Task Forces

The research networking community in Europe is involved in much co-operative Research and Development activity. This is typically organised around task forces dedicated to particular topics. DANTE’s sister organisation TERENA co-ordinates this overall activity. For an overview of the program follow the link on the right. DANTE is particularly involved with the Task Forces that are concerned with developing, testing and experimenting with new technologies and services that relate to research networking. These technical Task Forces are set up to:

• Provide a forum for exchanging experience and knowledge
  
  
• Promote development and testing of innovative networking technologies
  
  
• Define, develop and test new networking services, which can subsequently be introduced by national research and education networks and/or in the European research networking backbone infrastructure.

DANTE has a two-way involvement in Task Forces: its engineers can contribute their knowledge and experience of networking at European level to the discussions within the group, whilst the Task Force deliverables and conclusions help to inform the Technical Programme for the development of the pan-European networks DANTE manages.

Task Forces in which DANTE has been involved include:

• Task Force Next-Generation Networks (TF-NGN)
  
  
• Task Force Testing of Advanced Network Technologies (TF-TANT)
  
  
• Task Force Trans-European Networking (TF-TEN).

TF-NGN was a task force comprising representatives of various research institutions and the NRENs. It aimed to study and develop technologies that are strategically important for the NRENs and the GÉANT2 project. Activities in which work was carried out by the task force included: IP quality of service, IP multicast, IPv6, optical networking, and traffic measurement and analysis. The TF-NGN was established to follow up on the activity of TF-TANT. Activities and task-force deliverables were centrally maintained by DANTE, in collaboration with the activity leaders, as a collaboration of the GÉANT2 Technical Programme and TF-NGN.

TF-TANT was operated jointly by DANTE and TERENA during the lifetime of the QUANTUM project. The Task Force was responsible for carrying out the QUANTUM project’s test programme. It conducted experiments to determine the suitability of advanced networking technologies for the research community in Europe.

The TF-TEN was responsible for evaluating advanced ATM technologies in the context of the TEN-34 project. Its goal was to determine the general suitability of this technology for the research community in Europe, especially with regard to backbone provision.

These Task Forces are created to undertake specific activities on behalf of the TERENA Technical Committee, and further information about them is available at the link on the right.

DANTE also collaborates with TERENA and the NRENs in the PR Task Force. The TF-PR officially began work on 1 October 2003, to promote collaboration between research and education networking organisations in Europe in the areas of public relations and information dissemination. Further information on this initiative is available from the link on the right.