ERNET

Objectives:

• Set up and run a nationwide Academic and Research Network.
• Undertake and promote R&D in the area of computer networking
• Human Resource Development in the area of computer networking.
• Content hosting relating to education and research.
• Registrar for domains- edu.in, res.in & ac.in

Education and Research Network of India (ERNET):

• ERNET operates through Point of Presence (POP) located at premier educational & research institutes
• 15 PoPs at various cities of India
• 400 Mbps of Aggregate Internet bandwidth
• 100 Mbps connectivity to global research network through GEANT 2
• ERNET Network- GARUDA Network (GRID)
• National Knowledge Network (NKN)

Garuda Network:

• National Grid Computing Initiative - GARUDA 
• National initiative for grid computing as Proof of Concept
• 45 institutes connected in 17 cities
• 2.4 Gbps bandwidth for grid fabric
• More than 300 CPU computing resource available in grid

NKN

• Interconnect all National Research & Education
  
• Institutes, Leading National Labs, Colleges etc

Connect more than 5000 sites across the country

Serve millions of end-users + eScience Projects

3-tier Architecture, partially subsidized by National

• funds: Links national, regional and international initiatives
• High Capacity, Highly Scalable Backbone

• Provide Quality of Service (QoS) and Security
• Wide Geographical Coverage
• Bandwidth from Many NLD’s
• Highly Reliable & Available by Design
• Testbeds ( for various implementation)
• Dedicated and Owned.
• Connectivity for International & other global R&D Networks

Source Barman|ERNET@APAN

JGN, JGN2, & JGN2plus

Japan Gigabit Network (JGN) is High Speed Advanced Testbed Network for Research and Development (R&D), which is operated by National Institute of Information and Communication Technology (NICT). JGN is promoted with cooperation among government, industry and academia, and also collaborated with communal and international networks.

On 1999, JGN started operation of domestic optical fiber network. From 2004, As JGN2, We added domestic and international access point, increased network bandwidth, stared IPv6 routing and installed optical switches. Moreover, From 2008, As JGN2plus, ''Service Platform Architecture Research Center''(SPARC) is operating testbed network which is providing various services for research and development of next generation network.

JGN2plus is a testbed network to support the New Generation Network (NwGN) promoted by NICT. The network supports the R&D activities at the JGN2plus research centers (SPARC) and, like the previous testbed networks as JGN/JGN2, it enables researchers to conduct demonstrative experiments for network R&D and various applications. JGN2plus is open to researchers for R&D purpose.

JGN has been supporting cyberinfrastructure as well as advanced networking instastructure for wide variety of applications such as …

• Broadcasting service (IPv6, various type of multicasting, HD, 4K image)
• Optical networking (optical switch, GMPLS, G-lambda)
• Other applications (remote lecture/telemedicine etc.)
• Next generation TCP

Strategic Visions of JGN2plus

• To design new testbed for NwGN :

those variety of activities to be taken into account.

testbed network be built on existing and operational technology

testbed network supports evolution of technology

• Testbed is used for

• proof of concept
• international collaboration and standardizatio
• social implication
• human resource development

Source Yamamoto, Yamaguchi|NICT@APAN

CERNET, CNGI, & CERNET2

CERNET

• CERNET project was started in 1993. It is the first nationwide TCP/IP backbone and the 3rd largest ISP in China.
• CERNET owns its own transport network : 30,000KM darkfiber, 800G DWDM system.
• CERNET has PoPs in 73 cities, covering all the provinces.
• There are about 2,000 universities, schools and research institutes connected.
• The end users reaches 25M : There are 320M students/school kids in China

CNGI

• Initiated from 2002 and approved in 2003
  
• Leaded by National Reform and Development Committee
• Joint with MST, MOE, CAS, MII, NSFC, CAE, …
• Main contents

CNGI Backbone: nation wide, 30-40 Giga Pops and 300 campus networks, international links

Network technology and applications

Delivery to information industry

• All NSPs have jointed this project : CERNET, China Telecom, Unicom, Netcom/CSTNET, China Mobile, China Railcom

CNGI-CERNET2:

• CERNET2 project was started in 2004. it is the largest IPv6 single stack network in the world.
• CNGI-CERNET2 runs on CERNET DWDM transport network: 30,000KM darkfiber, 800G DWDM system.
• CERNET has 25 Pops in 20 cities.
• There are about 2,00 universities, schools and research institutes connected.
• The end users reaches 1M: There are 320M students/school kids in China

Source Li|CERNET@APAN

CSTNET, CNGI & CSTNET2

I just tracked RE networking in China. China shall have at least two main RENs : CSTNet and CERNET, cmiiw!

----
China Science and Technology Network (CSTNet) is one of the earliest internet networks in China, and is extended upon the base of Chinese Academy of Sciences Network (CASNet). In April 1994, CSTNet opened the first official Internet link in China. Since then, CSTNet has been responsible for operation and management for the top domain of China (.cn).

CSTNet

• China Science and Technology Network (CSTNet)
• the pioneer to open the first link to Global internet in 1994 and One of the earliest internet networks in China
• the academic and research networks in China to support advanced science applications and research on next generation Internet
• Cover more than 20 provinces, 100+ institutes, and 1,000,000 end users

CSTNet‘s customers are spread across more than twenty provinces of China with 12 sub centers, including about one thousand research institutes of CAS and technical communities in China, Also, It has more than one million end-users.

In the near future, the bandwidth of CSTNet's international link, domestic interconnecting link and wide area networks will be upgraded, in order to provide better services for video conferences, remote education, collaborative problem-solving, virtual laboratories, digital libraries, and so on. Furthermore, CSTNet also will provide a test bed for research on Next Generation Internet technologies and actively participate in the national and international projects on advanced network applications.

Source Zhang|CAS@APAN

CNGI:

• The world's largest IPv6 network

Cover 20 major cities, consist of 40 core nodes and 300 CPN

building a national innovative information infrastructure,

offering a platform for the provision of basic research and technology development environment.

• CNGI progress

Phase one：From 2003 to end of 2005, build the network

Phase two：From 2006 to 2010, large scale deployment throughout China

Source Zhang|CAS@APAN

CSTNET2:

• CSTNET/China Netcom establish 7 GigaPoPs among 38 GigaPOPs
• The access of IPv6 network for 100 disciplinary research networks and institutes

Disciplinary research networks : about 30 networks cover many specific areas, most of them in Beijing

Institutes: more than 60 institutes around china, most of them are institutes in CAS

• Connection Bandwidth At Least 1G (1G/10G)
• Circuit Resource: Optical Fiber are provided in Beijing and Local Connection in Sub-center for further expansibility--BJlight

ThaiREN : UniNet, UniNet2

To be honest, when I was in Europe several years ago, I never thought that RE networking in ASEAN (except Singapore) could be that as what I see right now. Thailand is currently in a very good track; Malaysia, Vietnam will follow it shortly. Indonesia ?? ... still needs much works!

----
UniNet/ThaiREN:

• The Project of Inter-University Network (UniNet) is established by notification of Ministry of University in 1996. This year the project is 12-year- in operating and serving for universities and institutions.
• UniNet has provided hi-speed information network linked to universities, institutes, and campuses 180 sites over the country. Linking with foreign countries research network enables Thai universities/institutes to manage virtual classrooms with universities/institutes abroad.
• This project improves Thai education to be comparable to other countries. And now UniNet is developing particular research network which enables members to reach the source effectively.

UniNet/ThaiREN Timeline:

• Since 1996 for Distance Learning via VCS, 2 Mbps to international link. (24 Public University + 22 IT Campus)
• 2000 Peering with 10 Mbps to Internet2
• 2001 Open to Other University for Educational Resource Sharing . (75 Public University, More 176 Connecting and backbone explantion to 155 Mbps)
• 2003-2004 expand backbone in Bangkok Area to 2.5 Gbps
• 2005 310 Mbps to International link 1 Gbps to TH-NIX . and 1 Gbps to Thaisarn.
• 2006 Peering with 155 Mbps to TEIN2
• 2007 connected with 730 Mbps to International link , and 10 Gbps to NIX

UniNet Objectives:

• Promote and support distribution of higher education in Thailand
• Develop self learning center
• Sharing educational resources Learning and Teaching

UniNet2 (UniNet Next Generation):

• UniNet2 is a national higher education backbone network for research and education
• UniNet2 improved from UniNet which provides a powerful network-infrastructure based on DWDM-technology and Gigabit Ethernet for data communication between academic institutions (more than 200 universities), international Research & Education networks and offers full Internet connectivity.
• UniNet2 Objectives : Collaboration of R & D communication network, Collaboration of Advanced Internet Technologies, Support Other areas in Information and Communication Technologies

UniNet2 Timeline:

• 2008 Backbone 310-622 Mbps , expand international link to 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps to CAT-NIX
• 2009 Backbone 10 Gbps and expand international link to 4 Gbps ,10 Gbps to CAT-NIX and 10 Gbps to TOT-NIX Respectively
• 2010-2012 Develop backbone to 40-100 Gbps , expand international link to 10 Gbps and 10 Gbps to Other NIX

Source Tawee/UniNet@APAN

SINET3

It seems that this is a GMPLS-Playground. *Work-in-progress :-D *

SINET3 is the new Japanese academic backbone network launched in April 2007 for more than 700 universities and research institutions. It has 63 edge and 12 core nodes and deploys Japan’s first 40 Gbps lines between Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka.

SINET3 emphasizes four service aspects: transfer layer, virtual private network (VPN), quality-of-service (QoS), and bandwidth on demand. It provides all services on a single network platform, and users can freely choose the best transfer layer services for their applications.

SINET3 provides bandwidth-on-demand (BoD) services as part of layer-1 services.
Users can specify the destinations, duration, bandwidth with granularity of about 150Mbps, and route option, via simple Web pages. BoD server receives path setup requests from users, calculates the appropriate routes, schedules accepted reservations, and triggers layer-1 path setup.

Source Nakamura/NII@APAN

TWAREN & TANet

TWAREN stands for "TaiWan Advanced Research and Education Network", while TANet "Taiwan Academic NETwork".

TWAREN :

• A physical network serves multiple purposes and logical networks : TANet, connects to commodity Internet; TWAREN research network; experiment, testbed, special research
• Provisioning services on multiple layers : L1 Lightpaths; L2 VLAN, VPLS VPN; L3 IPv4, IPv6, Multicast ; SSL VPN

TWAREN's International Connections:

• Pacific Crossing to USA’s west coast upgraded to 5 Gb/s
• Connections between LA, Palo Alto, Chicago, and New York are 2.5 Gb/s
• Connects to the rest of the world via the U.S.’s Abilene Network
• Connection expanded to Europe in 2006 (IEEAF donated 622 Mbps of bandwidth/fiber optic cable)‏

TWAREN peers with international NRENs at Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Seattle (through Pacific Wave).

TANet:

• A national wide network backbone for academic and education use
• In operation since 1990
• Provides Internet connection for universities and some research institutes
• Now expands to all levels of schools
• Dual stack (IPv4/IPv6) has already deployed in universities

Source Liu|NCHC-TWAREN@APAN

TEIN : TEIN1, TEIN2 & TEIN3

The first TEIN (TEIN1) linked Korea and France (2 Mbps) in 2001.

TEIN2 network started Jan 2006, connected:

• 30M researchers and students
• 4000 institutions
• 10 countries

TEIN2:

• Intra-Asia regional network
• Asia-Europe inter-regional links
• PoPs in Singapore, HK Beijing + Tokyo
• NOC in HK
• 10M Euro European Commission funding + funding by Asian partner countries
  
• Funded to Sept 2008, then --> TEIN3
• TEIN2 programme: build and operate regional network, promote network usage, train technical staff in developing countries, Reduce digital divide
  

• TEIN2 Partner - Asia Pacific : Australia (AARNet), China (CERNET), Indonesia (ITB), Japan (MAFFIN, NICT, NII), Korea (NIA), Lao (LERNET), Malaysia (MDC), Philippines (ASTI), Singapore (SingAREN), Thailand (ThaiREN), Vietnam (MOST)
• TEIN2 Partner - Europe : France (RENATER), Netherlands (SURFnet), UK (UKERNA), DANTE
• TEIN2 Partner - Other : TRANSPAC2, Juniper Networks
  

TEIN3 Project :

• EC funding committed to end 2011
• Extend to South Asia
• Further support for application development
• Transfer TEIN3 programme to Asian ownership
• Plan for ‘TEIN4’

TEIN1 Network

TEIN2 Network

Credits : West/Dante

DANTE

DANTE stands for Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe Ltd , a not for profit limited company, UK-registered. Its shareholders are Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Till early 2008, they operate pan-Europe GÉANT2 serving >30M users on 34 NREN national networks. Additionally:

• Their annual telecoms spends c 30 - 40M Euro, all tendered
• We also manage R&E regional networks outside Europe: North Africa and Middle East (EUMEDCONNECT), Latin America (ALICE), Asia (TEIN)

Credits : West/Dante

Topology in 1996 - 34 Mbps Backbone

Topology in early 2008 - Multiple 10 Gbps Backbone

GEANT2 Network:

• 25 POPs
• Hybrid structure
• 11600km of dark fibre
• Multiple 10Gbps paths
• Global connections to other R&E networks
• 15 Connectivity providers
• Drivers: Technology, Cost reduction, User demand

SingAREN

singaren.net.sg
Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network (SingAREN) is a non-profit organisation. We are Singapore’s national research and education network (REN) and part of the Internet2 community. We started as a national project funded by the government to take on the challenge of ensuring that Singapore’s Research and Education community is connected to the international community.

SingAREN maintains close working relationship with the Next Generation Internet community such as Internet2, APAN (Asia Pacific Advanced Network), and RENs in various countries.

SingAREN is now an officially registered society that serves the user community with the objectives:

• Advocate and champion advanced network applications and technology in Singapore
• Be the platform of collective representation of the community of research and education networks (REN) in Singapore
• Facilitate cost-competitive adoption of advanced Internet technologies for Singapore RENs

Source Goh|SingAREN@APAN; singaren.net.sg

MYREN, & MYREN2

Malaysian Research & Education Network (MYREN):

• officially launched in March 2005
• spearheaded by the Ministry of Energy, Water & Communications (MEWC)
  
• a network linking 17 universities and research organisations throughout Malaysia
• centered at the MSC Malaysia Innovation Centre in Cyberjaya(the country’s first intelligent city)

First generation (MYREN):

• Telco managed network
• Connection speed range from 1Mbps to 8 Mbps.
• 5 universities have 34 Mbps but rate-limited to 8 Mbps :

• University Malaya (UM)
• National University of Malaysia (UKM)
• University PutraMalaysia (UPM)
• University of Science Malaysia (USM)
• UniverisityTechnology Malaysia (UTM)

MYREN2:

• Fully managed WAN with MPLS enabled
• Core network of STM4
• ISP level routing equipment
• Members access of 10, 20, 50 Mbps with option to upgrade to 1Gbps.
• Connected university hospitals : Direct connection
• University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) ; Via main campus HUKM, HUSM; National University of Malaysia Hospital (HUKM); University of Science Malaysia Hospital (HUSM)
• Prospective institute (strong interest) : National Heart Institute (IJN), Institute Medical Research (IMR)

Source Kamal|MYREN@APAN

VinaREN

VinaREN (VIetNAm Research and Education Network) is currently coordinated by NACESTI (National Centre for Scientific and Technological Information).

VinaREN as of 03/2009 :

• Total 7 NOCs: NOC (VNNOC; NOC-HN; NOC-TN; NOC-DN; NOC-HUE; NOC-HCM; NOC-CT) and 02 POP (POP-VAST; POP-WRU). To be expanded more POP in some City.
• 53 Members (Universities and Institutes in whole country) connected directly to the backbone and manage about 200 Km fiber optic cable.
• Conneted 11 provinces and major Cities in Vietnam

Source Van Dien|NACESTI@APAN

Lambda Providers

In early 2006, at APAN meeting, Yves Poppe has pointed three (early) transoceanic lambda providers (Yes, it's lambda, not just sub-wavelength capacity): Global Crossing, Level 3 and Tyco (now Tata). Currently, it shall be more than three of course. The interesting point is that demands for lambda services were initially coming from Research and Education (R&E) networking sector - in early 2000s. Well, it's no doubt, SURFnet was at a prominent role at those times.

Early transoceanic gigabit connectivities:

• First transatlantic gigabit level circuit : 2001: 2.5 gig Surfnet to Chicago Starlight
• First transpacific STM-4’s : 2001: two Transpac STM-4’s
• 2002: first transatlantic 10gb : Surfnet leads again

R&E Networking : Toward Dark Fiber

• National R&E networks start to go dark fiber: Canarie’s Bill St.Arnaud and Surfnet’s Kees Neggers amongst trailblazers; Lambda switching and speed records
• High Energy Physics and Astronomy provide much of the intercontinental impetus

Amsterdam - Early Lambda Capital

Credits: Yves Poppe; (formerly or still at) Tata Teleglobe

National Lambda Rail (NLR)

This is a work-in-progress & will be updated soon! :-D

Source Reese/NLR

Quotes taken from nlr.net

The foundation of the NLR infrastructure is a dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM)-based national optical footprint using Cisco Systems' 15454 optical electronic systems, with a maximum capacity of 40 and 32 wavelengths per fiber pair respectively. Each wavelength can support transmission at 10 billion bits per second (10 Gbps). This optical system is deployed nationwide across roughly 15,000 route-miles of dark fiber that NLR has obtained through Level 3 Communications. Four NLR wavelengths have been implemented using 10 Gigabit Ethernet LAN PhY (physical layer), a technology and architecture that had previously been limited to metro-area networks. NLR can also support the SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) Technology employed in traditional telecommunications networks, if needed. The initial wavelengths provide:

• a national 10 Gbps IP network to support internetworking and end-to-end transport protocol experiments,
• the first-ever national switched Ethernet experimental network with circuit-like 1 Gbps services,
• a quick-start facility for new research projects in support of data- and computation intensive science projects, and a redundant sparing capability in the event of a channel-specific failure.

Additional wavelengths are activated across individual segments of the infrastructure as needed. A more detailed description of NLR services and a guide for researchers interested in using NLR services are available. Nearly a dozen research projects are already using NLR services.

Quotes taken from Wikipedia

National LambdaRail is a high-speed national computer network infrastructure in the United States that runs over fiber-optic lines, and is the first transcontinental Ethernet network. The name is shared by the organization of research institutions that developed the network, and, to date, plans to continue developing it. LambdaRail is similar to the Abilene Network, but LambdaRail permits deeper experimentation than Abilene does.

It is primarily oriented to aid terascale computing efforts and to be used as a network testbed for experimentation with next-generation large-scale networks. National LambdaRail is a university-based and -owned initiative, in contrast with Abilene and Internet2, which are university-corporate sponsorships. This gives universities more control to use the network for these research projects. National LambdaRail also supports a production layer on its infrastructure.

Links in the network use dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM), which allows up to 64 individual optical wavelengths to be used (depending on hardware configuration at each end) separated by 100 GHz spacing. At present, individual wavelengths are used to carry traditional OC-X (OC3, OC12, OC48 or OC192) TDM circuits or Ethernet signal for Gigabit Ethernet or 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

Internet2 + Internet2 Network (formerly Abilene)

This is a work-in-progress & will be updated soon! :-D

Internet2 Network (formerly Abilene) - Source internet2.edu

Quotes taken from internet2.edu

Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium. Led by the research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes the missions of its members by providing both leading-edge network capabilities and unique partnership opportunities that together facilitate the development, deployment and use of revolutionary Internet technologies.

By bringing research and academia together with technology leaders from industry, government and the international community, Internet2 promotes collaboration and innovation that has a fundamental impact on the future of the Internet.

• Internet2 is a not-for-profit advanced networking consortium comprising more than 200 U.S. universities in cooperation with 70 leading corporations, 45 government agencies, laboratories and other institutions of higher learning as well as over 50 international partner organizations.
• Internet2 members leverage its high-performance network (i.e. I2 Network) and worldwide partnerships to support and enhance their educational and research missions.
• Beyond just providing network capacity, Internet2 actively engages our community in the development of important new technology including middleware, security, network research and performance measurement capabilities which are critical to the progress of the Internet.

Quotes taken from Wikipedia

Internet2 is a non-profit consortium that develops and deploys advanced high-performance network applications and technologies for education, research, and the next-generation public Internet. It is led by over 200 universities and partners with many affiliate members and corporate members drawn from companies in the publishing, networking and other technology industries.

The original Internet2 project was founded informally in 1996 under the auspices of EDUCAUSE and was organized as the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) in 1997. UCAID later changed its name to Internet2. Internet2 is a registered trademark. The Internet2 consortium administrative headquarters are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Internet2 provides the U.S. research and education community with a network that satisfies their bandwidth-intensive requirements. The network itself is a dynamic, robust and cost-effective hybrid optical and packet network. It furnishes a 100Gb/s network backbone to more than 210 U.S. educational institutions, 70 corporations and 45 non-profit and government agencies.

The uses of the network span from collaborative applications, distributed research experiments, grid-based data analysis and social networking. Some of these applications are in varying levels of commercialization, such as IPv6, open-source middleware for secure network access, layer 2 VPNs and dynamic circuit networks.

Internet2, with help from its members, created the Abilene Network and was a prime investor in the National LambdaRail (NLR) project, with nearly 10 million dollars. During 2004–2006, Internet2 and NLR held extensive discussions regarding a possible merger. Key to this merger was the condition that Internet2 would operate its successor to Abilene using NLR's infrastructure (NLR has IRUs on actual fiber infrastructure from WilTel, now Level(3), where Internet2 utilizes leased optical wavelengths from Qwest for Abilene). Those talks paused in the Spring of 2006, resumed in March 2007 and eventually fell apart in September 2007.

EUMEDCONNECT

EC has also pioneered investment to connect mediterranean countries (North Africa and Middle East) to support research and education networking between them internally and between them and Europe as well : the EUMEDCONNECT. The role of the governments and/or mediterranean NRENs to support this project and their national networks has contributed to the success of the initiative: user community starting to rely on the infrastructure.

EUMEDCONNECT:

• 11 Mediterranean Countries connected since 2004, 7 wholly reliant
• Serving 1.4M users in 400+ Institutions
• Network traffic growing over 50% per year
• Over 100 projects Connected
• Major users include EUMEDGRIDMedGeNet
• Closely connected to GEANT2
  
• The only large-scale R&E e-infrastructure serving the Mediterranean region
• EC EUMEDIS funding of EUMEDCONNECT ends Dec 2007
• EUMEDCONNECT planned to continue to end Q2 2008 with partner funding
• CAMREN is a very important demonstration of partner commitment
  

EUMEDCONNECT2 plans:

• Provide higher capacity, more cost effective infrastructure
• Active promotion of network for FP7 and other research projects, tele-medecine and environmental applications
• Extended coverage to additional Mediterranean and Gulf NRENs
• Project managed with the CAMREN consortium
• Some EC funding now expected but still being negotiated (The Brussels event has helped!)
• Continued financial commitment from MED partners is essential

Source/Courtesy EUMEDCONNECT, Dante

Credits: Dany Vandromme (RENATER)

TEIN2

TEIN stands for Trans-Eurasia Information Network. It was "one of the new initiatives endorsed by ASEM III (October 2000, Seoul, Korea) to connect research networks between Asia and Europe by linking EU's GEANT, the pan-European gigabit research network, with Asia's research networks such as the APII Testbeds in order to promote information exchanges in research and development and education".

TEIN2 is the second generation of the TEIN project and the first large-scale research and education network for the Asia-Pacific, which connects ten (10) countries in the region, and provides direct connectivity to Europe’s GÉANT2 network.

TEIN2 has created the first large-scale research and education network for the Asia-Pacific region, linking the national networks in China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia at speeds of up to 1Gbps. The high-capacity network aims to bridge the digital divide between different countries across the region. Its dual routes from Asia to Europe provide important inter-regional resilience. The network operations centre (NOC) is run by Tsinghua University (China).

The network is part-funded by the European Union’s EuropeAid programme, which is contributing up to EUR10 million towards the costs of connecting partner countries. Additional support has been provided by the Japanese networks Maffin, NICT and NII, who are contributing regional connectivity; a link from Japan to North America is provided by TransPAC2. Further assistance comes from Juniper Networks, which is sponsoring the Internet routing equipment located in TEIN2’s three network hubs in Beijing, Singapore and Hong Kong.

TEIN2:

• 9 Asian countries and Australia connected since 2006
• Serving 30M users in 3,800 institutions
• Major uses include:China/EU traffic, Tele-medecine, E-learning programmes
• Strong co-operation between partners
• TEIN2 recently extended from Dec 2007 to Sept 2008
• TEIN2 partners wish to sustain the programme
• EC approving further funding to 2011 for TEIN3
• TEIN3 plans to
  
  • Expand coverage to South Asia
  • Further stimulate applications deployment
  • Transfer project to Asian-lead organisation
  • Secure long term funding
  • Work co-operatively with other regional networks

TEIN2 has three main objectives:

• Increase direct Internet connectivity for research and education between Europe and Asia
• Improve intra-regional connectivity within Asia
• Act as a catalyst for the development of national research networking in the developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The (TEIN2) project is divided into two phases.

• Phase 1 began in May 2004. It comprised a feasibility study to explore user needs and the connectivity market, and to plan further stages of the project. Phase 1 was successfully completed and the feasibility study accepted by the European Commission in November 2004.
• During Phase 2, the network has been built and is now being operated for the benefit of the TEIN2 partners. After planning studies and a major procurement programme, the first links came into service in December 2005. The network was fully deployed during the first half of 2006. This phase of the project is scheduled to run until the end of 2007.

TEIN2 (Source/Courtesy TEIN2; Dante)

Credits : DANTE / cathrin-at-dante.org.uk

GEANT2

What is GEANT2?

• 7th generation of pan-European research network infrastructure – continuation of a success story
• Project partners include 30 of Europe’s national research and education networks (NRENs), DANTE (coordinator) and TERENA
• Connects 34 European countries and serves over 3500 research and education establishments across Europe
• Over 30 million users
• Provides extensive international connectivity to other world regions
• Funded jointly by NRENs and European Commission
• Project timescale September 2004 – mid 2009
• Planning underway for GÉANT3; GEANT3 planned from Q3 2009 to Q2 2013
• Features: Hybrid network, 34 European Countries, International Connections

GEANT2 Objectives

• Provide a gigabit-speeds infrastructure to support European research and education
• Deploy the first international hybrid network: routed IP traffic combined with switched point-to-point circuits
• Implement e2e QoS provision
• Provide a research infrastructure for network technology developments
• Develop a wider range of network services: performance monitoring, security, bandwidth on demand, testbed facility, mobility and roaming
• Benchmark and support development of NRENs --> Compendium of NRENs
• Extend geographic reach of the network
• Conduct strategic studies into the future of European research networking (eg. SERENATE, EARNEST)
• Disseminate benefits and achievements of the network

EC has also funded/co-funded some regional RENs connected to GEANT, forming a worldwide REN collaboration. These include RedCLARA (Latin America), EUMEDCONNECT (Mediteran), TEIN (Asia), ORIENT (China) and SEEREN (Africa).

GEANT2 Intra and Inter-Network Connectivity (Courtesy of GEANT2/DANTE)

GÉANT2 Applications

GÉANT2 has a userbaseof 30 million+ researchers spread across 34 countries in Europa and many more in other world regions; they range from primary school children to nuclear physicists, from weather forecasters to cancer specialists; their requirements range from a few Kbps to many Gbps, from email to dedicated circuits

Information transmitted

Traditionally:

• Capacity of traffic: kbps
• Amount of users at the institution: Many
• Applications that are not very sensitive to underlying network (ie. e-mails, FTP, etc.)

Specialised:

• Capacity of traffic: More than 1Gbps
• Amount of users at the institution: dozens
• Applications between very specific points and very sensitive to throughput (ie. eVLBI, CERN LHC or DEISA)

Specialised Applications

High Energy Particle Physics (HEP)

• LHC (@ CERN) operational since 2007
• Needs multiple 10G links between the different nodes for the data processing
• Real time data processing

Radio Astronomy (eVLBI)

• Very Long Baseline Interferometry
• Flows of 1Gbps in real time (http://www.evlbi.org)

Supercomputing Centres

• e.gDEISA project (http://www.deisa.org)

GRIDS

• Like EGEE (http://www.eu-egee.org)

Services and Joint Research Activities

• End to End QoS
• Performance Monitoring
• Security
• Bandwidth on Demand
• Testbed, Cross Border Fiber
• Roaming, AAI

Credits : DANTE / cathrin-at-dante.org.uk

National and Regional RENs

Actually since a long time ago I want to write threads about RENs (Research and Education Networks). Why? Simply because they were the origin of the current Internet and they still have a major role in creating advances in networking technologies. This time I would not start with an indonesian case (if INHERENT or Jardiknas can be categorized as a National REN/NREN), but with european cases.

BWiN, GWiN and SurfNET

GWiN Connectivity and Traffic Statistics

Each country in Europe has one or more NRENs. These are connected at a higher level with regional european RENs. Some of you might already heard about TEN-155 or currently GEANT/GEANT2; these are RENs at european level. At country level, Germany for instance has formerly BWiN (Breitband Wissenschaftnetz), GWiN (Gigabit Wissenschaftnetz) and currenly XWiN (X Wissenschaftnetz :-)). Other examples: France has RENATER, Holland has SurfNET, UK has Janet and UKnet?. During my dissertation several years ago, I used intensively these networks to measure, calculate and simulate performance of my approaches and algorithms.

These RENs are active and very dynamic since they are intended to fascilitate research on advance networking technologies and their applications. We may take a look the case of the RE networking (r)evolution in Germany:

First Generation (1989/1990) --> X.25-WiN

• 64 kbps in core; 2.5 - 64 kbps access
• X.25 technology
• 1990 upgraded to 2 Mbps (core and access)

Second Generation (1995-1999) --> BWiN

• 155 Mbps in core; 4.8 kbps - 155 Mbps access
• ATM technology
  

Third Generation (2000-2005) --> GWiN

• 10 Gbps in core; 128 kbps - 10 Gbps access
• PoS technology
  

Fourth Generation (2006-) --> XWiN

• heterogeneous technologies based on recent advances in optical transmission/networking

At a glance, from my point of view, XWiN takes the NLR (National Lambda Rail) model to some extent.