Launch of the Géant2 Network for Scientists and Students: Questions and Answers

MEMO/05/205

Brussels, 14 June 2005

Launch of the GéANT2 network for scientists and students: Questions and Answers

What is GÉANT for?

Europe is home to the largest and most diverse group of academic and scientific researchers in the world. Collectively they produce terabytes of important data every day. This data is crucial to academic research, and often needs to be shared between researchers in different countries.

GÉANT reaches over 3,500 research and education institutions in over 34 countries through 30 national and regional research and education networks. It provides the highest capacity and offers the greatest geographic coverage of any network of its kind in the world. It allows more data to be stored, transmitted and analysed than ever before. With GÉANT, researchers can make use of advanced network applications and perform cutting-edge projects.

Without high-speed research networks like GÉANT, many research projects at the forefront of their fields would simply not be possible.

What is GÉANT?

GÉANT2 is the pan-European research and education network, successor to the pan-European multi-gigabit research network GÉANT. The project within which the network is funded began officially on 1 September 2004, and will run for four years. For information on the network, and on the other project activities which are carried out alongside it, see

With over three million users, the GÉANT2 network’s applications are almost limitless. Any type of research, in any school or university, uses theservices that GÉANT2 offers. These range from high-bandwidth data transfers needed for most demanding research (e.g. high-energy physics experiments, or interconnecting radio telescopes or biological collections) to guidance for less demanding users who are keen to make use of GÉANT2’s geographical reach.

GÉANT2 is co-funded by the European Commission and Europe's national research and education networks (NRENS), and is managed by DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe), a not-for-profit limited liability company owned by the NRENs and based in Cambridge, UK. See

Together, GÉANT2 and the NRENs will provide advanced communications services to Europe’s research and education community.

What are the benefits of GÉANT?

Massive data processing capacity

GÉANT2 and its partner networks can transfer huge quantities of data, which has useful applications in, for example, radio astronomy and natural history. This opens up new means of research (e.g. by making available collections online) that were previously not possible.

Global interconnection

GÉANT2 connects European researchers with colleagues in North America, Japan, Latin-America, Asia-Pacific rim, North Africa and the Middle East, South Africa, Caucasus, and Central Asia to support European scientists intheirglobalcommunication and collaboration needs.

Maintaining Europe’s leadership

GÉANT1 achieved global leadership in this sector through the wide-scale use of
10 Gb/s technology previously not available on the market. This attracted much leading-edge research work to Europe (e.g. onversion 6 of the Internet Protocol, “Grid” networked computing and radio-astronomy). GÉANT2 aims to sustain this lead by using “dark fibre” to individual high speed links to advanced research communities.

“Dark” (or unlit) fibre refers to fibre optic cables that have yet to be used (i.e. no data transmission equipment is attached to the cable). As data is sent by using light pulses, the fibre remains dark until it gets connected and activated. Instead of buying a small slice of connectivity (offered by traditional telecom operators) the utilisation of dark fibre allows for the full (and very cost efficient) usage of the fibre transport capacity (i.e. several hundred gigabits per second).

How is research and education networking structured in Europe?

The data communications infrastructure serving the research and education community in Europe is organised in a hierarchical fashion, as a ‘network of networks’. An end-to-end pathway between two network users in different countries in Europe can run via several different networks. For example, data travelling between two users may cross a local area network at campus level, and then be carried by regional and national networks before entering the pan-European network (GÉANT2). It would then flow back down the hierarchy via another national network to its destination. These end-to-end supply chains form the mesh of data communications networks that serve Europe’s research and education community (and as such are very much different from the way a telecommunications operator manages its network).

GÉANT2’s direct customers are Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Each NREN connects its immediate customers. The structure varies from one country to another so these customers may, for example, be regional networks, wide area networks, or university networks.

The research networking hierarchy serves, in total, more than 3,500 research andeducational institutions across Europe, providing innovative services to an estimated
3 million users.

Why is the EU involved?

EU funding is needed to upgrade Europe’s research and education networking infrastructure, so as to boost Europe’s attractiveness as a place to do research. EU funding enables GÉANT to stay at the forefront of research networking technology (EU Member State funding suffices to sustain GÉANT, but not to upgrade it).

National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) need to be capable of using the next generation Internet (Internet Protocol version 6 - IPv6) and to carry high-volume and high-speed broadband communications in order to satisfy both the cumulative needs of hundreds of thousands of researchers and the specific needs of very large national and international research organisations. To continue to meet user needs, GÉANT2 also needs to combine traditional routed IP networks with switched photonics circuits.

GÉANT and the NRENs (National Research and Education Networks) are completely IPv6-enabled and pioneered the large scale roll-out of IPv6 in Europe. Building on this success, the GÉANT community is now targeting hybrid networking (the combination of switched and routed network provisioning). The new infrastructure will be based on dark fibres that when lit by GÉANT will provide unlimited bandwidth to researchers.

Meeting the needs of individual researchers makes GÉANT2 a fundamental building block of the European Research Area. Through its global reach, via EUMEDconnectfor the Mediterranean countries ( TEIN2 (Europe and the Asia-Pacific region - ALICE (Europe and Latin America - alice.dante.net) and the long-standing trans-Atlantic partnership) an advanced communication and collaboration infrastructure is provided for all research and education communities in Europe. GÉANT also acts as an integrator of national facilities and has demonstrated its structuring effect on the European research landscape.

GÉANT2 facilitates the formation of the focused research communities needed to generate breakthroughs in very high-tech areas (e.g. CERN, radio-astronomy). Providing high-speed connectivity has not only improved the cost-effectiveness of research, but has fundamentally transformed the way in which it is carried out. Results are available instantly, rather than after 3 weeks. The vast power of GÉANT also makes possible research (e.g. the handling of peta-bytes of data in the large hadron collider at CERN) that was previously impossible even to imagine.

GÉANT and the NRENs provide access to remote resources that are sometimes too costly for a single country to further enhance (e.g. connectivity to telescopes that are usually in remote places). This access makes resources available on a European scale and much added value can be generated by their shared use.

How is GÉANT2 funded and organised?

GÉANT2 is co-funded by the European Union’s Sixth Research & Development Framework Programme. The funding contract groups a number of research and education networking activities f, which are managed together as a project.

The project partners are the 30 European NRENs which will be connected to and served by GÉANT2, plus DANTE and the Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA), an association of NRENs that does technical work and provides a discussion platform for encouraging the development of a high-quality computer networking infrastructure for the European research community.

The contract between the project partners and the European Commission provides total funding from the EU of € 93 million for four years from 1 September 2004 (matching funding from the project’s NREN partners brings the total contract value to € 200 million). Overall co-ordination is done by DANTE.

Much of the contract activity relates to building, operating and developing the GÉANT2 network, and to the services that it will provide to users. Further activities, led by TERENA and relating to the broader development of research and education networking in Europe, are also organised and funded under the project umbrella, creating an overall package that ensures the continued success of research and education networking in Europe.

How does GEANT2 compare to Japan, China and USA?

GÉANT has proven that the complexityof Europe’s collaborative research networking can be turned into a positive advantage if done efficiently, through large-scale infrastructure such as GÉANT.

The fragmentation of US and Japanese research networking makes it harder for them to use resources efficiently and supply services to their entire science and education sectors. This is why GEANT has achieved quite a substantial lead in terms of technical capabilities and operational expertise. Chinahas recently achieved impressive results in this field, despite its still very fragmented infrastructure, by acquiring and deploying state-of-the-art technology.

GÉANT2’s next big step is to establish a massive pan-European dark fibre network. Other networks in the US, Canada and Japan have done first smaller scale and less complicated fibre roll-outs already. However, GÉANT2’s joint and all-encompassing approach of combining dark fibre and traditional broadband technology in “hybrid” networking is far more complex and includes many more actors than other installations so far.

Research networking infrastructure does not really lend itself to global “competition”. On the contrary, due to the global nature of research,infrastructure providers strive to offer a global seamless service that enables researchers to share knowledge and co-operate,irrespective of which specific network infrastructure carries data to the individual scientist.

Does GÉANT-enabled research generate any real economic benefits?

GÉANT pioneered low-cost high-efficient networking provision schemes. These are now widely used by commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs). GÉANT and the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) are early adopters of advanced technologies developed in the Information Society Technologies priority of the EU’s 6th research framework programme. In this process this leading-edge technology becomes more mature, and its widespread use by NRENs drives down prices.

What are the challenges for GÉANT2?

The Digital Divide

The costs and availability of networking infrastructure varies widely across the enlarged European Union. The GÉANT cost-sharing algorithm is helping less advantaged countries to benefit from the more liberalised markets in other parts of Europe. The advanced technical capabilities of this community enable them to develop new and innovative ways to overcome the inadequacies of the market (e.g. cost-efficient fibre solutions in the Balkans).

Bottlenecks at the university level

Many universities are often still unaware of the potential that advanced communi- cation has for scientific collaboration and creating new research tools for science as a whole. By driving forward the broadband (i.e. 10 Gb/s) connection of each university and research centre in Europe GÉANT and the NRENs will help to develop new markets and accelerate the wide-scale roll-out of broadband technology to citizens.

Sustainable development/rational use of resources

The GÉANT infrastructure is paid for by European public research funds. Joint funding of GÉANT by the European Commission and EU Member States ensures that only the most cost-efficient technologies and working methods are used, and that they maximise the impact of the resources available. These Europe-wide (from Iceland to the Caucasus and beyond) efforts help to overcome local limitations and spur innovative and cost-effective solutions where the market does not provide any other choices. Without EU funding, GÉANT would be able to maintain its status quo, but would lose its innovative and leading-edge role. GÉANT benefits European industry not only by buying goods and services, but by acting as a strong partner with whom to validate prototypes and advanced provisioning concepts.

Schools and Education

GÉANT interconnects the national Research and Education Networks across Europe. Support for the entire education community, including schools, is intrinsic to the network. The large number of schools poses a particular problem in terms of service provision, as they often lack the technical know-how to operate a local school network and provide advanced services (compared to, say, a university campus network). The NRENs provide specific support to schoolsin close cooperation with local universities which also provide training and support to the school network in their regions. For example, NRENs and universities can together negotiate country-wide contracts with scientific publishers to obtain much better subscription rates as a group than a university library can individually.

Assessment and benchmarking of market liberalisation

GÉANT2 provides a benchmarking tool for assessing each country’s degree of broadband availability. In less-advanced areas, the GÉANT community seeks to close gaps by transferring technical, managerial and policy expertise via workshops, consultancy and secondments.

Enhancing mobility of researchers

The research activities carried out in GÉANT2 are leading to the Europe-wide provision of a “roaming” service for all researchers, which gives them access to the working environment that they use at their home university. Australia, too, has adopted this model.

Why do Portugal, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania not yet have dark fibre connections?

Feasibility studies to use dark fibres are under way in all these countries except Portugal, in the context of the SEEFIRE ( and Porta Optica projects, and should enable these countries to use fibre in the coming years.Portugal is at present working on regional links via Spain.

GÉANT2 NETWORK APPLICATIONS

Biological collections (BioCASE)

Across Europe there are many resources, ranging from dinosaur bones to delicate orchids, which are broadly categorised as “biological collections”.

The Biological Collection Access Service for Europe (BioCASE), project is revolutionising access to these collections byinterconnecting bio-databases, to enable, for example, researchers in Budapest to consult collections in Reykjavik. The project links up 65 data providers and 150 specimen databases with more than 5 million records.

Remote access to these collections allows greater precision and depth of research as well as enabling researchers to analyse the distribution of a specific species and even to predict the likely level of occurrence or even predict the invasion of certain areas by a specific species. The high bandwidth capacity of GÉANT2 makes it ideal for transferring large quantities of data, including DNA samples, high-resolution images, sounds files and video clips.