History of Research Networking
The DANTE Era
DANTE today is very much the implementation of this blueprint. DANTE, which actually stands for Delivery of Advanced Networking Technology to Europe, was established in 1993 in Cambridge, UK as a limited liability company. The company is a “Not for Profit” company and has a special tax exempt status that has been granted by the UK government. The location of Cambridge was chosen as a result of an international competition. The tax benefits which the UK government offered were a major factor in determining the choice of location.
EuropaNET represented the second generation of pan-European Research network and existed for three years. It was succeeded by a new network, EuropaNET 2, which was broadly similar to the first EuropaNET network, with one significant development: EuropaNET 2 included direct global connections between Europe and research networks in the USA and Japan. At that time, global research connectivity was generally organised on a national basis. The global connectivity provided by EuropaNET 2 was typically used by the smaller European NREN’s or those in geographically disadvantaged locations where non-European connectivity was either unavailable or very expensive. EuropaNET 2 was relatively short-lived, being superceded in 1996 by a new network, TEN-34, that was equally short-lived. TEN-34 was the first pan-European network that exploited some of the early benefits of liberalisation. TEN-34 was assembled from a number of components that became available as new network providers started to try and exploit the liberalising environment. An element of TEN-34 was provided by Unisource (a new network operator that has subsequently failed) who wished to find a trial customer for the pan-European IP service that they were seeking to launch between Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and Spain. This was complemented by ATM connectivity provided between the traditional telcos of France, Germany, the UK and Italy. All in all TEN-34 was less than optimal in terms of network development. It combined a variety of elements that were available at the time in a pragmatic development to improve connectivity among European research networks. It was, however, innovative in two respects. Firstly, it combined differing elements from competing suppliers. Secondly, DANTE was responsible for integrating the elements together and providing a network management service to ensure that the assembled components were operated as a single network.
TEN-34 was succeeded in 1998 by TEN-155. The TEN-155 network represented a significant improvement, in terms of performance, architecture, and service portfolio. It was the first pan-European network really to benefit from the liberalisation of the European telecommunications market. The availability of 155Mbps links, as a key building block, at a fraction of the price of previous connectivity, was the first real sign of a more competitive environment. Technically, TEN-155 combined ATM and IP technology in an innovative solution that allowed the creation of virtual private networks as well as guaranteed performance. TEN-155 existed for three years. During its lifetime key elements of the network were upgraded to 622Mbps, thus rendering the eponymous network name somewhat redundant. It did however illustrate the limitations of ATM technology as this technology was unable to cope with the upgrade to 622Mbps. For the later stages of its life, TEN-155 was a mixture of pure IP service and IP over ATM service.
GÉANT took over from TEN-155 in December 2001. GÉANT was the first generation of pan-European network that can reasonably be described as world-leading. It combined 10Gbps DWDM connections with high performance routers over a geographic scale that had never been achieved previously. The reduction in costs facilitated by market liberalisation, combined with access to the most advanced transmission and routing technology, enabled DANTE to build a network which had over 40 times the network capacity of its predecessor network. In addition, GEANT integrated global research connectivity between Europe, North America and Japan as the basis for truly global research network co-operation.
GÉANT2, which began in September 2004, represented yet another step-change in pan-European research networking. The hybrid network, comprising both routed IP and switched components, has been designed to provide the greatest possible degree of flexibility to Europe's researchers. In particular, it seeks to address the increasingly common scenario of researchers with very specialised and precise networking requirements, who need high bandwidth and stringent quality of service measures to support their work. Multiple 10Gbps wavelengths have been deployed at the network's core, and the overall capacity of the network is enormously increased by comparison with its predecessor.
GÉANT is the third generation of the GÉANT network, and successor to GÉANT2 which began in April 2009. It continues and develops the GÉANT network and builds on the technology and service elements of GÉANT2.
