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Calls & Context
Other Areas of Work
Photonic Networks
The NRENs and GEANT represent a leading-edge "user-group" for high-speed, high-functionality photonics networking technology. As the European research networking backbone, GEANT needs to deploy the latest technology to offer state-of-the-art services for all researchers in Europe. The current 10 Gbps backbone infrastructure will soon be upgraded to 2x10 Gbps. Beyond this the natural evolution will be to a link capacity of 40 Gbps.
The research networking community operates various test-beds either in parallel or on top of GEANT. In the parallel test-beds new technologies are tested (IPv6, Qos, (G)MPLS, etc.). In addition, GEANT and the NREN infrastructures provide an opportunity for the photonics community to collaborate on advanced high-speed test-beds and realistic field trials.
The most prominent test-bed in photonic networks is provided by the ATRIUM project. The ATRIUM test-bed is already connected to BELNET (Belgian NREN) and RENATER (French NREN). Through these interconnections advanced experiments can be carried out on the ATRIUM test-bed by scientific users from all over Europe. In addition, GEANT is providing further connectivity to this test-bed by linking ATRIUM consortium partners from Poland and Spain. These dedicated links allow the partners concerned to "tunnel" through GEANT to exploit the full potential of the ATRIUM test-bed.
On-going discussions in the Task Force for Next Generation Networks (TF-NGN), which is a technical forum for engineers from GEANT and the NRENs, are already addressing the future technological needs for Research Networking in Europe. Amongst the topics discussed are 40 Gbps link speeds and optical switching and routing as a longer term perspective. These talks are supported by a close co-operation between the Research Networking' engineers in TF-NGN and the photonics community supported by the cluster project OPTIMIST. Specific research collaborations in the area of (G)MPLS have already been established between TF-NGN and the photonics project LION.
Access Technologies
There is an interesting interplay lately between technology and regulation in the context of what is called "unbundling of the local loop". The aim is make broadband access available at low cost to the largest number of business establishments and households. It is believed that this will dramatically increase the use of the network and stimulate the creation of a new generation of user applications, as well as work and business models over the Internet. Research projects in this area are investigating different aspects of the above problem and proposing technological solutions which, in most of the cases, provide useful input to new regulatory approaches. TORRENT and MOICANE are two such initiatives funded by Research Networking.
TORRENT is investigating hardware and software architectures that allow the quality of service expectations of a home user to be met. This is achieved, in a way that is transparent to the user, by employing both the most appropriate core transport network, as well as the possibility of choosing among several physical access interfaces in order to deploy the access network under several scenarios.
The main objective of MOICANE is the enlargement of the "virtual laboratory" service concept over an IP-pilot among entities like universities, research institutions, network device manufactures and network carries. The aim is to share knowledge, experience and devices in the context of a business or a research application. Crucial in such a scenario is the deployment of diverse access technologies in test-bed "islands" interconnected through national and international links, in order to extend the service availability to a wider set of users.
The following becomes evident from such a scenario:
- The enabling role of GEANT and the NRENs in interconnecting the above test-bed islands.
- The relevance of the work of MOICANE to other research initiatives which deal also with the "virtual laboratory" concept but from another point of view (e.g. middleware -GRIDs).
- The potential input of MOICANE to standardisation efforts (e.g. Internet Engineering Task Force) and regulatory approaches: end-to-end QoS and different access technologies that are investigated in the project, which in a real world setting can represent the co-existence of different access networks and service providers.
Quality of Service
Quality of Service (QoS) issues in networks are important in general. For instance, a normal telephone conversation can be seriously disturbed by the echo phenomenon, by delays or even by silent suppression techniques. In the case of packet switching and considering multiple management domains, the concept of QoS becomes more complex. Different users or a different use of a network may need different kinds of QoS. For example real time applications like video-conferencing do not require the same kind of QoS as the transfer of emails.
In this context, the project SEQUIN is investigating the definition and implementation of an end-to-end approach to QoS that will operate across multiple management domains taking into account the combination of IP and ATM technologies. The results are potentially applicable within several other projects concerned with networking technology.
Digital Libraries
Digital libraries belong to a group of new applications that are enabled by the recent advances in Internet technologies. The Internet, in this case, goes beyond providing the basic communication infrastructure required for digital libraries. It becomes an information utility, a new kind of a library that is visited on the user's PC rather than in its own location. In this context, current RTD initiatives focus on aspects such as new multimedia and multilingual interfaces, and methods for archiving, accessing, searching and browsing documents, images and information in general. Collaboration among scientific and scholarly communities are strongly enhanced and enriched by these developments.
There is a potential closer link between digital library applications and emerging technological concepts dealing with the control of resources. Given the increased volume and complexity of the information to be processed in digital library environments, greater convergence between concepts in the area of digital libraries and GRID technologies is to be expected.
Another important issue is the connection between recent advances in digital library technologies and policy development, in particular dealing with the security of information processing and the protection of intellectual property rights.
SCHOLNET is developing a digital library test-bed for networked scholarly communities. In addition to traditional services, the project is also supporting multimedia interfaces, hypermedia annotation, cross-language search and retrieval, personalised information dissemination, etc. The test-bed aims at enabling the fast dissemination and access of documentation (and the underlying knowledge) within a globally distributed multilingual community. It extends ETRDL, an existing European digital library, with new services on an open architecture.
IST projects related to:
Photonic Networks:
Access Networks:
- AQUILA
- BASS
- CADENUS
- GCAP
- M3I
- TEQUILA
- TORRENT
Quality of Service:
- MOICANE
- TEQUILA
Digital libraries:
- ARION
- ARTISTE
- ASH
- BRAVA
- COVAX
- CYCLADES
- DELOS
- ECHO
- SCHEMAS