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GÉANT – Frequently asked questions
About the Network
GÉANT is the third generation of the GÉANT
network, and successor to GÉANT2. Designed and built on behalf of a
consortium of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), with funding
support from the European Commission as part of its 7th Framework Programme,
the GÉANT network provides a vital research infrastructure as well as
the necessary resources for information technology and telecommunications development.
Without high-speed research networks like GÉANT, many
research projects and innovative scientific studies at the forefront of their
fields would simply not be possible. Europe is home to the largest and most
diverse group of academic and scientific researchers in the world. An
extraordinary amount of data is collectively produced every month and is shared
between researchers in different countries. It is important that they can work
together and share data in real time. Work at the frontier of research
increasingly depends on large scale databanks and massive processing power to
deal with problems such as decoding genetic information, simulating climate
change and energy demands, or predicting and managing the spread of epidemics.
Commercial Internet technology is not as efficient and does not deliver service
availability levels required by current and future projects. Moreover, because
GÉANT uses switched and routed technology, it is paving the way for next
generation, high performance, cost-effective communication networks.
High-speed Internet services have not only improved the
cost-effectiveness of research, but have fundamentally transformed the way it
is carried out, allowing researchers located in different parts of Europe and
around the globe to co-operate as if they were on the same campus. Thanks to
GÉANT, the results of scientific experiments, such as radio astronomic
observations, can be made available instantly, rather than three weeks later.
GÉANT also provides access to remote resources that are sometimes too
costly for a single country to develop, such as telescopes that are located in
remote places.
Users from a wide variety of disciplines can utilise
GÉANT to facilitate groundbreaking research that can bring real benefit
to society. Big Science users seeking answers about our universe, to medical
research seeking cures for diseases across the world; and from research into
understanding and predicting climate change, to communication providing support
for natural disasters - the diversity of user and project applications is
immense.
Users in 40 countries are served by GÉANT, through the
European NRENs interconnected to the GÉANT backbone. In addition, extensive
links to other world regions create a European gateway for global research.
There are 32 GÉANT partner NRENs (serving 36 countries)
that receive GÉANT connectivity directly, and a further four associate
NREN partners, that are connected to the network through one of the full
partners. Thus in total, 40 countries receive GÉANT connectivity through
the GÉANT consortium. There are two additional GÉANT partners -
the organisations DANTE and TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association).
Austria (ACOnet), Belgium BELnet), Bulgaria (BREN), Croatia
(CARNet), Cyprus (CYNET), Czech Republic (CESNET), Estonia (EENet), France
(RENATER), Germany (DFN), Greece (GRNET), Hungary (NIIF), Ireland (HEAnet),
Israel (IUCC), Italy (GARR), Latvia (SigmaNet), Lithuania (LITNET), Luxembourg
(RESTENA), Macedonia (MARNet), Malta (University of Malta), Montenegro (MRnet),
Nordic region (includes Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland)
(NORDUnet), Poland (PSNC), Portugal (FCCN), Romania (RoEduNet), Serbia (AMRES),
Slovakia (SANET), Slovenia (ARNES), Spain (RedIris), Switzerland (SWITCH), The
Netherlands (SURFnet), Turkey (ULAKBIM), UK (JANET)
Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine
GÉANTconnects:
- the Mediterranean countries via EUMEDCONNECT2
- the Balkans via SEEREN
- Central Asia via SILK/OCCASION and soon CAREN
- Black Sea via BSI
- Asia via TEIN3
- Latin America via ALICE2
- China via ORIENT
- Japan via New York
- South Africa via a dedicated high speed link and the UbuntuNet Alliance
- African countries
- The US and Canada through a long-standing trans-Atlantic partnership
CAREN (Central Asian Research and Education
Network) will link to GÉANT later in 2009. This network will connect the
countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
A feasibility study is also underway in sub-Saharan Africa.
About the Project
The GÉANT (or GN3) project is the EC
project that funds the GÉANT network. The GÉANT project advances
all aspects of European research and education networking. This encompasses the
network itself, a range of network support and access services for users,
initiatives to address the digital divide of research and education networking
around Europe, and technological research to ensure GÉANT continues to
be at the forefront of networking on a global scale.
GÉANT is the successor to GÉANT2. It continues and develops the
GÉANT network and builds on the technology and service elements of GÉANT2.
The two main focuses of GÉANT are service delivery and collaboration.
Service Delivery – the previous project was mainly focussed on building the hybrid network
itself but now that this infrastructure has been completed, the GÉANT project is focused on
developing and rolling out services to National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and
their end users, institutions and projects to enable them to get the best performance possible
from the network.
GÉANT will provide the pan-European
backbone to interconnect Europe’s NRENs, which will be supported by a range of
multi-domain performance and monitoring tools. A suite of advanced end user
services will be developed and made available for NRENs to incorporate into
their service portfolios, for Europe’s research and education community. This
creates the pan-European GÉANT Service Area, a collaboration of interconnecting networks,
enabling users across Europe to benefit from simple, secure “any place” access
to high performance data communication capabilities.
Collaboration – the GÉANT project is focussed on service delivery, not
just to NRENs but to end users, institutions and projects, and this requires close collaboration
from all the consortium members.
The GÉANT network provides extremely
high bandwidth to thousands of researchers across Europe and the globe. In
order to optimise the user experience, the suite of GÉANT multi-domain
services in development is a major focus.
Funding and the EC
GÉANT is co-funded by the EU’s 7th
Research & Development Framework Programme. Further funding is provided by
the project’s NREN partners. The overall co-ordination and management of the
project is performed by DANTE on behalf of the NRENs and EC.
Besides the important role it plays in
bringing national academic Internet networks together, EC funding is needed to
upgrade Europe’s research and education networking infrastructure, boosting Europe’s research competitiveness.
EC-funding enabled GÉANT to stay at the forefront of research networking technology.
The EC’s Seventh Framework programme (FP7)
is where all research-related EU initiatives are classified, including
GÉANT. Projects within FP7 play a crucial role in reaching the goals of
growth, competitiveness and employment in Europe.
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