GÉANT is the pan-

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an data

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

for the

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

community. It interconnects

national research and education networks A national research and education network (NREN) is a specialised internet service provider dedicated to supporting the needs of the research and education communities within a country. It is usually distinguished by support for a high-speed back ...

(NRENs) across Europe, enabling collaboration on projects ranging from biological science, to earth observation, to arts and culture. The GÉANT project combines a high-bandwidth, high-capacity 50,000 km network with a growing range of services. These allow researchers to collaborate, working together wherever they are located. Services include identity and trust, multi-domain monitoring perfSONAR MDM, dynamic circuits and

roaming Roaming is a wireless telecommunication term typically used with mobile devices, such as mobile phones. It refers to a mobile phone being used outside the range of its native network and connecting to another available cell network. Technical ...

via the

eduroam eduroam (''edu''cation ''roam''ing) is an international Wi-Fi internet access roaming service for users in research, higher education and further education. It provides researchers, teachers, and students network access when visiting an institu ...

service. Together with European NRENs, GÉANT connects 50 million users in over 10,000 institutions. Through links to research networks in other regions (such as

Internet2 Internet2 is a not-for-profit United States computer networking consortium led by members from the research and education communities, industry, and government. The Internet2 consortium administrative headquarters are located in Ann Arbor, Mi ...

and

ESnet The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is a high-speed computer network serving United States Department of Energy (DOE) scientists and their collaborators worldwide. It is managed by staff at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. More than ...

in the US, AfricaConnect in Africa, TEIN in Asia-Pacific and

RedCLARA RedCLARA: the Latin American space for collaboration and development in education, science and innovation CLARA (''Latin American Advanced Networks Cooperation'' in English, ''Cooperación Latino Americana de Redes Avanzadas'', in Spanish, the ...

in Latin America), GÉANT enables collaboration between researchers in over half the world's countries. Co-funded by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

and Europe's NRENs, the GÉANT network was built and is operated by the GÉANT Association. The GÉANT project is a collaboration between 41 partners.

History

The GÉANT project began in November 2000, entered full production operation in December 2001 (fully replacing a network called TEN-155). Originally due to finish in October 2004, it was subsequently extended until April 2005. The second generation network, named GÉANT2, began in September 2004 and continued through 2009, growing the network to 30 national networks in 34 countries. The next GÉANT project (GN3) began on 1 April 2009 and continued until April 2013. This was then superseded by the GN3plus project which was scheduled to run for two years. It is funded under the EC's seventh research and development Research Framework Programme (often referred to as FP7). The Project is now in its fourth iteration (GN4).

Technology

As well as providing the high-bandwidth links across Europe, the GÉANT network also acts as a

testbed A testbed (also spelled test bed) is a platform for conducting rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of scientific theories, computational tools, and new technologies. The term is used across many disciplines to describe experimental rese ...

for new technology. It was the first "hybrid" network deployed on an international scale, combining routed IP and switched infrastructure. This enables the network to offer general traffic alongside virtual "private" network paths for projects, such as the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundred ...

, which have particular requirements involving dedicated bandwidth, security and flexibility. GÉANT supported native

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...

since 2002 and

multicast In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused with ...

IPv6 since 2004. It is involved in network research, in areas such as carrier class network technologies, photonic switching, federated network architectures and virtualisation. In 2013 a substantial network migration program was completed, meaning users could be offered multiple 100 Gbit/s links, with the core network supporting 500 Gbit/s and a

network design Network planning and design is an iterative process, encompassing topological design, network-synthesis, and network-realization, and is aimed at ensuring that a new telecommunications network or service meets the needs of the subscriber and op ...

that will support up to 8Tbit/s. Already, over 1

Petabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

of data are transferred every day via the GÉANT

backbone network A backbone or core network is a part of a computer network which interconnects networks, providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks. A backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same buildin ...

Participants

The GÉANT project is a collaboration between 50 partners: 37 European

NREN A national research and education network (NREN) is a specialised internet service provider dedicated to supporting the needs of the research and education communities within a country. It is usually distinguished by support for a high-speed backb ...

, IUCC (representing

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

NORDUnet NORDUnet is an international collaboration between the National research and education networks in the Nordic countries. Members The members of NORDUnet are: * SUNET of Sweden * UNINETT of Norway * FUNET of Finland * Forskningsnettet of ...

(representing the five Nordic countries), and 11 associate members. The full list of NREN project partners are available on the website.

Global links

GÉANT links to research networks in other world regions, including: * North America (

NISN The NASA Integrated Services Network (NISN) is a global system of communications transmission, switching, and terminal facilities that provides NASA with wide area network communications services. The NISN services that support the Space Network (SN ...

and

CANARIE CANARIE (formerly the Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education) is the not-for-profit organisation which operates the national backbone network of Canada's national research and education network (NREN). The orga ...

) *

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

* North Africa and the Middle East * South Africa/Kenya * The South Caucasus * Central Asia * Asia Pacific These links not only help international research collaboration but also aid with projects that deliver societal benefit, such as e-health, telemedicine and weather forecasting/disaster warning systems. Allowing researchers to work within their own countries also stems migration from less developed countries, helping bridge the digital divide.

Example projects

GÉANT is used by research communities, such as: * High-energy physics * Bio-medical sciences * Health * Radio Astronomy * Earth Observation and Early Warning * Arts and culture

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Geant History of the Internet Information technology organisations based in the United Kingdom Internet in Europe National research and education networks Research and development in Europe Science and technology in Cambridgeshire