service developed by the Swiss NREN, SWITCH.

 In the course of his practical training period at the NREN, IT student Cristian Garcia from ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) gave SWITCH’s streaming platform podcast capability. This means that lectures that are recorded and distributed with SWITCH’s streaming service can subsequently be listened to and watched on an iPod, or similar player. The service is available free-of-charge to students and lecturers at Swiss universities

Tapping into knowledge from anywhere at any time

Students and professors are able to access this service and a large number of other innovative services thanks to SWITCH’s authentication and authorisation infrastructure (AAI). This gives all the members of the university reliable access to resources and personal data with a single login – irrespective of where they happen to be. In other words, with an AAI login, a student of the University of Zurich can gain secure and reliable access to resources from their home organisation and to their personal data from any university in the country.

You can read the full article and learn more about SWITCH’s work on AAI here: http://www.switch.ch/about/news-archive.html?id=122

One of the research activities in GÉANT2 is looking at the challenge of deploying AAI’s on a European scale, and how to interconnect already established AAI’s like the one developed by SWITCH. The “EduGAIN“ architecture has been designed to meet this challenge and enable seamless sharing of e-science resources across the continent.

With thanks to SWITCH for reproduction of parts of this article.

Celebrating 20 Years of FCCN – Driving Research Networking in Portugal

This October marks the 20th anniversary of the Portuguese NREN, FCCN. The Works of DANTE asked FCCN’s chairman, Pedro Veiga for his views on how the community had changed in that time.  Pedro Veiga, Chairman, FCCN 

Congratulations on 20 years of FCCN. Why was the organisation originally created?
FCCN was created when Portugal joined CERN with the initial objective of developing High-Performance Computing facilities for the R&D Community in Portugal, specifically for the High-Energy Physicists. Shortly after the installation of a Convex mainframe it became clear that we had to develop networking to allow researchers to access the system remotely.

How has research networking changed in Portugal in the past 20 years?
The initial networking activities started around 1984, but 1986 marks our real beginning. Research networking in Portugal slowly built momentum until 1996 when, in the framework of the National Strategy for the Information Society, the government decided to invest in the reinforcement of the R&E network for universities and its extension to schools.
Until 1997 an extremely closed telecommunications market (that only recently showed some signs of starting to move) created a lot of difficulties in building an advanced network. At the beginning of 1997 our international connectivity was only 1 Mbps, despite the fact that Portugal participated in the COSINE* project from the very beginning.
A decisive moment for the evolution of FCCN was the acquisition, in 2004, of an optical cable going from the capital, Lisbon, to the North of Portugal, Braga, (400 km/245 miles) along the Atlantic coast where major universities are located. This enabled the provision of advanced communication facilities to the more demanding R&D projects.

Has this affected the way that FCCN has developed as an organisation?
 Of course FCCN has undergone significant change in staff number and skills to adapt the organisation to the new challenges of research networking. In addition to advanced networking we developed expertise in other areas relevant for the R&E communities: digital libraries, wireless communications and mobility, and security - in line with the work developed inside TERENA and DANTE. This international cooperation was a key driving force to help FCCN to have a greater dimension in its work. At the same time we have pioneered some areas such as networking in schools.

FCCN has long been connecting schools in Portugal. How has this developed in the last ten years?
We recently completed a new phase in our project of connecting schools to the Portuguese NREN. This process started in 1997, when we connected all public and private primary and secondary schools to the Internet using ISDN (1 B-Channel). Shortly afterwards, we connected all public libraries, museums, and teacher training centres. Then we moved to connect all Portuguese schools (11 000) using 128 kbps (2 ISDN B-channels) and, recently, we migrated all schools to broadband using ADSL. This was been completed by the end of 2005. So yes, we have been connecting schools for a long time.

What are the short-term goals for FCCN and research networking in Portugal?
We are extending our optical cable to Spain, to connect to RedIRIS, at two points: Elvas-Badajoz on the East border and Valença-Vigo in the North. We are also implementing more lambdas in our cable infrastructure for grid projects.

What do you think the next 20 years holds for research networking in Europe?
Well, in this area making plans 20 years ahead is impossible. However in the near future there are a few directions that are in our priority list: create a grid infrastructure for our national projects with a seamless integration with the European wide network; security and all it’s dimensions; lambda switching on-demand; high-definition video-transmission and conferencing; the challenge of helping universities to build their campus wide networks with the capacity to match the characteristics of the Wide Area Network (WAN). All these initiatives will help our users get the most out of their networking facilities.

To mark the 20th anniversary, a special conference took place in Lisbon, from 23rd to 24th October, where the GÉANT2 Policy Committee chairman, Vasilis Maglaris gave a presentation on the key aspects of GÉANT2. In addition, a HD-Video on FCCN and its work has been produced and distributed to the user community.

To learn more about the celebrations visit www.20anos.fccn.pt

COSINE: In 1987 a number of European countries, co-operatively with the European Commission established the COSINE initiative. Cosine had two objectives. The first objective was to establish a common pan-European infrastructure to connect the National Research and Education networks together. The second objective was to foster the implementation of Open Systems. The initial network built by the COSINE project, IXI (International X25 Infrastructure), connected 18 countries together using for the most part 64Kbps leased circuits. Learn more here: http://www.dante.net/server/show/conWebDoc.341/viewPage/1

GÉANT2 in the News

This edition of The Works of DANTE features several stories which were distributed to the press, and which resulted in widespread coverage for GÉANT2 and the applications highlighted.

The “Singing Volcanoes” release was picked up BBC Online, The Discovery Channel and the New Scientist, and included interviews with project participants Prof Roberto Barbera and Dr Domenico Vicinanza.

The announcement of the new connection to India received coverage in a number of national Indian publications, including the Times of India Education Supplement.

Recent press articles on GÉANT2 can be found in the Media Centre at www.geant2.net/media

Multimedia products available to order

Two new multimedia products can now be ordered from the GÉANT2 website.

The GÉANT2 DVD provides a comprehensive overview of the project, and talks to network users, partners and the people behind the project. Watch the introductory video and order your copy at www.geant2.net/dvd

The GÉANT2 interactive guide to research networking provides an introduction to GÉANT2 and the technologies behind it. Its step-by-step learning approach makes understanding the internet easy. Users navigate their way through the demonstration at their own pace allowing them to fully grasp the concepts on display. Acting as a guide to GÉANT2’s network services it arms you with all the knowledge you need to understand the opportunities GÉANT2 offers European research. Go here for more information.