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Education, Technology

Raising the standard for research and education networks

By Jianggan Li | 28 August 2008

Co-funded by the European Commission, DANTE works in partnership with the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) to plan, build and operate advanced networks for research and education. It provides the European network with 10 Gbps links.

GÉANT2 is the 6th generation of pan-European research network, which started in 1992 providing two Mbps connection to 14 European countries.

Today, GÉANT2 is a multi-gigabit network that interconnects NRENs in 34 European countries to similar networks worldwide.

However, research organisations require a high capacity and quick delivery to function properly, placing the stress on the NREN to constantly upgrade their network in tandem with the demands of research.

DANTE recently announced plans to upgrade the GÉANT2 infrastructure. This will create a next-generation network that will enable fast and secure communications between the NRENs.

The upgrade to the Juniper T1600 router platform gives researchers more flexibility; and the main benefit is in future-proofing the platform against high network traffic.

Balancing security and performance IP networks are intrinsically insecure, susceptible to cyber attacks. There are two GÉANT2 initiatives on security. Firstly we are scanning the network to detect malicious activity. Secondly we are developing tools to verify identity, based on national authentication of users.

We are looking at creating tools that detect and filter traffic and malicious attacks, without blocking wanted traffic.

Federated identity management means that services spread all over our served community (library access and access to network resource booking or monitoring tools) will entrust a user authentication performed by someone else, without requiring one-account per service.

Global Outreach DANTE currently manages projects in the Mediterranean, Latin American and Asia Pacific. We are working on connecting these regions through our worldwide initiatives. Among these initiatives is TEIN2, the trans Asia-Pacific research and education network. The partners include Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, with plans to extend it to South Asia.

The Asia Pacific region is a heterogeneous environment, with no common market and no strong regional political forces. Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore are advanced, high-tech economies. Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are emerging economies with high communication opportunities but restrictive markets. India lacks cost-effective telecommunications from an international point of view and lags behind China.

Together with NRENs, GÉANT2 has links totalling more than 50,000 km in length and its extensive geographical reach enable global research collaboration.

We envisage geographic expansion of the footprint and making available services that would allow researchers to reserve dedicated capacity across the network to support their needs. To achieve this, we encourage early adoption of leading-edge technology.

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