European research and education community delivers networking first
The European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) have accomplished a milestone by setting up the first dynamic user-requested high-speed circuit between Ireland and Greece. The concept, known as 'Bandwidth-on-Demand', allows users to request network capacity according to their needs. The national internet service providers successfully established a dedicated end-to-end one gigabit Ethernet circuit between the workstation computers of two end-users. The circuit spanned the infrastructure of the Greek NREN, GRNET, the pan-European network GEANT2, and the Irish NREN, HEAnet. In the demonstration, two workstations were interconnected through the circuit, offering a data transmission speed of up to 1,000 times faster than a commercial one megabits per seconds (Mbps) ADSL line for the transmission of high-resolution video. The circuit was also released in a dynamic manner. 'We have demonstrated that it is possible for a network user to request their own bandwidth,' said Afrodite Sevasti of GRNET, and leader of the research activity. 'We would now like to expand our work within the research networking community to collect user feedback and further our research. We are already working closely with our US counterparts at Internet2 and ESNet to extend the possibilities beyond Europe,' she added. The demonstration was the result of research into a novel communication networks' service architecture, tailored to meet the needs of the pan-European research and education community. Known as the 'AutoBAHN' (Automated Bandwidth Allocation across Heterogeneous Networks) architecture, it allows end-users to directly access network resources from their computer, wherever it is located in Europe. This is achieved by setting up on-demand dedicated circuits spanning multiple countries, and multiple networks, administered by different entities and using different technologies. In contrast to general Internet principles, the AutoBAHN concept allows a user to explicitly define the destination of his data and the speed and quality used for this transmission. The service can be offered upon demand and subject to the availability of resources. Similar services have been offered by the telecommunications industry for some time now. However, AutoBAHN focuses on end-user control and ease-of-use with simple Web-based user interfaces. The demonstration was made possible by a group of GEANT2 project participants working for two months and collaborating with the network administrators of GRNET, GEANT2 and HEAnet. With over 30 million users in 34 countries across the continent, GEANT2 offers a high-bandwidth network to Europe's research and education community.
Countries
Greece, Ireland