THE MAGAZINE FROM THE GÉANT COMMUNITY | ISSUE 17 2014

SKAEXPLORING THEUNIVERSE WITH THEWORLD’S LARGESTRADIO TELESCOPE

CERN AT 60:MUSICAL CELEBRATIONSHELP MARKANNIVERSARY

TRUST AND IDENTITY:FUTURE FOCUSFOR IDENTITYFEDERATIONS

DENGUE FEVER:THE POWER OFNETWORKS TO EMPOWERCOMMUNITIES

CCOONNNNEECCTT

USERSGÉANT and the SquareKilometre Array

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CCOONNTTEENNTTSSCONNECT NEWSCathrin Stöver makes finals ofDigital Womanof the Year!

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TECHNICALINSIGHT 38Q&A

Interview with MarkJohnston

30 Q&AInterview with DorteOlesen

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CONNECT NEWSGÉANT and ESnetform transatlanticpartnership

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OPENCALLSHow to stay on top of thedata tsunami

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CONNECT is the quarterly magazine from the GÉANTcommunity; highlighting key areas of interest, updates on the project and its vital work supporting European researchand education. We give insights into the users who dependon the network, and the community that makes GÉANT whatit is. We welcome feedback at connect@geant.net

Published by the GÉANT (GN3plus) project, under the NA2 Communications Activity Task 1 | Editors: PPaauull MMaauurriiccee ((TTaasskk LLeeaaddeerr)) aanndd TTaammssiinn HHeennddeerrssoonn ((MMaarrkkeettiinngg OOffffiicceerr))..

Hyperlinks: CONNECT is produced as a digital magazine also made available in print. To view the digital edition and benefit from hyperlinks to further information, please see: http://connect.geant.net

For digital or printed subscriptions/unsubscriptions email connect@geant.net

Cover image © SKA Organisation

eedduurrooaamm®® iiss aa rreeggiisstteerreedd ttrraaddeemmaarrkk ooff TTEERREENNAA aanndd aallll ootthheerr bbrraanndd,, ccoommppaannyy aanndd pprroodduucctt nnaammeess aarree ttrraaddeemmaarrkkss ooff tthheeiirr rreessppeeccttiivvee oowwnneerrss..

CONNECT magazine has beenshortlisted for the 2014 CorpCommsaward for best not-for-profit publication.

CONNECT NEWS

02 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

CCAATTHHRRIINN SSTTÖÖVVEERR MMAAKKEESS FFIINNAALLSS OOFFTTHHEE 22001144 DDIIGGIITTAALLWWOOMMAANN OOFF TTHHEEYYEEAARR™™ AAWWAARRDD

The winner of the award, EstherRoure Vila from Cisco, Spain, wasannounced in Rome on 30th October.

Cathrin said: “It was fantastic to bepart of an award that encourages morewomen in to technology. I feel honouredto be a finalist beside such inspirationalwomen and I would like to offer mysincere congratulations to Esther RoureVila. Also another big thank you toeverybody who contributed their timeand heart-warming words in support ofmy nomination.”

To find out more about the awardsvisit: www.adaawards.com

Congratulations to CathrinStöver, Chief InternationalRelations andCommunications Officer at

DANTE and Outreach Coordinator forthe GÉANT project – a finalist in theprestigious European 2014 DigitalWoman of the Year Award!

One of four finalists from acrossEurope, the awards recogniseoutstanding women in digital sectorsaround the world. They form part of theinternational Ada Awards that recogniseoutstanding girls and women in digitalsectors globally and the organisationsthat support them. The awards areaffectionately named after the first-evercomputer programmer, AdaLovelace, Lady Augusta Ada King,Countess of Lovelace.

The annual award is open to womenwho distinguish themselves throughleadership, creativity, entrepreneurship,social-focus and/or innovativediscoveries, and who are positivelyimpacting the number of girls andwomen participating in digitally-driven ordigitally-enabled areas of study or work.

Cathrin was nominated by her teamfor her role in closing the digital divide forpotentially hundreds of millions ofpeople. Her work was highlighted ashaving a massive impact on society as awhole, unlocking a vast sea of humanpotential and offering unprecedentedpossibilities for entire countries.

The abundant support received fromthe R&E networking community forCathrin’s participation wasoverwhelmingly positive. Warmmessages and quotes were receivedfrom around the world in support of hernomination – and went a long waytowards Cathrin’s accolade. A big thankyou again to everybody for theirenthusiasm and insight.

“Before you light afibre, or set down asingle line of code,you have to networkpeople. This is whatCathrin does.” Ann Harding, SWITCH – The Swiss NREN.

“Cathrin inspired me to set up thetelemedicine projecthere in Latin America,which todaycontributes so muchto the health of ourregion.”Luiz Ary Messina, RedeUniversitária deTelemedicina

“Cathrin Stööver is a smart, savvy,empowering andamazing woman.”Margaret Ngwira,UbuntuNet Alliance,Malawi.

“Cathrin has indeedcontributed a lot tothe success of the globalinterconnection of the Research andEducation Networksaround the world.”Sabine Jaume-Rajaonia, RENATER(French Research andEducation Network)

CONNECT NEWS

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DDAANNTTEE AANNDD TTEERREENNAA JJOOIINNFFOORRCCEESS TTOO BBEECCOOMMEE TTHHEEGGÉÉAANNTT AASSSSOOCCIIAATTIIOONN

Day, Executive Director of Janet, theUnited Kingdom’s NREN. Theassociation’s board asked him, as hesteps down as chair of DANTE, to takeon this new role during the period oftransition and integration. He said: “Therestructuring will create a vehicle tocoordinate the community's approachto the European Commission'sHorizon2020 Programme.”

NRENSInitial reactions from the NRENcommunity are positive. Tomás deMiguel, director of RedIRIS, captures thetypical responses well, saying “Thecreation of the GÉANT Association is anew milestone in the long and fruitfulhistory of cooperation among EuropeanNRENs. It is a very positive sign of ourshared commitment to provide jointly toour users world-class ICT services

needed for global scientific andacademic collaboration.”

João Nuno Ferreira, Head of thePortuguese FCT-FCCN says “A newcycle is starting for Research andEducation Networks in Europe, in linewith the challenges of Horizon 2020 andbuilding on the huge experienceaccumulated by the GÉANT communityover the years. It's an excitingchallenge!"

A NEW BEGINNINGA first website for the GÉANTAssociation is now available, whichincludes FAQs and a simple overview ofthe restructuring, membership, activitiesand governance of the association.

While a longer term web presence isbeing developed, your patience andunderstanding are requested. In themeantime, please refer to the TERENA,DANTE, TNC and GÉANT Projectwebsites for more detailed informationabout all services, network, news,events and other activities.

The restructuring comes inresponse to wishes from thecommunity of Europe’s nationalresearch and education

networking organisations (NRENs). Themain benefits of the new association willbe simplified governance, more efficientmanagement, more flexible use ofresources and a more inclusivemembership.

Pierre Bruyère, Director of Belnet,the Belgian NREN, was appointed asChair of the interim board of the GÉANTAssociation following three years aspresident of TERENA. He said: “TheGÉANT Association is the leadingcollaboration on network and relatedinfrastructure and services for the benefitof research and education, contributingto Europe's economic growth andcompetitiveness.”

The new Interim CEO of the GÉANTAssociation has been named as Bob

www.geant.orgwww.dante.netwww.terena.orgwww.geant.netwww.tnc15.terena.org

TERENA and DANTE have become the GÉANT Association. The new organisation wasestablished during meetings held in Berlin on 7 October. TERENA members and theshareholders of DANTE voted unanimously for the restructuring, which marks a new phasein almost thirty years of collaborative research and education networking in Europe.

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CONNECT NEWS

DANTE installed ESnet’s firstEuropean network node at CERN (themajor laboratory outside Geneva thathouses the LHC) in mid-September, andis now deploying other equipmentnecessary to bring the first link online.The plan is for all links to becommissioned and in production byJanuary 2015. The timing is important,because the LHC is undergoingupgrades and expected to resumeoperations next spring, at which point itwill be generating significantly morescientific data every day.

The Department of Energy’s(DOE) Energy SciencesNetwork, otherwise known asESnet, is extending its reach

using the state-of-the-art GÉANTnetwork and the services of GÉANT’soperator, DANTE, to deploy a resilienthigh speed network ring across Europe.

Together with the ESnet and GÉANTinfrastructure, the three 100GbpsEuropean links, shown in the mapbelow, and associated routingequipment will greatly improvecollaboration opportunities between USand European research and educationfacilities, thanks to the superfastconnectivity and resilience vital for suchbig data uses.

ESnet is connecting to GÉANT atthree locations: London, Amsterdamand Geneva. GÉANT will provide thethree 100Gbps links to move databetween these locations, as well as theGÉANT Open service, which will enableESnet to quickly manage multipleinterconnections with internationalnetworks. DANTE is also responsible forthe provision and installation of the fourESnet points-of-presence acrossEurope.

GGÉÉAANNTT AANNDD EESSNNEETT FFOORRMM TTRRAANNSSAATTLLAANNTTIICCPPAARRTTNNEERRSSHHIIPP WWIITTHH NNEEWW HHIIGGHH--SSPPEEEEDD NNEETTWWOORRKK RRIINNGG AACCRROOSSSS EEUURROOPPEEIINNFFRRAASSTTRRUUCCTTUURREE WWIILLLL AACCCCEELLEERRAATTEE TTRRAANNSSAATTLLAANNTTIICCRREESSEEAARRCCHH AANNDD EEDDUUCCAATTIIOONN CCOOLLLLAABBOORRAATTIIOONN

““TThhee aaggrreeeemmeenntt bbeettwweeeennGGÉÉAANNTT aanndd EESSnneett iiss aa ggrreeaatteexxaammppllee ooff iinntteerrnnaattiioonnaallrreesseeaarrcchh nneettwwoorrkkssccoollllaabboorraattiinngg ttoo nnoott oonnllyyssuuppppoorrtt tthhee ggrroowwiinngg nneeeeddss ooffbbiigg sscciieennccee,, bbuutt ttoo mmaaxxiimmiisseetthhee uussee ooff tthhee wwoorrlldd’’ss mmoossttaaddvvaanncceedd nneettwwoorrkkiinnggffaacciilliittiieess,, TThhiiss hhiigghh--ssppeeeeddiinnffrraassttrruuccttuurree wwiillll pprroovviiddeemmiilllliioonnss ooff rreesseeaarrcchheerrss aannddaaccaaddeemmiiccss aatt llaabboorraattoorriieess,,uunniivveerrssiittiieess aanndd rreesseeaarrcchhiinnssttiittuuttiioonnss wwiitthhuunnpprreecceeddeenntteeddiinntteerrccoonnttiinneennttaall bbaannddwwiiddtthhaanndd rreessiilliieennccee,, wwiitthh hhuuggeeiimmpplliiccaattiioonnss ffoorr ccoollllaabboorraattiivveerreesseeaarrcchh oonn ssoommee ooff tthheewwoorrlldd’’ss mmoosstt iimmppoorrttaannttsscciieennttiiffiicc cchhaalllleennggeess..””

Niels Hersoug, Joint ProjectManager of GÉANT

""AAfftteerr EESSnneett''ss ttrraannssaattllaannttiicceexxtteennssiioonn iiss ccoommpplleettee,, wweellooookk ffoorrwwaarrdd ttoo ccoollllaabboorraattiinnggwwiitthh GGÉÉAANNTT oonn aa rraannggee ooffaaddddiittiioonnaall pprroojjeeccttss:: aassssiissttiinnggsscciieennttiiffiicc ccoollllaabboorraattiioonnss ttooaacchhiieevvee ffaasstteerr oouuttccoommeess,,pprroommoottiinngg bbeetttteerr aarrcchhiitteeccttuurreessffoorr ddaattaa mmoobbiilliittyy,, aanndd aassssuurriinnggtthhaatt rreesseeaarrcchheerrss iinn tthhee UUSS aannddEEuurrooppee mmaakkee ooppttiimmaall uussee ooffaaddvvaanncceedd nneettwwoorrkkss..""

Greg Bell, Director, ESnet

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CONNECT NEWS

GGÉÉAANNTT UUSSEERR UUPPDDAATTEETTHHEE FFIIRRSSTT FFLLOOOORR UUPPOONN WWHHIICCHH TTHHEEIITTEERR MMAACCHHIINNEE WWIILLLL RREESSTT IISS RREEAADDYY!!

The project has turned a new pagewith the completion of the first floor ofthe Tokamak Complex, the mainbuilding that will host the reactor. This isan important achievement for F4E as theTokamak slab marks the conclusion ofthe preparatory phase of theconstruction site which started in August 2010.

Those four years of hard work havebeen challenging for all parties involvedin the ITER project: ITER InternationalOrganization, F4E, the companiescollaborating under the ArchitectEngineer contract and all F4Econtractors involved in this domain.

The concrete pouring of this hugeslab, covering an area of 9,600m2,started in December 2013.

The hold point was released by theFrench Nuclear Authority on July 10,and the central 9 sections of the slabwere poured within 7 weeks.

This was made possible thanks tothe personal commitment of all thepeople involved, working during theholiday period, night shifts andweekends when necessary. The 150workers used 14,000m3 of concrete,3,600 tonnes of steel and 2,500embedded plates in total.

ITER is the biggest internationalenergy collaboration aiming todemonstrate the viability of fusionpower as a sustainable

energy source. This one-of a-kind fusion reactor is

bringing together seven parties thatrepresent 50% of the world’s populationand 80% of the global GDP.

The project is being constructed inCadarache, in the south of France,where a 42-hectare platform—theapproximate size of 60 soccer fields—will house the scientific buildings andfacilities.

WordsAris Apollonatos,F4ECommunications

Pictures© F4ECommunications

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EEXXPPLLOORRIINNGG TTHHEE UUNNIIVVEERRSSEE,, WWIITTHH TTHHEEWWOORRLLDD’’SS LLAARRGGEESSTT RRAADDIIOO TTEELLEESSCCOOPPEE

GGÉÉAANNTT AANNDD SSKKAA

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building and delivering a uniqueinstrument. With detailed design andpreparation well under way, the SKAOrganisation is moving towards startingearly science operations with a portionof the telescope in 2020.

As one of the largest scientificendeavours in history, the SKA has beenbringing together a wealth of the world’sfinest scientists, engineers and policymakers to bring the project to fruition.The SKA will not be one large singleradio telescope, but will use vastnumbers of “smaller” radio telescopes,built with three unique antenna designs.These will in turn form four instrumentconfigurations, enabling astronomers to

monitor the sky in unprecedented detail,and survey the entire sky thousands oftimes faster than any system currently inexistence.

The SKA telescope will be co-located in Africa and in Australia. SouthAfrica’s Karoo desert will cover the coreof the high and mid frequencies of theradio spectrum and will see telescopesspread all over the continent, whilstAustralia’s Murchison region, withhundreds of thousands of dipoleantennas will cover the low frequencyrange, as well as play host to the SKAsurvey instrument.

Our Universe contains manyunknowns. Humanity,throughout all of recordedhistory has wanted to unlock

the secrets of the Universe. Now at thestart of the 21st century, a new globalscientific undertaking will help uncoverthe mysteries of the Universe, in a waynever before achieved.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA)project is an international effort to buildthe world’s largest radio telescope, witha square kilometre (one million squaremetres) of collecting area. The scale ofthe SKA represents a huge leap forwardin engineering, telescope design andresearch & development towards

PictureArtist'simpression of the SKA Dish arrays inoperation atnight time. Credit SKAOrganisation

TTHHEE SSKKAAPPRROOJJEECCTTThe SKA Organisation is co-ordinating the global science andengineering activities for the world’slargest radio telescope. The entireproject is led by the SKAOrganisation, which is based at theworld famous University ofManchester’s Jodrell BankObservatory, in the UK, in theshadow of the 76m Lovell radiotelescope, which played animportant part in the dawn of thespace age. The SKA Organisationformalises relationships betweenthe international partners andcentralises the leadership of theproject. Eleven countries arecurrently members of the SKAOrganisation and further countrieshave expressed their interest injoining the SKA Organisation in thecoming months and years.

TTHHEE SSKKAA WWIILLLL::• Be the largest and most

sensitive radio telescope in the world.

• Revolutionise our understanding of the Universe and the laws of fundamental physics.

• Be built in radio-quiet locations in Australia and Africa, in some of the most sparsely populated regions on earth.

• Have 50 times the sensitivity and thousands of times the survey speed of current imaginginstruments.

• Be able to detect an airport radar at tens of light years.

• Have a life span of at least 50 years.

• Be continuously upgradable as computing power increases.

• Use revolutionary new receiver technology, signal transport mechanisms, signal processing techniques and computer processing power on a larger scale than any in existence.

• As the SKA will be an aperture synthesis instrument, comprising many independent receiving elements, exciting science will be achievable before the full array is complete.

• Initial science results are expected in 2020.

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TThhee SSKKAA wwiillll rreeqquuiirree aa ffuunnddaammeennttaall sshhiifftt ffoorrwwaarrdd iinntteecchhnnoollooggiiccaall aanndd sscciieennttiiffiicc ccoollllaabboorraattiioonn tthhaatt wwiillll hhaavvee hhuuggeeaanndd ffaarr rreeaacchhiinngg bbeenneeffiittss ffoorr llooccaall aanndd gglloobbaall ssccaallee pprroojjeeccttss..

TTRRAANNSSFFOORRMMAATTIIOONNAALLSSCCIIEENNCCEE

The unprecedented sensitivity of thethousands of individual radio receivers,combining to create the world’s largestradio telescope will give astronomersinsight into the formation and evolutionof the first stars and galaxies after theBig Bang, the role of cosmicmagnetism, the nature of gravity, andpossibly even life beyond Earth.

If history is any guide, the SKA willmake many more discoveries than wecan imagine today.

The science key drivers for the SKAhave been broken down in to keycategories, each of which has its ownworking group to facilitate and managethe scientific goals.

KKEEYY SSCCIIEENNCCEEDDRRIIVVEERRSS IINNCCLLUUDDEE::• Probing the cosmic dawn – how

were the first black holes and stars formed?

• Galaxy evolution, cosmology and dark energy – how do galaxies form and what is the mysterious ‘dark energy’?

• The origin and evolution of cosmic magnetism – what generates the giant magnetic fields in space?

• The cradle of life – are we alone in the Universe?

• Challenging Einstein – are gravity waves real? Was Einstein right?

SSUUPPEERR SSCCAALLEEDDTTEECCHHNNOOLLOOGGYYThe SKA is a technological andengineering challenge. It demands newapproaches not only to radio telescopedesign, but also signal transport, datareduction, data management and sheercomputer processing power.Development of the SKA, which in 2013was broken down in to a number ofelements known as work packages, isnow progressing at speed.

Assigned to 11 vast globalconsortia, consisting of hundreds of theworld’s finest scientists and engineers,the SKA Project involves massproducing low cost, but highly accurateand sophisticated telescope receiversand the computing and infrastructure tosupport it. On top of this, thedevelopment of signal processingengines that can work in real time, withdata on a scale never before seen,filtering out the unwanted signals andpassing on the useful data.

Using high speed computer basedbeam forming techniques, where thetelescopes will "point" electronically atregions of the sky, as well as with stateof the art "Phased Array Feed"technology, the SKA will be able to scanthe skies thousands of times faster thanever before. This will give engineers andscientists the challenge of transporting,at phenomenally high rates, the vastamounts of scientifically valuable radioastronomy data, firstly from the vastarray of telescopes to local basestations, and then across the entireplanet.

Data transport from the dishes alonewill produce ten times the current globalinternet traffic as of 2013. The use ofwide field of view technologies couldincrease total data rates for the SKA into the hundreds of petabits/seconddomain, or around 100 times the globalinternet traffic every day.

Processing and post-processing willrequire exascale central computingengines (orders of 10^18 floating pointoperations per second, faster than anycomputer currently in existence). TheSKA will also stretch algorithmdevelopment in the vital areas ofintelligently filtering out unwanted noiseand data, and working with data thathas a very high dynamic range.

New technologies and progress infundamental engineering and scienceare both required. This is why the SKAcompares with some of the greatestscientific projects in history, like theLarge Hadron Collider or interplanetaryspace probes.

The SKA’s power will come from itbeing in many respects, a softwarecontrolled and software dependenttelescope. This will allows the SKA’sdesigners to take advantage ofadvances in computer power, algorithmdesign and data transport capability,making sure that over its entire lifespan,the SKA never becomes obsolete.

TThhee SSKKAA wwiillllrreevvoolluuttiioonniissee oouurruunnddeerrssttaannddiinngg oofftthhee UUnniivveerrssee aannddtthhee llaawwss ooffffuunnddaammeennttaallpphhyyssiiccss..

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WWHHAATT IISS YYOOUURRRROOLLEE IINN TTHHEE SSKKAAPPRROOJJEECCTT?? I am an academic at the University ofManchester and am the Lead of theInternational Signal and Data Transport(SADT) Consortium, which is designingthe data transport networks betweenthe elements of SKA. SADT is made upof 15 institutes from 8 differentcountries, including the GÉANTAssociation.

TTHHEE AAMMOOUUNNTTSS OOFFDDAATTAA WWEE AARREETTAALLKKIINNGG AABBOOUUTTAARREE IIMMMMEENNSSEE..WWHHAATT WWIILLLL BBEE TTHHEE MMAAIINNCCHHAALLLLEENNGGEESS?? The sheer volume of data is staggering,but there are really 3 differentchallenges, each corresponding to aseparate area of the telescope. First,there is the problem of transporting thedata from the individual antennas to thecentral signal processor (CSP). Thisrequires the provision of links from theCSP building to hundreds of differentpoints scattered over a 100km radiusarea in the South African or Australiandeserts. Finding an optimumcombination of topology, transmissiontechnology and data aggregation is adifficult multi-dimensional problem.Second, there is the problem oftransporting the data from the CSP tothe High Performance Computingcentre, approximately 800km away.Here the data all travel down the sameset of fibres, but in order toaccommodate the volume we will beobliged to make use of the very latest,cutting edge transceivers. The third andfinal problem is one of providing theprocessed data to the astronomer. Thedata rate for this is small by comparison

to the other two instances, but thedistances are literally transcontinental,requiring transport over submarineoptical cable systems.

HHOOWW MMIIGGHHTT GGÉÉAANNTTHHEELLPP?? WWHHAATT SSOORRTTOOFF SSOOLLUUTTIIOONN?? GÉANT are contributing theirconsiderable expertise into the designphase of the separate networks,including: choice of hardware andprotocols; definition of standards;devising test and commissioningstrategies; advice on the practicalities ofoperation and maintenance of thenetworks; liaison with NRENs on theissues associated with distribution of thefinal data sets to the SKA membercountries.

WWHHYY IISS GGÉÉAANNTT OOFFIINNTTEERREESSTT??GÉANT has huge experience withproviding data transport for differentresearch communities and is heavilyinvolved with world-leading experiments.It is a natural partner in the SKA SADTendeavour.

WWHHAATT IISS TTHHEETTIIMMEELLIINNEE?? In addition to transporting the huge datavolumes we must also provide extremelyaccurate time to all the individualantennas. This is required because theSKA will work as an interferometer andthis requires that the signals receivedcan be combined together in a coherentfashion. This translates to a requirementthat we provide time accurate to 1ps(10^(-12) s) over the 100s km distancesto the antennas. There is also arequirement for long term clock stabilityin order to do the most interestingexperiments associated with timingpulsars. For these we must ensure the

WordsPaul Mauriceinterviewed Keith Grainge

PictureKeith Grainge,University ofManchester

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clock is accurate to 10 ns (10^(-8)s)over 10 year timescales.

On the processing and analysis side,the SKA represents a huge step in bothsensitivity and data complexity for radioastronomy. As a result the standard datareduction pipelines that we have beenaccustomed to using will no longer beadequate to process the data and anovel and scalable approach will berequired.

WWHHAATT WWOOUULLDD YYOOUULLIIKKEE TTOO SSEEEE FFRROOMMTTHHEE GGLLOOBBAALLRREESSEEAARRCCHHCCOOMMMMUUNNIITTYY?? There is a lot to be learnt from existingBig Data projects – CERN being anobvious example. The next generationsof optical transceivers are beingdeveloped by industry to deliver 400Gbps or even 1 Tbps transport on onelaser carrier frequency.

On the radio astronomy side, thereare many essential lessons to be learntfrom various pathfinder experimentssuch as LOFAR and eMERLIN and theprecursor instruments on the SouthAfrican and Australian sites: MeerKAT,MWA and ASKAP.

HHOOWW CCAANN SSKKAABBEENNEEFFIITT OOTTHHEERRSSIIMMIILLAARR –– BBUUTTSSMMAALLLLEERR ––PPRROOJJEECCTTSS?? The SKA is an exemplar Big Dataproblem and the challenges that we willhave to overcome will be mirrored inother areas beyond radio astronomyand even academic research. Thesolutions that we develop for SKA will betranslated into other fields and will allowa huge range of novel problems to betackled.

AASSKKAAPP ((AAUUSSTTRRAALLIIAA)) CSIRO’s Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope isan innovative project to deliver a world-class radiotelescope and associated infrastructure at the MurchisonRadio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia.

ASKAP is an array of 36 antennas, working togetheras a single instrument and connected by a high speedoptical fibre and linked to the iVEC Pawsey Centresupercomputer in Perth. Construction of the antennas andmajor site infrastructure – including roads, fibre and acentral MRO Control Building – was completed in 2012,and the telescope is currently undergoing commissioningactivities.

Data from ASKAP is transmitted from the MRO to theASKAP Central Processor supercomputer, and convertedto images of the sky in near-real-time by a pipelineprocessor running the purpose-built ASKAPsoft package.The supercomputer is already being used by the ASKAPteam for calibration and imaging of data being collectedby the ASKAP test array as part of commissioning andearly science activities.

Once fully operational, the ASKAP telescope will offerastronomers an unparalleled view of the sky usingpioneering radio receiver technology to capture signalsfrom the radio sky with unprecedented speed andsensitivity.

ASKAP is a world-leading telescope in its own right,and will also be incorporated into the future internationalSKA project – to be built in Australia and Southern Africa.

For more information, visitwww.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap

MMEEEERRKKAATT ((SSOOUUTTHH AAFFRRIICCAA)) South Africa's MeerKAT telescope, currently being builtsome 90km north-west of the small Northern Cape townof Carnarvon, is an SKA precursor or 'pathfinder'telescope, and together with ASKAP will become part ofSKA Phase 1. MeerKAT will consist of 64 dish-shapedantennas and will be the most powerful telescope in thesouthern hemisphere. Each receptor (a receptor is the complete antennastructure, with the main reflector, sub-reflector and allreceivers, digitisers and other electronics installed) isinterlinked, and the configuration (placement) of thereceptors is determined by the science objectives of thetelescope. 48 of the receptors are concentrated in thecore area which is approximately 1 km in diameter. Thelongest distance between any two receptors (the so-calledmaximum baseline) is 8 km.

Each MeerKAT receptor consists of three maincomponents:

1. The antenna positioner, which is a steerable dish on a pedestal2. A set of radio receivers3. A set of associated digitisers.

The SKA SA Project highlights the wider benefits of such‘big science’. South Africa’s SKA Project invests indeveloping skills for MeerKAT and the SKA through itsdedicated Human Capacity Development Programme.Around 600 people, ranging from artisans to postgraduatestudents and postdoctoral fellows, have already receivedbursaries and grants. The project is also causing a surgeof interest in studying mathematics, engineering andastrophysics at local universities, and attracting topstudents and academics from around the world to SouthAfrica.

For more information, visit www.ska.ac.za

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PicturesAntennas ofCSIRO's ASKAPtelescope at theMurchisonRadio-astronomyObservatory inWesternAustralia - creditCSIRO (left);MeerKATantennaconstruction andlaunch - creditSKA South Africa(right).

CCEELLEEBBRRAATTIINNGG6600 YYEEAARRSS OOFFCCEERRNN

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PictureThe EuropeanUnion YouthOrchestraperform at theceremony. © DomenicoVicinanza

GGÉÉAANNTT CCRREEAATTEESS IINNNNOOVVAATTIIVVEE MMUUSSIICCAALL CCOOMMPPOOSSIITTIIOONNTTOO SSUUPPPPOORRTT CCEERRNN''SS 6600 YYEEAARR AANNNNIIVVEERRSSAARRYY

The CERN Convention wassanctioned on 29 September 1954 by12 countries in Western Europe – apoignant moment for science and high-energy physics. At its core was anagreement that participating countrieswould collaborate harmoniouslyregardless of geographical, political orcultural divides, ensuring the free flow ofknowledge for the greater good.

Domenico said: “What better way to celebrate the

incredible achievements of the last 60years, than to highlight CERN’s very firstcollaboration – the Conventionagreement.

I wanted the music to celebrate thethousands of physicists and engineerswho have contributed towards thegame-changing scientific research wehave seen coming from CERN. From thebeginnings of the World Wide Web tothe discovery of the Higgs Boson particle.

On 29th September 2014, CERNopened its 60th anniversary celebrationsto the premiere of a rather special pieceof music, played by the European UnionYouth Orchestra and conducted byworld famous composer MaestroAshkenazy.

An audience of high profile VIPs,scientists and media travelled fromacross Europe to the event at CERNnear Geneva and were the first peopleto hear the ingenious composition. Themusic is based on the sonification of the“CERN Convention For TheEstablishment Of A EuropeanOrganization For Nuclear Research”.

Composed by Domenico Vicinanza,Arts and Humanities Manager atGÉANT, the text of the Convention wastranslated into a long melody byassociating each character of the textwith a musical note, according to itsposition within the English alphabet.

Using the EUYO, whose membersare located all over Europe – theorchestra becomes a physicalrepresentation of the many people atCERN who successfully collaborateacross geographical boundaries.

This is the first time an orchestra hasplayed a classical piece made entirelyfrom data sonification. In fact, it wasrecorded live and listed on the DeccaClassics website. I hope this is a fittingtribute to CERN and the scientificexcellence for which it has becomesynonymous.”

WWHHYY GGÉÉAANNTT??GÉANT plays a vital role in supportingCERN by providing the high speed linksto carry data from the Large HadronCollider to many thousands ofresearchers located all over the world.Grid computing is one of the “powertools” behind the discovery of Higgsboson. It works by linking togethermultiple computers in different locationsvia high speed networks, combiningtheir processing power to deliver fasterresults when analysing enormousvolumes of data.

Vicinanza continued: “And because data sonification is

such an intensive process, we createdthe melody from the text of CERNconvention relying on the pan-EuropeanGÉANT network, which operates atspeed of up to 500Gbps and the EGIgrid computing infrastructure.

The same infrastructure used byCERN researchers every day tocommunicate, exchange and processexperimental data (the GÉANT networkand the Grid) has been used to createmusic, converting into sound the34,000+ characters of the foundingConvention.”

WWHHAATT HHAAPPPPEENNSS WWHHEENN 77 PPHHYYSSIICCIISSTTSS PPLLAAYYMMUUSSIICCAALL IINNSSTTRRUUMMEENNTTSS IINNSSIIDDEE TTHHEE WWOORRLLDD’’SSMMOOSSTT PPOOWWEERRFFUULL PPAARRTTIICCLLEE AACCCCEELLEERRAATTOORR??

The same infrastructure used byCERN researchers every day tocommunicate, exchange and processsexperimental data was used to createthe music. Data sonification is anintensive process and creating melodies from data relies on the GÉANT network, which operates atspeeds of us to 500Gbps, as well as the EGI grid computing infrastructure.

This incredible and evocative video,commissioned for CERN's 60thanniversary celebration shows sevenscientist musicians playing "data" fromthe four LHC experiment collaborations,each standing at their experimental site,playing music from their own experimentdata.

The music is based on thetranslation into melody (sonification) ofscientific data collected by the four mainLarge Hadron Collider experiments(ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and LHCb).

Using data that CERN researchersuse to study the deepest secrets of ourworld, Domenico Vicinanza, Arts andHumanities Manager at GÉANT, createdthe pieces by associating eachmeasurement with a musical note from acertain musical scale.

Type ‘LHChamber’ and ‘YouTube’into a search engine or go to:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPmQcviT-R4

USERS

12 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

CONNECT INTERVIEW

13

As part of CERN’s 60th Anniversary celebrations, CONNECTwas fortunate to attend the ceremony and enjoy the liveperformance (see p 11) as well as the pre-recorded LHChamberMusic performance. Keen to learn more about how GÉANTsupports CERN’s research, we spoke with LHChamber flutistand renowned LHC physicist Chiara Mariotti.

WordsPaul MauriceinterviewedChiara Mariotti

QQ&&AA WWIITTHH CCHHIIAARRAAMMAARRIIOOTTTTII,, CCEERRNN

WWHHAATT HHAAVVEE BBEEEENN TTHHEEMMOOSSTT SSIIGGNNIIFFIICCAANNTTDDIISSCCOOVVEERRIIEESS SSOO FFAARR??Most recently at the LHC, the discoveryof the Higgs boson.

However before that about 10 yearsago the discovery that the neutrinoshave masses was a real change in theparticle physics. At LEP there was nospecial discovery, but LEP establishedthe Standard Model of Particle physics,and it went deeply into the electroweakinteraction. Often we said that LEPdiscovered the ElectroWeak radiativecorrections. In 1983 Rubbia discoveredthe W and Z boson, this last one firstlyseen in an indirect way in 1973 atGargamelle (the discovery of the “weakcurrents”).

The Higgs boson discovery is ofspecial importance, since it modifies ourway of thinking, and the vision of ourworld.

14 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

CONNECT INTERVIEW

WWHHAATT IISS YYOOUURR RROOLLEE AATTCCEERRNN?? Right now I am the CMS (CompactMuon Solenoid) contact for the LHCHiggs Cross Section Working Group. Itis a group founded by a colleague fromTorino and myself. It comprises peoplefrom Atlas, CMS, LHCB and theory; itsaim is to provide the experiments withstate of the art calculations and analysestools for the Higgs search and studies.

Before within CMS I have been theleader of the Higgs physics group, havebeen responsible of the H to ZZ to 4lanalysis (one of the channels thatallowed the discovery of the Higgsboson) and then of the group that takescare of the combination of the resultsand the measurement of the propertiesof the Higgs boson.

WWHHAATT DDOO YYOOUURREEXXPPEERRIIMMEENNTTSS FFOOCCUUSS OONN,,AANNDD WWHHAATT AARREE TTHHEEEEXXPPEECCTTEEDD OOUUTTCCOOMMEESS??The CMS experiment at the LHC isfocusing on Higgs physics, in otherwords on the understanding of the originof the mass of the elementary particles,and on searching for physics beyondthe Standard Model. In parallel theexperiment is able to precisely measuremany Standard Model quantities.

We expect to unravel the mystery ofthe origin of masses, i.e. if the Higgsboson is the only one responsible for it,or if the nature is more complex. We willdiscover if there is something beyondthe Standard Model, something maybealready hypothesised (likeSupersymmetry) or something totallyunexpected and never thought of.

Picture© DomenicoVicinanza

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CONNECT INTERVIEW

HHOOWW HHAASS TTHHEE NNEETTWWOORRKKHHEELLPPEEDD?? WWHHAATT WWOOUULLDDTTAAKKEE IITTSS PPLLAACCEE?? Today it would not be possible to workwithout the network.

The network has become anessential tool. Computing power andstorage capacity at CERN are limited, soto find the Higgs Boson we had toconnect the Scientific Computer Centresof all participating countries anduniversities. One year of running at LHCis producing up to 30 PetaBytes of data.To analyse this data, we have about200,000 PCs running constantly aroundthe clock.

All this data is processed via thenetwork all around the world. When wesubmit a job, this will run in anyaccessible machine, maybe in US,maybe in China…

The network is also the essentialtool for communication. There are10,000 physicists and engineers in totalcontributing to the LHC and they cannotalways be at CERN. So the use of thenetwork for Videoconferencing and dataexchange is a very important tool. Thepossibility to arrange video or Skypeconferences is extremely beneficial,since we are not forced to travel and wecan talk more often and proceed faster.The network allows us to be constantly“on-line”, from home and from anywherewe are in the world. This is spectacularand has changed the way we live. Ofcourse, the downside is we are always‘there’ – how many of us are able tospend one day without opening ourlaptop, reading email or checking thestatus of jobs, or the running of theexperiment?

WWHHAATT IISS YYOOUURRBBAACCKKGGRROOUUNNDD,, AANNDD HHOOWWDDIIDD YYOOUU RREEAACCHH TTHHIISSRROOLLEE?? I graduated in 1987 with a master thesisin Elementary Particle Physics at theE760 experiment at the FermiLaboratory. The subject of the PhDthesis was the measurement the gluonstructure function via J/psi production indeep inelastic muon scattering at theNMC experiment at CERN. I then joinedthe DELPHI experiment at LEP. First Imeasured with high precision some ofthe parameters of the Standard Model(of particular importance the partial widthof the Z into b quarks); later, in 1996,during the LEP2 phase, I started theadventure of the search of the Higgsboson. In DELPHI I coordinated twophysics groups and later became thephysics coordinator of the experiment.

Since 2000 I have been working inthe CMS experiment at LHC, where Iparticipated in the construction of themuon detector and continued thesearch of the Higgs boson. In CMS Ihave been responsible of the HiggsPhysic Group, and I co-founded and co-coordinated the LHC Higgs CrossSection Working Group: a collaborationbetween theoretical and experimentalphysicists for precision Higgs physics atLHC.

Many students in the TorinoUniversity graduated and got the PhDwith me. In 2012 we discovered theHiggs boson, and since then I keptworking in the Higgs physics,concentrating on one side to measureprecisely its characteristics, and on theother side to look for eventual newphysics (for example a second Higgsboson…)

I did my studies and PhD at theTorino University, then I got a postdoc inRome (at the INFN, in the IstitutoSuperiore di Sanita’) followed by apermanent position. Then I spent six

years as Staff at CERN and when Ifinished the contract I went back to theINFN in Torino. And there I am, but I amspending most of my time at CERN,since my family lives here.

HHOOWW DDIIDD YYOOUU CCOOMMEE TTOO BBEE IINNVVOOLLVVEEDD IINN TTHHEELLHHCCHHAAMMBBEERR MMUUSSIICCCCOOLLLLAABBOORRAATTIIOONN?? I have known Paola Catapano (ScienceCommunicator at CERN) for a long time,maybe 20 years (before we had kids, weused to spend our weekends biking allaround the region, sailing on the lake, orskiing in the winter) and she often invitedme to join her adventures! This one istotally fantastic!

DDEESSCCRRIIBBEE YYOOUURR TTYYPPIICCAALL DDAAYY:: Before the Higgs discovery, my day wasessentially split between work and kids.

I was bringing the kids to school at8:30, going to work, coming back ataround 5:30-6:00, staying with the kidsuntil 9 pm when they went to bed, andthen back to work (from home). Afterthe Higgs discovery – rightly called“Higgs hunter liberation day” (!!), andwith the kids being slightly easier tomanage, I rediscovered other pleasures:music first of all, and sport. So I bringthe kids to school, I go to work, but Icome home slightly earlier and then Iplay the flute. On Wednesday evenings Iplay in the orchestra of the village whereI live, and on Monday lunch times I go tothe music school to take flute lessons.The rest is for the kids: we try to dothings together, usually sportingactivities. And of course I drive themaround for their activities: music, sport…

WWHHAATT AARREE YYOOUURR HHOOBBBBIIEESSAANNDD IINNTTEERREESSTTSS??I love to play the flute, I love reading. Inever spend a day without having hadmy dose of reading! I also restarteddoing yoga. I like to do cross countryski (in winter I go up in the Jura veryearly in the morning, I do a 13 or 15 kmring and then go to work!), I also like toswim, to bike and to walk.

I have also been participating in thePOP-Science (www.pop-science.eu/poetry/) initiative: in July afew physicists met poets coming toCERN to learn about us and our work.Then they had to write poems on thesubjects. It was very interesting to readwhat they wrote. That evening, we allmet the public in downtown Geneva atthe FNAC, and finally in the eveningtogether with very famousastrophysicists (Reeves and Mayor) wemet the public in a theatre, answeringquestions long into the night.

16 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

SC14 SHOW SPECIAL

GGÉÉAANNTT EEXXHHIIBBIITTIINNGG AATTSSUUPPEERRCCOOMMPPUUTTIINNGG 22001144HHPPCC MMAATTTTEERRSS

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SC14 SHOW SPECIAL

GÉANT will be joining forces with theSquare Kilometre Array (read all aboutthis collaboration on page 6) and SADT,the consortium which designs the datatransport networks between theelements of SKA. If you’re visiting, youcan find them at booth number 2525,for a series of demonstrations andpioneering collaborations – as well as achance to speak to the experts directly.There are likely to be over 10,000attendees at the show, who visit eachyear to discover the latest solutions thatwill keep them at the leading edge oftheir professions.

Between 16 and 21 November this year,the world’s most respected minds inhigh performance computing,networking, storage and analysis willgather in New Orleans for SC14 toshowcase their innovations and farreaching impact.

This year’s SC14 focuses on a freshtake on HPC as a means to share thecommunity’s collectiveaccomplishments and engage inimportant conversations around how wemake HPC Matter to our lives, ourfuture, our communities and our world. Follow us on Twitter

@GEANTnews and keep up withwhat’s happening using #SC14

Visitors will discover more about theGÉANT Open Call Project CoCo via ademo and lightning talk. There’ll bedemos featuring gOCX, OpenFlow/NSI,GÉANT testbeds and many others.People will also get the chance to learnmore about eduGAIN and federatedidentity, and how it can significantlysimplify access to content, services andresources for the global research andeducation community.

PicturesThe GÉANTbooth at lastyear's event,SC13

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FFUUTTUURREE FFOOCCUUSSFFOORR IIDDEENNTTIITTYY FFEEDDEERRAATTIIOONNSS

will be necessary for federations to commit to a more common approach to service offering.

• Demand for metadata improvement. Metadata is at the heart of federation operations and provides the information needed to drive access to resources. Federations are identifying more andmore information that needs to be inmetadata, such as processes to tag service types or how the metadata should be used in discovery services.

The problem space is large, and beingtackled by many different groups suchas work in the GÉANT project, REFEDS,and potential new EU projects focusedspecifically on identity issues. To helpcoordinate this work, the NREN-PC hasestablished a Trust and IdentityCommittee to support strategy withinthe GÉANT projects and liaison withappropriate external groups.

protection and electronic identificationand trust services. In doing so, thesedirectives are becoming regulations inorder to push greater consistency in theway these processes are implementedacross Member States in clearrecognition of the fact that web traffic isnot bound by geographical boundaries. None of these issues should be new toNRENs, who have consistently led thefield in developing solutions to trust andidentity for many years. There are nownearly 9000 entities registered in IdentityFederations worldwide, representinggroups of users and the services theyaccess. The long history of theseidentity federations provides a strongservice base for addressing newchallenges and it is clear that the next 3years will bring plenty of changes.

Core areas of development over thecourse of the next few years are likely to be:

• Demand for greater trust (assurance). Identity federations currently provide a very effective baseline level of trust for many services but some communities wish to see organisations commit to increased levels of audit and securityand user registration processes. Increased assurance brings with it spiraling costs for identity providers so a focus on cost-benefit for these approaches will be needed.

• Demand for greater standardisation. Federations havegrown up organically in many countries and have focused on specific local use-cases. This has led to an environment of federations that have adopted slightly different approaches. As we participate in more global exchange of informationthrough services such as eduGAIN it

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee wrote apaper called InformationManagement: A Proposal1 topersuade CERN management that a

global hypertext system was in CERN'sinterests. The paper included a sectionentitled “non requirements” whereBerners-Lee notes that:

“Discussions on Hypertext havesometimes tackled the problem ofcopyright enforcement and datasecurity. These are of secondaryimportance at CERN, whereinformation exchange is still moreimportant than secrecy.Authorisation and accountingsystems for hypertext couldconceivably be designed which arevery sophisticated, but they are notproposed here.”

Fast forward to 2014 and we see abattle between the “commodification ofself” with organisations such asFacebook using personal data for profitand increasing concerns in our post-Snowden world where nothing is secret.These have brought security andauthorisation issues to the forefront ofour minds as we seek to shape thefuture of the web. Most importantly howdo we manage how information ismanaged and shared?

Information management hasbecome more and more focussed onpeople management and is beingshaped increasingly in the language ofanthropology as we discuss onlinetribes, status and memes.

The importance of this shiftingemphasis is also being reflected in thelaws and regulations that govern ouronline interactions. The EU is in theprocess of updating several directivesthat will have implications for securityand personal data management,including overdue revisions for data

WWoorrddssNicole Harris,ProjectDevelopmentOfficer, TERENA

1. http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html

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With the combining of theparallel perfSONAR MDMand PS developments,the new unified

perfSONAR is going from strength tostrength. The latest version ofperfSONAR (3.4) now incorporates coreperfSONAR MDM components anddemonstrates the combined power of asingle development team.

The new perfSONAR 3.4 was jointlypresented at TechExchange 2014 inIndianapolis (26-30 October) and theresponse was overwhelming with wellover 100 attendees resulting in standingroom only at the conference panelsession. The joint presentation involvedmembers from GÉANT, Internet2, ESnetand Indiana University.

The live demonstration provided liveOWAMP measurements between hostsboth across the US (in MAN LAN andWIX) and across the Atlantic andshowed off the new eduGAIN basedlogin process and the enhanced webUI.

Since its release on the 7th Octoberthe new perfSONAR 3.4 has beendownloaded and installed in more than400 nodes.

By tracking performance across andbetween domains it is now possible toidentify and rectify any potentialperformance bottlenecks, helpingresearch teams focus their efforts ontheir research and allows NRENs toidentify where investments in newcapacity will provide the best return.With over 400 measurement pointsacross the globe, it is now far easier forNRENs and research teams toaccurately measure the performance ofthe network and ensure the networksmeet their research needs.

The perfSONAR web site(perfSONAR.geant.net) has beenrebranded to reflect the new, integrated,service and allows the latest versions ofsoftware to be downloaded. VisitperfSONAR.geant.net for moreinformation.

““TThhee eenntthhuussiiaassttiiccrreessppoonnssee ttoo tthhee nneewwppeerrffSSOONNAARR 33..44 hhaassbbeeeenn ffaannttaassttiicc aannddrreeaallllyy sshhoowwss tthheeddeemmaanndd wwiitthhiinn tthheeRR&&EE ccoommmmuunniittyy ffoorr tthhiiss sseerrvviiccee.. BByy wwoorrkkiinngg ttooggeetthheerrwwee ccaann ddeelliivveerr aaggrreeaatt sseerrvviiccee tthhaatttthhee uusseerrss nneeeedd””

Domenico Vicinanza, Product Manager, GÉANT.

PPEERRFFSSOONNAARR GGOOEESSFFRROOMM SSTTRREENNGGTTHH TTOO SSTTRREENNGGTTHH

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GGÉÉAANNTT CCLLOOUUDD SSEERRVVIICCEESS

TThhee ooppppoorrttuunniittiieess ffoorr cclloouudd sseerrvviicceess wwiitthhiinn tthhee RReesseeaarrcchh aanndd EEdduuccaattiioonn ccoommmmuunniittyyccoonnttiinnuuee ttoo ggrrooww aanndd tthhee SSuuppppoorrtt ttoo CClloouuddss tteeaamm hhaavvee bbeeeenn wwoorrkkiinngg cclloosseellyy wwiitthh bbootthh NNRREENNss aanndd kkeeyy cclloouudd pprroovviiddeerrss ffrroomm aaccrroossss tthhee wwoorrkk..

““IItt qquuiicckkllyy bbeeccaammeeaappppaarreenntt tthhaatt wwoorrkkiinnggttooggeetthheerr iinn GGÉÉAANNTT,, ttooaaggggrreeggaattee ddeemmaanndd aannddeexxppeerrttiissee,, iiss wweellccoommeedd aannddnneeeeddeedd ttoo bbeeccoommee aa ‘‘cclloouuddppllaayyeerr’’.. AAss mmoosstt NNRREENNss aarreeiinn aa ssttaarrtt--uupp pphhaassee ffoorrcclloouuddss,, bbeeiinngg aabbllee ttooeexxcchhaannggee iinnffoorrmmaattiioonn wwiitthhppeeeerrss aaccrroossss tthheeccoommmmuunniittyy iiss hhiigghhllyybbeenneeffiicciiaall..””

Andres Steijaert ActivityLeader – Support to Clouds,GÉANT

TTHHEE CCHHAALLLLEENNGGEE OOFF CCLLOOUUDD SSEERRVVIICCEESSThe standard delivery of cloud services by commercialorganisations is often incompatible with the requirements of highereducation and research. There are significant challenges on trust,security, privacy, legislation, procurement and regulation. Theseissues have different implications between cloud services used in aprivate capacity, compared to services used within an education orresearch environment, where the ownership of data and the needto ensure strong custodial control are important.

The cloud is evolving rapidly. Users are making choices now. In itsmost basic form and from a user perspective, the cloud is aboutconsuming ready to use online services, provided by externalproviders, through a pay-per-use model. There is a real danger that if NRENs and institutions do nothing, users will drift intofragmented islands of incompatible services that may not have a sustainable future.

WWoorrddssKarl Meyer,ProductMarketing andCommunicationsOfficer.

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““TTrraaddiittiioonnaall lleeggaaccyy IITTssoolluuttiioonnss nnoo lloonnggeerr mmeeeetttthhee nneeeeddss ooff tthhee eedduuccaattiioonnsseeccttoorr,, wwhhiicchh iiss llooookkiinngg ttooccoollllaabboorraattee aanndd mmaannaaggeeccrriittiiccaall ddooccuummeennttss mmoorreeeeaassiillyy aanndd sseeccuurreellyy ffrroommaannyywwhheerree aanndd oonn aannyyddeevviiccee.. OOuurr ppaarrttnneerrsshhiippwwiitthh GGÉÉAANNTT rreemmoovveess tthheebbaarrrriieerrss ttoo cclloouudd aaddooppttiioonnwwiitthhiinn tthhee eedduuccaattiioonn sseeccttoorrbbyy ddeelliivveerriinngg aa ppllaattffoorrmmtthhaatt ssuuppppoorrttss eedduuccaattiioonnpprrooggrraammmmeess aannddssttrraatteeggiieess..””

David Quantrell, Box seniorvice president and generalmanager of EMEA

EEGGII AANNDD GGÉÉAANNTTWWOORRKKIINNGGTTOOGGEETTHHEERROn the 25th/26th September EGIand GÉANT hosted a cloudsymposium as part of the EGIAutumn Conference.

The Symposium was very wellattended with over 150participants includingrepresentatives from NRENs and alarge number of NGIs were able tofind out more about what GÉANTand EGI are working on in this fastmoving field.

A great deal of commonality wasfound between the organisationsand as a first step a paper outliningthe potential areas of collaborationwill be produced. This will coverareas such as;

• Interoperability• Security• AAI• Promotion of Open

Standards/standards adoption

• Policies e.g. national procurement policies to serve ESFRIs

• User requirements and user support

The symposium was a valuablefirst step in identifying areas wherethe two organisations could worktogether in the future.

One of the benefits of a communityapproach has been the opportunity forknowledge sharing which allows NRENsto cope with the learning curve of Cloudprovision much more easily. Also thoseNRENs that have been working oncloud services for a number of yearshave benefited from a combinedinitiative though the economies of scalethat the GÉANT community offer. Thelarger scale of the joint Europeanapproach (compared to nationalinitiatives) has opened doors at largecloud providers. As part of this , theteam was able to engage inconversations with senior managementof a considerable number of cloudproviders and to translate thesecontacts into concrete efforts: a firstwave of providers (both commercialvendors and providers from with theEducation and Research domain) is nowworking with the team to adapt theirservices to the needs of the GÉANTcommunity.

CCOOMMMMUUNNIICCAATTIINNGGTTHHEE CCLLOOUUDDPPAARRAADDIIGGMMPart of the role of the GÉANT cloudsteam is outreach both within the GÉANTcommunity and Suppliers but also toother EC groups and communities. Thiswork with external stakeholdersprovides a demonstration of the NRENscapabilities and also opens theopportunity to work with the wider ECcommunity to maximise value.

For more information on how cloud services can benefit your organisationand to find out more about the cloud services team visit the new cloudservices portal at http://clouds.geant.net.

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CCAAMMPPUUSS BBEESSTT PPRRAACCTTIICCEE–– SSUUPPPPOORRTTIINNGG VVIIRRTTUUAALLIISSAATTIIOONNAANNDD LLIINNUUXX SSEECCUURRIITTYY

be suitably virtualised as a whole or inpart.

This document, produced byCESNET, describes the benefits ofvirtualisation, but also looks at thedisadvantages – when it is better not touse virtualisation. Included here are therequirements for virtual infrastructure,since the network devices used herehave slightly different requirements toclassical virtual servers in terms ofnetwork integration.

The guide also considers thequestion of what parts of theinfrastructure are suitable forvirtualisation and what parts are not, andoutlines the benefits of virtualisationwhich are in cost-reduction andincreased scalability of the infrastructuredeployed.

This is an invaluable resource for anyteam considering network devicevirtualisation within their infrastructure.Both these Campus Best PracticeDocuments and many more new andupdated guides can be downloadedfrom the Campus Best Practice websiteat cbp.geant.net

the server from potentially maliciousactivities that could jeopardise orcompromise the provision of services.However, the protection of a Linuxserver is not a one-time effort, but alasting process that continues as long asthe server is in use. The Campus BestPractice teams, led by AMRES, haveproduced a simple to use guide to helpcampus IT teams ensure their Linuxinfrastructure is as secure as possible.

NNEETTWWOORRKKVVIIRRTTUUAALLIISSAATTIIOONNIT infrastructures have changedsignificantly in the last few years,particularly in the area of virtualisation ofserver systems. This area is alreadyrelatively stable, but in recent times;virtualisation has also begun topenetrate into the area of networkinfrastructure.

Of course network infrastructure asa whole cannot be virtualised to thesame extent as server systems,because it includes the physical part ofthe data centres themselves. Despitethis, we can find applications that can

T he Campus Best Practiceteam have been extremelybusy and have prepared arange of new and updated

best practice guides to help NRENs andCampus IT teams keep theirinfrastructure secure and up to date.

In particular their recent efforts havefocused on helping secure Linuxsystems and supporting the growingfield of virtualised network devices.

SSEECCUURRIINNGG LLIINNUUXXLinux is an increasingly popular choicefor an operating system in a serverenvironment. The granularity andflexibility of settings, high performance,reliability and security are some of itscomparative advantages over otheroperating systems. The vast majority ofservices that academic institutionsprovide to their users are hosted onservers running the Linux operatingsystem. Due to infrastructure limitations,one sever often hosts several services,which adds to the challenge ofprotecting the Linux server. Systemadministrators are expected to protect

WWoorrddssNadia Sluer,TERENA

number of key strengths within the fieldsof data center development, identityfederations and cloud managementtechnologies and there is considerablescope for enhancing the skills ofprocurement and data center security.

NRENs have come a long way in thedevelopment of effective datacenterdevelopment and management andIaaS is another valuable tool in the R&Eportfolio.

Presentation slides, recordings,agenda and more are available fromhttps://info.funet.fi/wiki/display/avoin/Datacenter+IaaS+workshop+2014.

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DDAATTAACCEENNTTEERR IINNFFRRAASSTTRRUUCCTTUURREE AASS AA SSEERRVVIICCEE ((IIAAAASS))WWOORRKKSSHHOOPP 22001144

and agreements; security; anddatacenter networks.

Campus Best Practice Leader JariMiettinen opened the event saying:

“This workshop is an ideal wayto share expertise across thecommunity and finding new ideastogether“.

The workshop participants had achance to visit a large, live, modern andsecurity certified datacenter. The visitcompleted the workshop content in aconcrete way and raised a lot ofdiscussion.

The key conclusions of theworkshop are that the community has a

With the exponentialgrowth in networking anddatacenter usage, manyorganisations are facing

the prospect of having to upgrade theircurrent overcrowded, old and energyconsuming facilities. Before planning acostly and complex rebuild or renovationmany are looking towards anoutsourced solution.

Many IT teams are asking some keyquestions:

• Is building new space the only option or could IaaS be a better solution?

• Is it worthwhile to build your own cloud or is joint procurement a better choice?

• How do you ensure high quality of services from outsourced solutions?

To answer these questions and more,CSC/FUNET hosted the GÉANTCampus Best Practice team DatacenterIaaS workshop, on 11-12 September

NREN staff involved in datacenterand campus deployments as well asnetwork engineers working withdeployment of IT services on campusescame together to discuss a set ofthemes built around datacenters. In total39 people from eight different countriesattended the event. The sessions werealso streamed live and recorded.

The community was invited tocontribute to the event by presentingtheir results, experiences and successstories on the deployment and usage ofdatacenter and cloud solutions. Manyinteresting presentations and lightningtalks offered participants a uniqueoverview and insight of the latestdevelopments in datacenters, cloudservices, security and data storagecovering themes such as Greendatacenter technologies; cloud serviceprovisioning; joint procurement, costs

WWoorrddssKarl Meyer,ProductMarketingManager andCommunicationsOfficer

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EEDDUUGGAAIINN UUPPDDAATTEESSTThhee eedduuGGAAIINN iinntteerrffeeddeerraattiioonn sseerrvviiccee ggooeess ffrroomm ssttrreennggtthh ttoo ssttrreennggtthhwwiitthh nneeww mmeemmbbeerrss jjooiinniinngg aanndd iinntteerrooppeerraattiinngg wwiitthh ootthheerr iiddeennttiittyyffeeddeerraattiioonnss ssuucchh aass IInnCCoommmmoonn aalllloowwiinngg rreesseeaarrcchheerrss aaccrroossss tthheegglloobbee ttoo ccoommmmuunniiccaattee aanndd ccoollllaabboorraattee mmoorree eeffffeeccttiivveellyy..

IINNTTEERRFFEEDDEERRAATTEEDDIIDDEENNTTIITTYY GGRRAAVVIITTAATTEESSTTOO EEDDUUGGAAIINNThe Laser Interferometer GravitationalWave Observatory (LIGO -www.ligo.org) is a dynamic group ofmore than 900 scientists worldwide whohave joined together in the search forgravitational waves from the most violentevents in the universe.

To support this distributed group ofscientists and simplify the authenticationof researchers around the globe, LIGOhas taken the first steps to integratingwith eduGAIN. This has been supportedby InCommon, the Identity Federation inthe USA and backed by Internet2.

Previously the collaborative tools ofLIGO were only available to institutions inthe USA that are members of theInCommon identity federation and viaguest accounts to the world wide poolof researchers. Thanks to integration viathe eduGAIN interfederation service thereach has now extended to a further 27countries – with another 8 on thehorizon. This will facilitate not onlyresearchers accessing resources in theUSA but will also support distributedcollaboration tools and data sets beingmade available in eduGAIN connectedfederations around the globe.

EEDDUUGGAAIINNSSUUPPPPOORRTTIINNGGIINNTTEERRFFEEDDEERRAATTIIOONN IINN TTHHEE AAMMEERRIICCAASSSupporting the needs of the globalresearch and education environmenthas always been a goal of eduGAIN.While the service started as a Europeanproject it quickly gained internationalmembers with the Japanese IdentityFederation, GakuNin joining in early2013 to become our first non-Europeanmember.

eduGAIN now includes sevenidentity federations in the Americas fromtop to tail with Argentina, Brazil, Canada,Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and the USAnow members. Growth in the number offederations as well as the participation ofinstitutions and the creation of servicesis expected to continue to grow withthree federations in the developmentprocess and a large pool of interest dueto the ELCIRA project managed byRedCLARA and supported by theEuropean Commission.

AAFFIIRREE -- OOUURR NNEEWWEESSTTFFEEDDEERRAATTIIOONN The Armenian Federated Identity for Research andEducation (AFIRE) is the being built to support theteaching and research institutions of Armenia. Thisdevelopment is lead by ASNET-AM, the ArmenianResearch and Education Network and was supported bythe GÉANT project and the European Commission’splatform for the Eastern Partnership Region.

More information on AFIRE is available athttp://afire.asnet.am/

GGEETT IINNVVOOLLVVEEDD WWIITTHH EEDDUUGGAAIINNSupporting the development of identity federations aroundthe globe and promoting federated identity solutions forresearch collaborations the GÉANT project has a pool ofcontacts, solution experts and experience in federatingservices available to guide you to a range of solutions tosupport your community.

To get connected to the global interfederation servicefor research and education, contact the eduGAIN team at eduGAIN@geant.net

More information: http://eduGAIN.org/

EECCOO22MMEETTEERR –– HHEELLPPIINNGG NNRREENNSS GGRREEEENN TTHHEEIIRR IITT

eCO2meter can be extremely helpfulto NRENs since it provides a user-friendly and consistent way forcompleting and evaluating GHGemission reports. eCO2meter allowsnetwork managers to deduce usefulconclusions regarding the more energy-hungry parts of the NRENsinfrastructure. In addition, it can be usedto help measure the environmentalimpact when applying energy efficiencytechniques.

WWHHYY DDIIDD YYOOUU DDEECCIIDDEETTOO DDEEVVEELLOOPP TTHHEE TTOOOOLL??Collection of data regarding energyconsumption of t he IT equipment isconsidered the first step towards thedesign and implementation of energyefficient policies. Towards this direction,measuring and monitoring GHGemissions are essential features in ourstrategy to reduce NRENs’ overallemissions. By developing an easy to usetool, NRENs can produce thesemeasurements in a consistent wayhelping us identify best practice andshare ideas.

HHOOWW HHAASS WWOORRKKIINNGGWWIITTHH GGÉÉAANNTT HHEELLPPEEDD??The exchange of knowledge andexpertise within the “GÉANTEnvironmental Green team” has beeninvaluable. Working within a Europe-wide team means that the tools cansupport the needs of NRENs across thecommunity.• Collection of a complete set of

requirements for the design of the tool taking into account the peculiarities of each NREN

• Definition of a set of parameters to be collected and a set of performance metrics to be used for statistics extraction

WWHHAATT IISS YYOOUURR GGOOAALLFFOORR TTHHEE GGRREEEENNIINNGG OOFF IITT??The main goals are to make NRENsgreener and more sustainable and alsoto disseminate and replicate bestpractices in terms of energy efficiency ofthe IT equipment.

Most importantly, involve all NRENmembers in common actions for a moreenvironmental friendly world.

R ising energy consumption ofthe networking equipmentthat supports or accesses theInternet will be one of the

main challenges that NRENs will have toaddress to promote a sustainableenvironment. The amount of datatransported over our networks willcontinue to rise and energyconsumption will rise with it. As thecloud and mobile devices become moreimportant in our daily lives, the mobile,access and core networks required tosupport these services do too. Whereenergy consumption of networkscurrently is not regarded as a highpriority, this will change in the near futurein a business-as-usual scenario due tothese trends related to massive increasein network activities. Lowering energyconsumption is not only good for theenvironment, but it will make financialsense as well.

The GÉANT Green Team have beeninstrumental in both raising awarenessamongst the NREN community anddeveloping tools and systems to helpNRENs measure, monitor and managetheir CO2 emissions. We spoke toVasiliki Giannikopoulou, Quality Manager,GRNET to discuss their eCO2meter tool.

WWHHAATT IISS EECCOO22MMEETTEERRAANNDD HHOOWW DDOOEESS IITT HHEELLPPNNRREENNSS??Using eCO2meter NRENS can collectdata calculating their yearly energyconsumption and greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions in a simple conciseway. Some of the advanced functionssuch as the automatic creation of thefinal reports for verification by an externalbody will also help reduce themanpower involved in generating anofficial ISO 14064 compliant report. Italso provides automatic estimation ofdata based on predefined values (e.g.CO2 emission factors per country, tonsof emissions per mile in internationalflights), to help compare performanceand share best practice between NRENs.

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SERVICES

For more information on theeCO2meter tool and eCO2meterdownload the white paper at(URL) or visit(http://eco2meter.grnet.gr/)

WWoorrddssVasilikiGiannikopoulouQualityManager/ProjectManager,GRNET

IInntteerrvviieewwKarl Meyer,ProductMarketingManager andCommunicationsOfficer

HHOOWW TTOO SSTTAAYY OONN TTOOPP OOFF TTHHEEDDAATTAA TTSSUUNNAAMMII

T he GÉANT network is in the thick of it, providing theessential bandwidth to support all scientificdisciplines: from high-energy physics and deep spaceresearch to those addressing societal challenges such

as ageing populations, disease diagnosis and climate change.Last year, GÉANT completed a major network upgrade,

scaling up to 2 Terabits per second (Tbps) and setting theGuinness world record for fastest provisioning of long hauloptical transmission capacity, with 8Tbps recorded on itsAmsterdam-Hamburg link.

This has dramatically increased capacity across thenetwork but is still based on sub-optimal transmissiontechniques and on the same core network architecture thathas existed since the start of packet networking. As thedemands on the network grow and change, GÉANT and theICT research community are already looking beyond the Terabitper second solutions.

Of the four families of Open Call projects in GÉANT’sInnovation Programme, the Network Architecture and OpticalProjects are closest to the physical core of the infrastructure.As such, they rely intrinsically on the OpenFlow-enabled darkfiber testbed that closely simulates GÉANT’s productionenvironment on five major routes encompassing approximately2500 Km of high capacity dark fiber infrastructure.

Everybody is talking about it. The data tsunami is here and it’s increasingexponentially, in everyday life as well as in science. The volume of data beinggenerated in the latest research projects is many orders of magnitude greater thaneven five years ago. According to current predictions, by 2025 we will be collectivelyproducing 100 zettabytes of data per year.

COCO AT SUPERCOMPUTING 2014For those attending the SC14 conference inNew Orleans, you can catch a presentation bythe CoCo project.

CoCo - On Demand Community ConnectionService for eScience Collaboration - wasfeatured in CONNECT 16.

WWoorrddssDiana Cresti,GARR

26 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

OPEN CALL

The Open Call projects presented here cover a range ofinnovative techniques to better exploit the optical infrastructure,such as enhancing spectral efficiency in optical systems;evaluating the potential (nondisruptive) implementation of alienwavelengths; rethinking the fundamental assumptions anddesign decisions underlying current network architectures;extending the functionalities of OpenFlow to handle multi-domain scenarios; and setting up a state-of-the-artenvironment for atomic clock comparison.

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OPEN CALL

The new fiber-optic networks have given rise to a hugeincrease in bandwidth capacity compared to traditionalnetworks, but photonics experts know there is still room forimprovement. A particularly promising technique has beendeveloped by a team at the Italian National Inter-universityConsortium for Telecommunications (CNIT). This team is nowcoordinating the COFFEE project, to test this method in a production-scale environment.

“We imported some techniques that have been developedfor radio communication” says Luca Potì, project coordinator,“and we adapted them to optical communication. The problemthat we can solve using this kind of solution is to increase thecapacity of the system and demonstrate that we can enhance

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the connection and the data that can be sent between twodifferent points using the already installed infrastructure.”

The technique, called Time-Frequency Packing (TFP),provides the highest theoretical spectral efficiency given a fixedreceiver complexity. TFP is currently being tested on the Milan-Vienna link, allowing the transmission rate of 1Tbps using areduced bandwidth (<200 GHz and down to 100 GHz) overlong-haul routes.

Compared to currently used techniques, TFP allows forlower transceiver complexity and bandwidth requirements,higher tolerance with respect to fibre propagationnonlinearities, reduced power consumption, and greater flexibility.

Optical fiber has become the go-to transmission medium foratomic clock comparison. Optical fiber links allow for time andfrequency comparisons to be performed at a much higher levelof accuracy and stability than what is currently achievable bymore conventional satellite links.

As Europe has the highest density worldwide of atomicclocks as well as the world-class optical infrastructure providedby GÉANT, putting these two elements together with a team ofresearchers directly setting up optical links between theirclocks is a match made in heaven. This is the essence of theICOF project.

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IICCOOFF

ICOF is a collaboration of major European metrologyinstitutes, represented by three main partners: the GermanPhysikalisch-Technische Bundesnastalt, the Observatoire deParis, and London’s National Physical Laboratory.

“Here in Europe” says Harald Schnatz, project coordinator,“we have the unique opportunity to evaluate clocks using theoptical fiber link. The fiber can provide us with such lowuncertainty and such high stability, that we are able to evaluatethe clocks located at two ends such as London and Paris as ifthey were close to each other.”

Metrology has a key role in numerous scientific areas, mostprominently in fundamental physics and relativistic geodesy.

Clean-slate network architecture involves rethinking thefundamental assumptions and design decisions underlyingcurrent network architectures.

The prevalent TCP/IP network architecture has beenapplied in a variety of situations it was never designed for.Growing problems with this system include excessivecomplexity, weak security, unexpected interactions betweendifferent protocols, layer violations, scalability issues and alimited interface to distributed systems.

The IRINA approach is a return to the foundationalessence of networking. The project is working to implementthe Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA) in GÉANT’stestbed environment, with the goal of building the foundationof the next generation NREN and GÉANT network architectures.

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IIRRIINNAA

The IRINA partners are well known in the area of FutureInternet research: the Belgian research institute iMinds,Ireland’s Waterford Institute of Technology, the Italianresearch company Nextworks, and the Spanish i2CATFoundation. Together with colleagues at Boston University,who originally proposed the RINA architecture, the partnershave developed the RINA prototype which is now beingtested.

An important aspect of the IRINA project is a realisticimplementation of a future non-dsruptive transition: currentexperiments are designed to validate a smooth migrationtrajectory from TPC/IP to RINA.

Alien Wavelengths (AWs) are a relatively new paradigm in theoptical networking world. Within the GÉANT community, thetopic of deploying AWs has been around for about half adecade.

AWs have potential strong advantages in terms of cost,performance, and energy savings. The main challenge withthe AW paradigm as a service is uncertainty. In the GÉANTnetwork, both photonic services and alien wavelengthspresent the challenge of delivering the same predictabilityand security as regular transmission services. In order toassure this predictability and security, the development of amulti-domain optical modelling tool is essential.

The development of this modelling tool was taken up bythe MOMoT project.

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MOMoT is a collaboration between the TechnicalUniversity of Denmark, CNIT and Gesellschaft furWissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung Gottingen - a jointenterprise of the University of Göttingen and the Max PlanckSociety.

After having investigated the interests and requirementsfor an AW service platform within the NREN and GÉANTcommunity, the project is now developing a multi-domainmodelling tool to facilitate the deployment of AlienWavelengths in the European network.

Project coordinator Martin Petersen remarks: “Themodeling tool under development will enable all the partnersand the NRENs to set up AW connections over multi-vendorenvironments.”

OPEN CALL

28 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

Circuit-based network provisioning is becoming increasinglypopular, as can be seen for instance with the success ofGÉANT’s AutoBAHN. Extending the performance of networkcircuits into the campus networks is still an open problem, butone that can be addressed by OpenFlow. This technologyhowever does not currently handle multi-domain scenariosvery well.

To extend the network circuit provisioning from the circuitbased networks into OpenFlow networks, some form oftopology exchange is required.

The MOTE project - a collaboration between the Universityof Amsterdam and SURFsara - is working on a system that willbridge the intra-domain operations of OpenFlow with the inter-domain provisioning in the Network Service Interface (NSI)Framework.

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“To do this” explains Paola Grosso, project coordinator “weexploit our previous work in the NML framework, and weextend that for OpenFlow, and then we can use thesetopologies in the NSI framework to create interdomain paths.So in some sense we take existing work, which is currently notusable for SDNs, and we leverage our expertise to build acompletely new topology exchange model that is suitable fornew services in GÉANT.”

MOTE will provide a proof-of-concept implementation ofinterdomain topology exchange for OpenFlow, and anintegration with the NSI Connection Service. This will allowusers to seamlessly request and provision paths throughOpenFlow networks, as well as NSI capable networks, such as Auto-BAHN.

OPEN CALL

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30 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

CONNECT INTERVIEW

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CONNECT INTERVIEW

WWHHAATT WWAASS IITT LLIIKKEE JJOOIINNIINNGGTTHHEE GGÉÉAANNTT PPRROOJJEECCTT AATTSSUUCCHH AA PPIIVVOOTTAALL SSTTAAGGEE??I spent my first 12 months at DANTEquestioning why the GÉANT networkwas being designed the way it was –and whether it even needed to be builtat all. Being new to the R&E community,I am still shocked as to how I spent 20years in an industry doing the things I donow, yet never knowing this whole otherfacet of networking existed. I didn’tunderstand the reasons and drivers forthe network.

Having helped build today’s GÉANTnetwork and since taking on the role asChief Network Operations Officer andGÉANT project network coordinator inAugust 2013, I have worked hard tounderstand those reasons, as I cannotbe effective unless I do. I think I havelearnt fast, but there is still lots to learn.If I were to sum up in one word why thisnetwork needs to exist and why it is builtand designed the way it is, it would be‘PERFORMANCE’.

PPLLEEAASSEE TTEELLLL UUSS MMOORREE!!I think there are three criticalperformance factors of any R&Enetwork, that when combined, shoulddifferentiate it from most commercialnetworks. The first is Bandwidthconnectivity, as measured in bits persecond (bps). The second is latency,delays incurred in transiting networkdata; and the third is throughput; theactual end-to-end data transfer raterather than the theoretical.

R&E networks must be designed sothat when these factors are combined,users are provided with a betterexperience than commercial networks.The biggest challenge facing the GÉANTnetworking community is that not everyuser and not every data flow across thenetwork requires that level ofperformance.

Users who do not want that level ofperformance either cannot afford it or donot wish to pay for it. Maintaining thatlevel of service as data volumesincrease, is only going to increase costunless new ways of designing, planningand building the network can be found.

TTHHEE RROOAADD TTOO 110000GGMark Johnston joined DANTE in March 2012 to lead the GÉANTnetwork migration to 100Gbps. Having spent over 20 years working in data communications and networking operations, he thought hepretty much knew the fundamentals; how one goes about designing,planning, building and operating large data communications networks,especially on a pan-European and international scale. However, hewas about to embark on a whole new learning curve.

CONNECT caught up with Mark to find out about the road to 100G and his plans for the future.

PictureGÉANT's new500GbpsTransportSystem (capableof running at8Tbps)

WWHHAATT AARREE TTHHEECCHHAALLLLEENNGGEESS YYOOUU FFAACCEERRUUNNNNIINNGG AA 110000GGNNEETTWWOORRKK??As I enter my second year working onthe GÉANT project, my biggestchallenge is to stay ahead of multipleuser demands, while leading theevolution and implementation of anetwork to be cost effective and delivera user experience better thanalternatives.

Work in this area has started and Ibelieve my experience outside of R&Enetworking has had an influence. We arealready tailoring network infrastructuredesign and implementation to userrequirements and affordability we'restarting to open people's eyes to thefact that it is the service we deliver that isimportant - not just the infrastructure it isdelivered on.

With users connected at 100Gbpsand sending large data flows across thenetwork, understanding traffic routingand data flows to ensure data isdelivered successfully is critical. Withdata flows greater than 10Gbps andbecause of the behaviour of TCP, zerotolerance of packet loss and bit errors isimperative and users of the GÉANTnetwork like ESnet and EUMETSATdemand it. We must get there before100Gbps connectivity matures and iswidely adopted. A significant investmentwas made in the GÉANT network toenable users to transport data at100Gbps, yet the investment in the toolsto monitor and manage that flow of datais lagging. This will be a priority for meand my team in 2015 and beyond.

SSTTAAYYIINNGG OONNEE SSTTEEPP AAHHEEAADD -- WWHHYY IISS TTHHIISS SSOOIIMMPPOORRTTAANNTT?? Despite my early scepticism, I can saythat the GÉANT network refresh in 2012was justified, as we are starting to see100Gbps connectivity becoming thenorm. Applications migrate to cloudplatforms, networks get faster, andresource slicing is becoming the norm.That means processors, systems, andstorage are becoming integrated andvirtualized, and more capable of using100Gbps and greater networkingbandwidth.

Today’s data centre servers areconnected with multiples of 1Gbps and10Gbps, and as we are seeing withCERN, 10GbE isn't fast enough. Virtualserver environments can impact the

network and operations far more than aphysical one, an increase in the networkaddressing and in performance andthroughput is required as is the ability tomanage virtual networked relationships.To manage this impact effectively andefficiently the data centre has to becomeintegrated with the network and weexpect SDN to solve this problem.

For the data centre, the network andusers to function effectively, identifyingand removing network bottlenecksbecomes critical. In this new 100Gbpsworld there will be a lot of legacy, suchas immature network interface carddrivers that slow down serverthroughput, firewall rules and poorrouting configuration; all of which wentunnoticed before 100Gbps but whichwill need to be updated and refined tomaximize data throughput. GÉANT as acommunity will have to work hard toensure end-to-end paths are optimizedto support large data flows and linespeeds of 100Gbps.

With the addition of 100Gbpstransatlantic connectivity in 2014 andwith users like ITER, BELLE II, SKA andLHC, GÉANT needs to get 100Gbpsnetworking right as these projects willgenerate petabytes of data – whichmeans traffic and data flow size willincrease significantly over the next threeyears. I would expect us to be testingthe cutting edge technologies and400Gbps connectivity in the comingyears to ensure the network is always a step ahead.

WWHHAATT’’SS YYOOUURR VVIISSIIOONN FFOORRTTHHEE GGÉÉAANNTT NNEETTWWOORRKKOOVVEERR TTHHEE NNEEXXTT FFIIVVEEYYEEAARRSS??I’d like to see the network evolve so thatit is much more integrated with theNRENs networks, sharing underlyinginfrastructure to create a more holisticservice domain between GÉANT and itspartners. I hope this will mean we canalso deliver the network in a much moreeconomical way – reducing costs toNRENs. Creating a network that’s evenmore flexible and agile – not so rigidlyconstrained by the physical routing offibre. And with the ability for users torequest on-demand network centricresources and services. SDN can playan important role to enable some of this.

On a global scale, we want to bemore strategically aligned to thedemands of our international partners.Research today is a global activity andGÉANT continues to extendits worldwide connectivity for the benefitof the entire European researchcommunity. So our role in meeting ourpartners’ connectivity requirements toEurope is greater than ever. In doingthis well we hope to influence thecreation of more regional hubs toimprove the cost and accessibility ofconnectivity to Europe.

We'll also be developing an OSSstack that provides performancemanagement reporting and serviceassurance and validation information tospecific users and working with otherGÉANT project activities to create aservice orchestration architecture thatenables user provisioning of networkcentric services.

CONNECT INTERVIEW

PicturesLondon PoP inHarbourExchangeDocklands (left);GÉANT's new500GbpsTransportSystem (right).

32 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

COMMUNITY NEWS

JUAN YACHT DESIGN TEAMS UPWITH PRACE SHAPETO MAKE FASTERSAILBOATS

Juan Yacht Design(http://www.juanyachtdesign.com/), a Spanish SMEspecialised in the design of

cruising yachts and racing boatsespecially for America’s Cup and theVolvo Ocean Race, received anallocation via the PRACE SME HPCAdoption Programme for Europe(SHAPE) as part of the 15th cut-off ofPRACE Preparatory Access. This willallow them to implement LES (LargeEddy Simulations) models to simulateflow around sails to replace the RANS(Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes)models that are standard in theindustry.

The use of RANS turbulencemodels – a pioneering adoption ofComputational Fluids Dynamics (CFD)– has enabled Juan Yacht Design to putaside the need for towing tankexperimental tests, a key competitiveadvantage in a cut-throat industry.

One of the main findings of theproject is a concrete evaluation of theadvantage of using LES over RANS: thelatter not accurately capturing the twovortices created at the top and bottomof the Genoa sail, a problem that LESadequately resolves.

“With the support of the technicalexperts at the BarcelonaSupercomputing Centre and the use oftheir in-house multi-physics simulationcode, Alya, we were able to scale outour models up to 1024 cores of theMareNostrum machine and run thesimulations there more efficiently thanwould ever be possible on our ownmachine,” says Mr. JuanKouyoumdjian, CEO of Juan YachtDesign. “The experience gained in thisproject will put us ahead of ourcompetitors, having now a tool tosimulate the aero around the sails ingreat detail and services our customersbetter with the results.”

WordsMarjoleinOorsprong, PRACECommunicationsOfficer

SHAPE (http://www.prace-ri.eu/shape), the SMEHPC Adoption Programme in Europe is a pan-European,PRACE-based programme supporting HPC adoption bySMEs. The Programme aims to raise awareness and equipEuropean SMEs with the expertise necessary to takeadvantage of the innovation possibilities opened up by HighPerformance Computing (HPC), thus increasing theircompetitiveness. More detailed results of all 10 SHAPEprojects are available on the PRACE website:http://www.prace-ri.eu/SHAPE-Prototypes

Project detailsTitle: Testing LES turbulence models in race boat sail

Leader:Mr Gonzalo Kouyoumdjian of Juan Yacht Design

Collaborators:Dr Matias Avila, Mr Hadrien Calmet, Dr Herbert Owen Coppola, Dr Mariano Vazquez of Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Research field:Engineering and Energy

Resource awarded:250.000 core hours on Fermi @ CINECA, Italy100.000 core hours on MareNostrum @ BSC, Spain250.000 core hours on JUQUEEN @ GCS@FZJ, Germany250.000 core hours on SuperMUC @GCS@LRZ, Germany

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COMMUNITY NEWS

NREN INSIGHT:TWINNING BETWEEN AFRICANAND EUROPEAN NRENS – GERMANY AND KENYA, A SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLEInterview with Kennedy Aseda, Lead Network Engineer, Operations, KENET

How did KENETstart? How is itpositioned today?KENET is one of the first NRENsfounded in Africa. It started in 1999and by June 2008 had 4 engineers asemployees and 12 campuses connected.Today KENET has over 30 employees,mainly engineers, and employs 5additional graduate trainees. Thenumber of connected membercampuses increased from 12 in 2008 to150 today. 70% of the staff membersare working in at the main offices inNairobi, 30% outside at the NOCoffices. The NOC office is situatedabout 25km outside of Nairobi. Mainusers of KENET’s network are publicand private universities, furthermore

The collaboration was initiatedby Prof. Meoli Kashorda ofKENET and John Dyer ofTERENA who pointed

KENET to DFN. Planning for thetwinning arrangement was then startedin 2009 by Meoli Kashorda (KENET),Klaus Ullmann and Gerti Foest (DFN)which resulted in the signing of a MoU

between DFN and KENET. Since thentwo staff members of DFN have visitedthe KENET headquarters in Kenya andfour engineers from KENET came toGermany to learn about DFN.

Furthermore, there is a livelyexchange of information betweendifferent working groups, especially theKENET NOC in Nairobi and the DFNNOC in Stuttgart. This year KennedyAseda, Lead Networks OperationsEngineer at KENET, enjoyed twoweeks of intensive training anddiscussion with DFN at its differentsites in Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg(DFN-CERT).

Leonie Schäfer, DFN, talked withKennedy about KENET, its missionand his role and objectives within his work.

34 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

COMMUNITY NEWSCOMMUNITY NEWS

WordsLeonie Schafer,Project andGlobal LiaisonCoordinator,DFN

PicturesPhotos courtestyof ThomasSchmid, DFN-NOC

some research institutes, technicalcolleges and governmental affiliates.Newly added to the circle of membersare schools and hospitals.

What are the majorprojects KENET is currentlyinvolved in? Our major project currently is to bringKenyan schools online. The “SchoolsFiber Connectivity and FREE InternetProject” runs in the city of Nairobi. 245schools will be connected as part of thispilot. Based on the results of the pilot2700 schools in total will be connected.Our main challenge within this projectis to manage this huge amount of“customers”. For this large number ofcustomers, individual solutions are notpossible. Our approach therefore is toprovide solutions to communitiesinstead of individuals. The pilot projectwill run in Nairobi for one year andthen the concept will be transferred toother cities.

Another important project forKENET is eduroam. Currently thereare 18 eduroam campusesimplemented at Kenyan universitieswhich offer over 1Gbps connectivity.The schools connectivity project willalso have a pilot installation of eduroam.

What do you see asFuture Work forKENET?The development of a concept forsharing research infrastructures would

be a challenging task. Up to nowinfrastructure facilities are simply shutup after use or after the end of theproject. Our objective is to try to get theinfrastructure back online for the use ofthe community. The problem is thatresearchers tend to see researchinstruments and the correspondinginfrastructure as “their” belonging. Oneof the major goals of the project wouldbe to collect research instruments at amore centralised location which wouldallow continuous access by theresearchers.

How is yourcooperation withDFN and DANTE /GÉANT?The cooperation with DFN is a well-established working relationship. DFNadvised the initial set-up of the KenyanNREN and offered counseling duringthe subsequent years. Furthermore,DFN actively supported the installationof eduroam in our country.

In recent years, several of mycolleagues came to visit the DFNheadquarter and its NOC to learn fromthe day-to-day operation of the DFNnetwork. We always implementedsomething special after our return fromDFN and we appreciate DFN’s supportin engineering matters.

With GÉANT / DANTE wecooperate as part of the AfricaConnectproject. Myself, I am a member of theGlobal eduroam GovernanceCommittee (GeGC). The GeGC has theobjective to ensure interoperabilitybetween eduroam regions, and to

define technological and administrativeimprovements for the operation ofeduroam at the global level.

What is your jobprofile at KENET?I am the Lead Network OperationsEngineer. I am supervising theoperations team and ensure thatNetwork Operations works correctly.Furthermore, I influence decisionsabout the selection of equipment andtechnical devices. My tasks includeteam coordination, risk managementand working with our partners. Inshort, I have to "to put out the fire" incase of trouble.

What do you enjoymost about yourwork? I enjoy most that there are newchallenges every day. I enjoy thesatisfaction to meet and accomplishthese challenges. In Networkoperations, all challenges are different.I like problem solving, to meet thechallenges, and to learn something newevery day.

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INTERVIEW

WWHHAATT IISS TTHHEERREELLEEVVAANNCCEE OOFF GGÉÉAANNTTTTOO TTHHEE EEUU’’SSPPRRIIOORRIITTIIEESS??The new Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, has announced aten-point plan showing the priorityactions he intends to take to achieve theEU’s Europe 2020 vision. His two toppriorities are to provide a new boost forjobs, growth and investment, and tocreate a connected digital single market.The European NRENs’ collaboration inGÉANT has for many years helpedensure that Europe’s research andeducation community benefits from theworld’s most advanced communicationsnetwork. GÉANT and the NRENnetworks, and GÉANT’s extensiveinternational links to other world regions,provide the fundamental infrastructurerequired to allow Europe’s researchers tocollaborate and participate fully in theglobal research race. As well as theextensive innovation involved indeveloping and delivering Europe’sresearch networks, the boost theyprovide to research and education inturn also gives rise to innovativecommercial start-up companies andproducts which create employment andwealth in Europe. Broadband

QQ&&AA WWIITTHH DDOORRTTEE OOLLEESSEENNGÉANT is a flagship project of the European Union, key tokeeping Europe at the forefront of the global research race.GÉANT is sponsored by the e-Infrastructures Unit of DGCONNECT (Directorate-General for Communications Networks,Content and Technology) of the European Commission. Dale Robertson spoke to Dorte Olesen to look closer at GÉANT in the context of EU policy and priorities.

WordsDale RobertsoninterviewedDorte Olesen

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infrastructure, education, research andinnovation are key areas on which theEC intends to focus additionalinvestment in pursuit of jobs and wealthcreation. GÉANT is already a keyinitiative of the European Commission inthese sectors of the economy and willcontinue to play a significant role insupport of European Union policiesthrough its contribution to completion ofthe European Research Area – a singleEuropean market for research - and itsdevelopment of new internettechnologies and services. As well asproviding connectivity to helpresearchers all around Europe toparticipate fully in collaborative projects,the NRENs’ collaboration in GÉANTdevelops innovative new networkingservices, such as the eduGAIN identityauthentication and authorisationinfrastructure, which support mobilityand access to digital information andresources. These services havesignificant potential to benefit onlineaccess to public services andencourage digital “connectedness” in allsectors of the economy. The NRENsand the GÉANT Association also make asignificant contribution towards thedigital skillbase in Europe, developingsome of the most technically advancedand sought-after network engineers inthe world.

SSOO WWHHAATT’’SS TTHHEE FFUUTTUURREEVVIISSIIOONN FFOORR GGÉÉAANNTT??The European Commission has over anumber of years been visionary andconsistent in its support for pan-European research and educationnetworking. This has led to globalleadership in this field. In a context ofrapidly evolving technology and heavyinvestment in research networks as asource of competitive advantage byother significant economies such as theUS and China, the EC commissioned agroup of high-level experts to advise onfuture actions. The mission of the so-called GÉANT Expert Group, or GEG,was to “articulate a 2020 vision forEuropean Research and Educationnetworking and identify an action planfor realising this vision”.

The vision of the GEG and itsrecommendations for achieving it, werepublished in October 2011 in theKnowledge Without Borders report. The vision presented by the GEG is of

“GÉANT 2020”, the Europeancommunications commons, wheretalent anywhere is able to collaboratewith their peers around the world and tohave instantaneous and unlimitedaccess to any resource for knowledgecreation, innovation and learning,unconstrained by the barriers of the pre-digital world. The GEG’srecommendations for achieving this are:

• Support knowledge communities by providing world-class connectivity and services

• Support the growth of these communities, in both breadth and depth within Europe, and opening up to talent beyond Europe’s borders

• Push the state-of-the-art of the communications commons by constant innovation and by translating this innovation into a competitive European ICT sector

• Reorganise to cope with the constantly changing environment.

HHOOWW IISS TTHHEE VVIISSIIOONNBBEEIINNGG IIMMPPLLEEMMEENNTTEEDD??The European Commission has adoptedthe GÉANT Expert Group’s vision andhas implemented it in the objectives andrequirements it specifies for GÉANT inthe Horizon 2020 research andinnovation programme.

In recognition of the long-term stablerelationship developed with the NRENs’European collaboration and based onthe very strong track-record of deliveryin GÉANT, the EC has invited theNRENs and the GÉANT Association toconclude a Framework PartnershipAgreement (FPA), a seven-yearframework contract under which jointlyagreed objectives are defined forrealising the GÉANT 2020 vision. FutureEC co-funded GÉANT projects will beimplemented within the FPA. With“excellent” ratings in three successiveannual EC project reviews, the GÉANTcollaboration is well-placed to continueto deliver on its success and realise theEuropean Communications Commonsvision, integrating services andinnovation to push the state-of-the-artand grow the breadth and depth ofknowledge communities.

Another key step in achieving thevision of GÉANT as the EuropeanCommunications Commons has been

the recent creation of the GÉANTAssociation, re-organising the twocollaborative organisations of theEuropean NRENs, TERENA andDANTE, under a unified governancestructure.

BBUUTT IISSNN’’TT GGÉÉAANNTT JJUUSSTT AA NNEETTWWOORRKK?? The GÉANT programme not onlydelivers a world-leadingcommunications network, it alsodevelops services on top of the networkwhich, for example, make the networkeasier to use or enhance the ease ofaccess to information or resources suchas high-performance computers. Theseservices are developed using adisciplined Product LifecycleManagement process which ensuresthey add value and meet clearly-identified user needs.

The NRENs work very closely withthe research and educationcommunities in their respective countriesand understand their needs very well.This key relationship contributes stronglyto keeping Europe at the forefront ofinnovation in e-Infrastructures. WithinGÉANT, the networking community iscollaborating increasingly with otherEuropean e-Infrastructures as digitaltechnologies develop, working in acomplementary manner to investigateand adapt to new service deliveryapproaches such as Clouds. In this waythe NRENs ensure user needs fornetworking capacity, but also for datamanagement solutions and data storageand processing facilities, are seamlesslymet.

Europe’s NRENs continue to playtheir role as innovators and ideasgenerators as digital technologiesdevelop, which is complemented bytheir close relationship with academia,including many early adopters of newdigital techniques.

GÉANT is so much more than just anetwork – it’s a whole ecosystem ofcomplementary services, technologiesand innovation, working together torealise the European CommunicationsCommons.

TTEECCHHNNIICCAALL IINNSSIIGGHHTTTECHNICAL INSIGHT

BBRREEAAKKIINNGG TTHHEE TTEERRAABBIITT BBAARRRRIIEERR!!

AA FFIIEELLDD TTRRIIAALL OOFF TTHHEEWWOORRLLDD’’SS FFIIRRSSTTSSIINNGGLLEE CCHHIIPPTTEERRAABBIITT SSUUPPEERR--CCHHAANNNNEELLSince the deployment of Infinera’s DTN-X platform in the GÉANT network I’vehad the privilege of working on severaltrials of generally available and prototypetechnology with DANTE personnel andthe Infinera account team. For examplelast year we had two successive timetrial experiments using productionequipment – culminating in an officialGuinness World Record in August 2013.

In our most recent collaborationInfinera offered DANTE the chance tocheck out our next generation Terabitline card prototype on the GÉANTnetwork between Budapest in Hungary,and Bratislava in the Slovak Republic.This prototype card creates a terabitscale “super-channel” (a set of opticalwavelengths that are treated as a singleunit of capacity) using one photonicintegrated circuit (PIC) – think of anoptical semiconductor chip.

TTEERRAABBIITT SSCCAALLEE SSUUPPEERR--CCHHAANNNNEELLSSFigure 1 shows how this works. Usingone Indium Phosphide chip (a form ofcompound semiconductor that is asimportant in the optical transmissionworld as silicon is in consumerelectronics) we create ten parallel sets of optical transmission circuits. In fact

there are over 600 optical functionsintegrated into these kinds of PhotonicIntegrated Circuits (PICs). Thistechnology is totally unique in the opticalindustry, and will offer DANTE twice theline card capacity of the current500Gb/s modules used in the InfineraDTN-X.

Figure 2 shows why this scalability isvital. Assuming a 40% growth rate overa five year period this would result in afactor of five increase in demand. If anengineer is working in units of 100Gb/sfor long haul transponder provisioning atthe start of this period they would haveto work five times harder to meetdemands after five years. There is noservice provider in the world that canjustify hiring five times the number ofnetwork engineers! This is why the500Gb/s line cards already deployed inthe GÉANT network are so useful interms of keeping down operationalcosts while meeting the demands ofNREN traffic. But the demand neverends – so it’s vital to be able to offer

even more capacity and operationalscalability in the same form factor asthese existing line cards.

FFLLEEXXCCOOHHEERREENNTT™™SSHHOOWWCCAASSEEOver the past five years the emergenceof coherent transmission and detectiontechnologies has effectively deliveredmore than a ten times increase in thecombination of optical reach and fibercapacity. But there’s no single coherentmodulation type that will be optimal forevery type of deployment. In theextreme cases, a trans-Pacificsubmarine link may require Binary PhaseShift Keying (BPSK) modulation, whichhas amazing reach but relatively lowspectral efficiency. In contrast a metrodeployment may be able to use 16QAMmodulation, which can deliver up to24Tb/s on a single pair of fibers, but witha reach of only about 700km. For some

WWoorrddssGeoff Bennett,Infinera

Geoff Bennett isthe Director ofSolutions &Technology forInfinera, aleadingmanufacturer ofIntelligentTransportNetworksolutions. Geoffis a frequentconferencespeaker, and isthe author of“DesigningTCP/IPInternetworks”,published byVNR.

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FFiigguurree 22.. IInnccrreeaassiinngg iinntteerrnneett ddeemmaanndd wwiillll eeiitthheerr rreeqquuiirreemmoorree eennggiinneeeerrss ttoo pprroovviissiioonn aanndd mmaaiinnttaaiinn ccaappaacciittyy,, oorrccaappaacciittyy ccaann bbee ddeelliivveerreedd iinn llaarrggeerr uunniittss,, ssuucchh aass 550000GGbb//ss ssuuppeerr--cchhaannnneellss..

[1] Geoff Bennett, KT Wu, et al. “A Review of High Speed CoherentTransmission Technologies for LongHaul DWDM Transmission at 100Gand Beyond”. IEEECommunications, October 2014.

[2] Videos and White Paper on theTerabit Line Card Trial.www.infinera.com/go/terabit_trial

DWDM vendors it might be necessary toorder specific linecards that offer one ortwo modulation types, but Infinera haslong been a champion of a flexiblecoherent (FlexCoherent) capability wherethe network operator (eg. DANTE) wouldsoftware-select the modulation type ona single line card type.

In the terabit linecard trial wedemonstrated five different modulations;BPSK, 3QAM, QPSK, 8QAM and16QAM. Figure 3 shows a summarytable of how fiber capacity and reachcan be traded off, and givesconstellation examples for two of themodulations we demonstrated: 8QAMand 16QAM [1].

IINNVVEESSTTMMEENNTTPPRROOTTEECCTTIIOONNOne of the fundamental benefits ofInfinera’s DTN-X platform is itsintegrated, non-blocking OTN switching.To put it bluntly, if the new terabit scaleline cards offer more than double thecapacity, will the DTN-X’s switchingfabric be able to keep up? Moreimportantly if the switching fabric has tobe upgraded can this happen without

taking the entire node out of service todo it?

This aspect of the demonstrationwas not part of the Terabit line card trialitself, but I took the chance to useInfinera’s London demo lab to filmexactly how it would happen. You cansee the movie I made on YouTube [2].

The key points that you’ll see in themovie are that the upgrade process isnon-service interrupting – something Ishowed using an Ethernet service testertuned to detect even a single droppedframe.

FFiigguurree 33.. TTaabbllee ssuummmmaarriizzeess tthhee ttrraaddee ooffffss bbeettwweeeenn tthhee ttyyppee ooff mmoodduullaattiioonn,, tthhee ffiibbeerr ((EExxtteennddeedd CC--BBaanndd)) ccaappaacciittyy,,aanndd ttyyppiiccaall ooppttiiccaall rreeaacchh.. OOnn tthhee rriigghhtt aarree ttwwoo eexxaammpplleess ooff ccoohheerreenntt mmoodduullaattiioonn ccoonnsstteellllaattiioonnss;; PPMM--88QQAAMM aanndd PPMM--1166QQAAMM..

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TTHHEE PPOOWWEERR OOFF NNEETTWWOORRKKSSTTOO EEMMPPOOWWEERRCCOOMMMMUUNNIITTIIEESS

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THE POWER OF NETWORKSTO EMPOWERCOMMUNITIES

public health officials as well as NRENrepresentatives from across Asia-Pacific. Under the banner “DengueFever- Let’s STOP it!” the workshopprovided a forum to share experienceand discuss best practices, mobilisinga new community dedicated to helpingcombat the spread of this devastatingdisease.

All virtual participants were able toview the presentations and followdiscussions in real time using themultipoint videoconference systemsupported by their respective nationalR&E networks and the regional TEINbackbone. Participants experiencedvideoconferencing as a time- andcost-effective collaboration tool andsaw first-hand how video and webconferencing over R&E networks cansave time and money for meetings andclinical case discussions.

Beyond the scope of collaborationon scientific material, participantsenthusiastically agreed to follow upwith virtual meetings around areas ofresearch interest. “This was a veryinspiring event. I hope it will act as acatalyst for more joint actions”, saidProf. Francis Lee Bu-Sung, Presidentof SingAREN, Chair of Governors ofTEIN*CC and driving force behind theworkshop. “Everyone left with renewedenergy and enthusiasm in our quest tostop the spread of Dengue Fever andto improve its treatment!”

As Prof. Lee noted, buildingcommunities is not a one-time effort.Within six months, a second workshopwas held in June 2014 under thetutelage of the Caribbean Knowledgeand Learning Network, CKLN, and theCaribbean Public Health Agency,CARPHA, in Trinidad & Tobago. Thissymposium focused on Dengue Feverand Chikungunya Virus, andwelcomed clinicians, researchers andnetwork engineers to shareexperiences. Representatives of thenational research and educationnetworks, TTRENT, JREN, BAHAREN,and eighty videoconferenceparticipants from Trinidad andTobago, the Bahamas, Jamaica

Anetwork can mean manythings – to many differenttypes of people andorganisations. Advanced ICT

networks are the core of the GÉANTproject, and the core of the local,regional and affiliate members andpartners. But if we look beyond therouters, switches and fibre cables, wewill find the secret to a successfulnetwork. People. With diverse needs,cultures and aspirations. Byintelligently and sensitively networkingthese networks of people, unique andpowerful communities are nurtured.These communities enable benefitsthat extend traditional boundariesinherently defined by networktopology, and by geography andculture as well.

An outstanding example of this isthe workshop programmespearheaded by the Trans-EurasiaInformation Network (TEIN) and theCaribbean Knowledge and LearningNetwork (CKLN).

CCOOMMBBAATTTTIINNGGDDEENNGGUUEE FFEEVVEERRThe first dedicated Dengue Feverworkshop, held in January 2014 wasjointly hosted by APAN (Asia-PacificAdvanced Network) and TEIN*CC(manager of the TEIN network) inBandung, Indonesia. It broughttogether over 30 clinicians andresearchers from within the multi-disciplinary Dengue Fever community,

WordsAudrey Gerber, Marketing &Communications,Israel Inter-UniversityComputationCenter (IUCC)

PictureDr. Leslie Lobel(left) overseesdrawing of bloodfrom an Ebolasurvivor for hisstudy. (Courtesyof Leslie Lobel)(left).

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(Kingston and Montego Bay), PuertoRico and Malawi in South East Africaattended.

The objective of the symposiumwas to initiate the establishment of amedical related community with afocus on Dengue Fever andChikungunya. Organisers sought todevelop new approaches to leveragethe high bandwidth research andeducation (R&E) networks in the region- C@ribNET and RedCLARA – tosupport collaborative work amonghealth-related communities. This wasthe first time two CARICOM agenciesworked together using the dedicatedC@ribNET research and educationnetwork.

According to Dr. Karen Polson-Edwards, Senior Technical Officer,Vector borne Diseases and NeglectedTropical Diseases at CARPHA, thesymposium was extremely timely asDengue and Chikungunya are ofconcern for the entire Caribbean basinand many coastal and interiorcountries in South America.“C@ribNET and CKLN are excellentplatforms for networking”, she noted.“We were amazed and pleased at theextensive reach of the network, virtualstreaming and the ability to shareinformation and experiences and havevibrant discussions with clinicians,epidemiologists, environmental healthofficers, students and others. We

recognize the endless possibilities andare looking forward to continuing topartner with C@ribNET and CKLN infuture activities”.

In fact, in a recent meeting ofCARICOM Agency Heads, thesuccess of the Dengue Symposiumand the ability of CARPHA to shareand discuss with so many in the healthsector in the region was highlighted.As a result, at least six CARICOMagencies are now engaging withCKLN regarding direct connectivity toC@ribNET. These include agenciesrelated to Meteorology and Hydrology,healthcare, disaster management,fisheries, agricultural research) andSecurity.

The recent Dengue Fever outbreakin Japan, where authorities have littleor no experience with the disease,highlights how important thiscommunity has become. Preliminarywork is being carried out to organise aseries of videoconferences withJapanese healthcare and networkingprofessionals and colleagues to shareexpertise. The successfulimplementation of this plan will proveagain how the work kicked off byNRENs can become a self-sustained,ongoing effort, owned by the usersthemselves – a community workingtogether to improve lives of acrossborders.

OONN TTOO AAFFRRIICCAAThe work on Dengue Fever andChikungunya are excellent examplesof the scalable nature of efforts to buildcommunities. As such, the tools andcapabilities are easily adaptable to theplethora of infectious diseases thatpose a global challenge. One of themost urgent is the need to treat andcontain the spread of Ebola virus.Colleagues from around the world arelending a helping hand in formulatingthe programme for a specialsymposium on Ebola that will takeplace during the UbuntuNet Alliance’sAnnual Conference in Zambia on 13-14 November 2014.

The urgency of treating andstopping the spread of Ebola virusbecomes more apparent day afterday. The Ebola virus causes anextremely virulent disease that leads todeath in 25 to 90 percent of cases.Outbreaks of the fast-moving virushave occurred across West Africa. Thework being done in Europe, as well asthe U.S., is of unprecedented scopeand underscores just how much thecommunity of cooperation fostered byR&E networking does to leverage allthe resources available.

The November conference will beenhanced by the recentcommissioning of UbuntuNet, the

PicturesParticipants atthe “DengueFever- Let’sSTOP it!” inBandung,Indonesia (left);C@ribNET linksvideoconferenceparticipants fromthe Bahamas,Jamaica(Kingston andMontego Bay),Puerto Rico andMalawi in SouthEast Africa at theDengue FeverandChikungunyaVirus workshopin Trinidad &Tobago (right).

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regional high-speed Internet networkin Eastern and Southern Africa in July2014. Connecting researchers,educators and students in Eastern andSouthern Africa to their peers inEurope with high-speed Internetconnectivity is a great achievement inreducing the digital divide. Accordingto Eng. Dr Tusu Tusubira, CEO of theUbuntuNet Alliance: “Today throughcollaboration with GÉANT as well asother regional and internationalpartners, the UbuntuNet network isboosting African researchcollaboration with colleagues inEurope and elsewhere, and bringingunprecedented research andeducational opportunities to thecontinent. The implications for socio-economic development go far beyondanything we could have dreamed ofbefore, putting African research on themap and transforming the lives ofmillions. The new global threat ofEbola brings into sharp focus the needfor improved collaboration”.

Dr. Leslie Lobel, a virologist at theBen Gurion University of the Negev inIsrael is a key player in a consortiumestablished to find an antibody"cocktail" to fight the deadly Ebolavirus, along with Dr. John Dye ofUSAMRIID and Dr. Julius Lutwama ofthe Uganda Virus Research Institute.Together, they are trying to devise away of conferring short-term passiveimmunity against the disease through

the use of human monoclonalantibodies. To do this, they have beenfollowing 120 Ugandan Ebola virussurvivors, half of them for more than adecade.

“It took a while to gain the trust ofthe survivors,” says Lobel. “The culturehas an inherent distrust of medicalprofessionals. The nature of our workdemands that we build long-termrelationships with survivors and localresearchers”.

The demanding “wet biology”requires complex logistics andarduous work in the field – notparticularly computational-intensivework. But according to Lobel,computing and communicationsneeds are incredibly dynamic – both inthe field and in such a challenginglocale. “We must maintain oursurveillance methods and expand ourunderstanding of the entire ecosystem,including weather conditions, animalbehaviour and movement, and ofcourse, meticulous and timelymonitoring. Because travel is sodifficult in rural Africa, we hope toleverage ubiquitous cellular networksto monitor outbreaks, weatherconditions, animal populations andmore”. This will require integration withmobile networks of enormousproportions that are likely beyond thecapabilities of regular commercialcellular networks. To be done properly,

this will most likely require cooperationon a global scale between outlyingregions of Africa, the U.S., and theGÉANT network.

NNEETTWWOORRKKSS::CCOOMMMMUUNNIITTIIEESS OOFF PPEEOOPPLLEE According to Cathrin Stöver, DANTEChief International Relations andCommunications Officer, connectingthe dots to solve such complexpuzzles starts with connecting people.“While AfricaConnect and otherregional networking projects havehelped to establish operational andsustainable data networks, what drivesthis growth is how we have connectedpeople”, she believes. “Bringingpeople together in these collaborativecommunities, that have taken on a lifeof their own, will drive cooperativeresearch programmes that exploit thetalents and skills of the best andbrightest from the four corners of theearth. We can only do this by buildingbridges between people and culturesfirst, alongside laying fibre opticcables and developing value addedservices. We are building communitiesbecause that is the best way to affectreal change – in healthcare,biomedical sciences, climate,agriculture, education andenvironment – to help make the worlda safer, healthier place”.

In August, Laos became the latestcountry to connect to the Asia-Pacific R&E network - TEIN,bringing the number of Asian

countries benefiting from the high-speed regional and internationalconnectivity to 19. The TEINcommunity welcomed the news at theirmost recent project meetings inNantou, Taiwan alongside the 38thAPAN meeting held from 11 to 15August 2014.

The new link initially connectsNational University of Laos (NUOL) inVientiane and will catalyse thedevelopment of Laos’ national

education and research network,LERNET. The connection is expectedto stimulate research and educationactivities in the country as well asparticipation in regional and globalcollaborations in areas such astelemedicine, food security and e-learning.

The physical connection of Laoswould not have been possible withoutthe assistance of the Thai NRENThaiREN. NUOL and ThaiREN havejoined forces to enable Laos toconnect initially via Thailand to theTEIN network at its Singapore PoP at 10Mbps.

WordsHelga Spitaler,SeniorCommunicationsOfficer, DANTE

LLAAOOSS CCOONNNNEECCTTSS TTOO TTEEIINN NNEETTWWOORRKK

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The SLIX initiative is expected to leadto further collaborations with Europeover the coming months.

“SingAREN is proud to be the firstto launch a 100Gbps research andeducation network in the region,” saidProfessor Francis Lee Bu-Sung,President of SingAREN at the officiallaunch event on 28 August.“SingAREN is again pushing theenvelope of technology to providehigh-speed connectivity and value-added services that meet the needs ofthe research and educationcommunities – locally, regionally andinternationally!”

Singapore Advanced Researchand Education Network(SingAREN) has unveiled theSingAREN-Lightwave Internet

Exchange (SLIX), a 100Gbps resilientbackbone network connectingSingapore’s key research andeducation sites. SLIX delivers onehundred times more capacity thanSingAREN’s previous generation ofnetwork infrastructure, providingstronger support for complex, data-and bandwidth-intensive research inareas such as genome andmeteorological studies. In addition, theMLXe-4 core router provides a clearpath for the use of Software-DefinedNetworking (SDN) in SLIX’s network.

The new network includes adedicated dual fibre-optic ring –capable of supporting multiple 100

Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) links. Thisopens up new possibilities as atestbed for advanced networktechnologies and experiments,extending database mirroringservices, high-performance computingfederations, high-volume peering withcontent data networks, and othervalue-added services.

SLIX has been developed bySingAREN in partnership with majorlocal user partners: Agency forScience, Technology and Research(A*STAR), National University ofSingapore (NUS) and NanyangTechnological University (NTU).

In addition to supportingconnectivity within the local researchcommunity, SLIX connects to GÉANTvia the TEIN network, as well as withInternet2 and Asian R&E networks.

WordsHelga Spitaler,SeniorCommunicationsOfficer, DANTE

PicturesPreview ofadvanvednetworkapplicationsenabled by SLIX(top); Prof.Francis Lee Bu-Sung withSingaREN teamandA*STAR/NTUstaff at the SLIXlaunch event(bottom left);R&E networkingpartners aroundthe worlddelivering theircongratulatorymessages viavideoconference(bottom right).

SSIINNGGAARREENN PPIIOONNEEEERRSS110000 GGBBPPSS NNEETTWWOORRKKIINN SSOOUUTTHHEEAASSTT AASSIIAA

For further information please visithttp://www.singaren.net.sg

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11SSTT CCEENNTTRRAALL AASSIIAANNRR&&EE NNEETTWWOORRKKIINNGGCCOONNFFEERREENNCCEE -- MMIILLEESSTTOONNEE FFOORRCCAARREENN PPRROOJJEECCTT

computing, network security, AAI andapplications for science andeducation.

Participants heard and saw first-hand from scientists and academicshow CAREN’s high-speed links makea real difference in advancingcollaborative research in areas suchenvironmental studies, seismology,telemedicine and preservation ofnatural and cultural heritage. “We have

Researchers, academics andstudents across Central Asiaand Europe are set to benefitfrom the recent capacity

upgrade of the Central Asia Researchand Education Network (CAREN),celebrated at the 1st CAREN RegionalConference which took place 1-2October 2014 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Themed “Innovative Internet forResearchers and Higher Education”

and hosted at Turan University, theevent attracted over 160 attendeesfrom across Central Asia, including,Uzbekistan, Europe, the United Statesand East Asia, includingrepresentatives of the research andhigher education community, policymakers, connectivity providers andICT vendors. In line with theconference theme, the programmefocussed on key areas such as cloud

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WordsHelga Spitaler,SeniorCommunicationsOfficer, DANTE

PicturesLive tele-surgerysession fromSeoul NationalUniversityHospital (SNUH)(left); NRSCteam withtrainingworkshopparticipants(right).

For further information please visithttp://crnc2014.icaren.org/

a dreadful history of seismic disasters.We cannot prevent earthquakes, butwe can minimise their effects”,commented Dr Bolot Moldobekov, Co-Director of the Central-Asian Institutefor Applied Geosciences (CAIAG) andspeaker at the conference. “CAREN’shigh-speed connectivity allows us towork together with the best peoplearound the world to better understandand prepare for earthquakes.”

The first conference day featured atelemedicine session, beaming a liveliver surgery from Seoul NationalUniversity Hospital (SNUH) in Korea tothe audience in Almaty thousands ofmiles away. Conference delegateswere impressed by the high qualityimagery enabled by reliable researchnetwork connectivity. Excellent videoand sound quality was delivered alsoduring an e-culture demonstrationwhich included a remote presentationby Dr Faridah Noor, Chair of MyRENand APAN e-Culture Working Groupsand excerpts of previous cyber-performances.

Various presentations outlined howe-learning and remote trainingopportunities make education andknowledge transfer more accessible.Michael Riggs from UN-APCICT(United Nations Asian and PacificTraining Centre for Information andCommunication Technology forDevelopment) delivered a keynotespeech on ICT and engagedlearning to raise awareness of the roleof capacity building. He introducedUN-APCICT’s flagship programme“Turning Today’s Youth intoTomorrow’s Leaders” to promote theinclusion of ICTD in undergraduateand graduate courses to prepareyouth in the use of ICT for sustainablesocio-economic development.

During the two conference days,the CAREN community also drew onthe expertise of representatives fromother regional networks andorganisations, such a GÉANT and itsAsian counterpart TEIN. In his key notepresentation titled ‘Fruits of regionalcollaboration’, Dr Christian Grimm fromDFN, Germany, provided soundarguments as to the necessity ofcollaboration with users and NRENsglobally for survival and success. Heillustrated his talk with examples ofDFN and GÉANT practise. Wearinghis TEIN hat, Prof. Francis Lee fromSingaREN outlined existingcollaborations between NRENs,researchers and academics in CentralAsia and Asia Pacific and highlightedpartnership opportunities for the future,

in areas such as e-culture, disastermanagement and telemedicine.

Summing up the final panelsession, EC Project Officer FrancescoZoia-Bolzonello concluded: “We havecome a long way since 2001 when theSILK project started. CAREN has builton its achievements and will furtherconsolidate Central Asian’s roleamong the international R&Enetworking community”.

“The conference stimulated livelyexchanges as for many participants itwas their first exposure to the potentialof research and education networkingin the region. I look forward to furtherevents and further development of theCAREN project in the years to come”,commented CAREN Project ManagerDavid West.

CRNC 2014 was organised by theCAREN project and hosted by theKazakh National Research andEducation Network (KazRENA) inconjunction with Turan University inAlmaty. The conference was furthersupported by the Ministry of Educationand the President’s Archives of theRepublic of Kazakhstan.

Almaty also hosted the trainingworkshop “DNS operations andnetwork monitoring” run by anenthusiastic NSRC (Network StartupResource Center) team who equippedcurrent and aspiring NOC engineers inthe region with hands-on advice.

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RREEAALL NNEETTWWOORRKK –– RREEAALL BBEENNEEFFIITTSS

DDEELLIIVVEERRIINNGG GGRREEEENNEENNEERRGGYY CAREN underpins solar technologycollaborations between European andTurkmen institutions by supportingremote training of local engineers andreal-time transmission of monitoringdata to optimise solar cellperformance.

SSAAFFEEGGUUAARRDDIINNGGWWOORRLLDD HHEERRIITTAAGGEE CAREN helps protect preciousUNESCO world Heritage sites alongthe ancient Silk Road by enablingvideo links between archaeologistsand historians, and by supportingUNESCO’s plans for a virtual museumand remote site monitoring.

Upgraded in 2014, CAREN’shigh-speed networkconnectivity bringsopportunities for Central Asia

to participate in regional and globalcollaborative projects with highsocietal impact and direct relevance tothe region, including environmentalstudies, seismology, telemedicine andpreservation of natural and culturalheritage. In addition, e-learning andremote training opportunities makeeducation and knowledge transfermore accessible.

MMAANNAAGGIINNGG NNAATTUURRAALLDDIISSAASSTTEERR RRIISSKKSSThe Central Asian Institute for AppliedGeosciences (CAIAG) in Kyrgyzstan iscollaborating closely with partnerinstitutes in the region as well as withthe German Research Centre for

Geosciences (GFZ) to monitor andmitigate the impact of climate changeand natural disasters, such asearthquakes floods, avalanches andmudslides. High-speed CAREN linksallow geoscientists to collect andexchange monitoring data in near-realtime for improved hazard assessment,risk management and effectivedisaster emergency response.

RREEVVOOLLUUTTIIOONNIISSIINNGGHHEEAALLTTHHCCAARREEBy linking doctors, patients andhospitals via high-quality, real-timevideo, CAREN enables remotediagnoses and consultations andprovides access to world-class,interactive medical training, thusimproving patient care, reducing costsand saving lives.

WordsHelga Spitaler,SeniorCommunicationsOfficer, DANTE

49

GLOBAL NEWS

Heads of State andGovernment from 51 Asianand European countriesattending the 10th ASEM

Summit held 16-17 October in Milanrecognised the achievements of theTrans-Eurasia Information Network(TEIN) initiative in fosteringcollaboration between the two regionsand endorsed its continuation underthe management of the TEIN*Cooperation Center in Korea.

Park Geun-hye, President of SouthKorea, proposed to expand the TEINinitiative to share more information andknowledge and display creativitybetween research centres andeducation institutions across Asia andEurope. Park said: “If both continentspromote connectivity in the culturalsphere and in education, if we openour hearts and build trust, it will solidifythe foundation for peace on earth.”

WordsHelga Spitaler,SeniorCommunicationsOfficer, DANTE

PicturePresident ParkGeun-hye(second fromleft) attends theopeningceremony of thetenth ASEMsummit onOctober 16.

AASSEEMM SSUUMMMMIITTRREECCOOGGNNIISSEESS RROOLLEE OOFF TTEEIINN

Excerpts from the ASEM10 Chair's Statement

“Leaders underlined that digital connectivity, enabled by high-speed, high-capacity broadband connections to theInternet, is a key element of modern society’s infrastructures.Leaders expressed interest to examine ways of enhancing digitalconnectivity between Europe and Asia. Leaders also welcomedprogress in the Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN) as wellas the role of the TEIN Cooperation Center in the Republic ofKorea and reiterated their further support for the project’simplementation. Leaders also underlined the opportunity toleverage the e-infrastructure developed under TEIN for newAsia-Europe projects, in areas such as e-learning, e-science, e-health and e-government. They welcomes the opportunity forfurther exchanges on cyber issues at the Global Conference on Cyberspace in April 2015 in The Hague, the Netherlands.”

50 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

GLOBAL NEWS

EELLCCIIRRAARREEAACCHHEESS IITTSSCCOONNCCLLUUSSIIOONN

ELCIRA (Europe Latin AmericaCollaborative e-Infrastructurefor Research Activities), anEC-funded project designed

to facilitate collaboration amongEuropean-Latin American researchteams, reached its conclusion at theend of October this year.

Led by RedCLARA, with partnersfrom Brazil (RNP), Colombia(RENATA), Italy (GARR), Spain(RedIRIS), as well as DANTE andTERENA, the successes of the nearly2½-year-long project have beennumerous, from significantlyincreasing the presence of eduroam inLatin America, to enabling the creationof new identify federations in theregion, providing a suite ofcollaboration tools, and improvingvideoconferencing through a diallingsystem which has improved thepossibilities for communicationbetween European and LatinAmerican researchers.

Having set out to establisheduroam in at least two Latin Americancountries, ELCIRA has far outstrippedexpectations through the deploymentof eduroam in six Latin Americancountries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia,Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico andPeru). In addition, ELCIRA hassupported the ongoing expansion ofeduroam in Brazil, where Porto Alegrehas become the first eduroam city onthe continent.

WordsTom Fryer,SeniorInternationalRelations Officer,DANTE

AATT TTHHEE EENNDD OOFF OOCCTTOOBBEERR22001144 TTHHEE EELLCCIIRRAA PPRROOJJEECCTTRREEAACCHHEEDD IITTSS CCOONNCCLLUUSSIIOONN..

51

GLOBAL NEWS

ELCIRAREACHES ITSCONCLUSION

GGLLOOBBAALL RR&&EE TTRRAAFFFFIICC IINNCCRREEAASSEESS BBYY1111%% IINN 22001133

To learn more about ELCIRA, visit: www.elcira.eu

The results of the analysis arebeing used to inform dialogue withGÉANT’s global partners, includingdiscussion on interconnections,service collaboration, user supportand global collaboration case studies.

An analysis of R&E trafficstatistics between GÉANTand R&E Networks in otherworld regions has shown

that from 2012 to 2013 global trafficincreased by nearly 11% incomparison with 2012.

Using statistics gathered using theNetReflex tool, North America was

identified as the most significant worldregion for the European R&ECommunity accounting for 79.3% ofGÉANT’s global traffic. The secondmost significant region was Asia-Pacific. Latin America and theCaribbean, and Africa and the MiddleEast accounted for the remainingtraffic.

The objective of supporting thecreation of identity federations in twocountries was not only met butdoubled with operational identityfederations having been established inArgentina (MATE), Chile (COFRe),Colombia (COLFIRE) and Ecuador(MiNGA). Of these, the Chileanfederation is a member of eduGAIN,alongside the Brazilian identityfederation.

ELCIRA has also establishedgatekeepers for RedCLARA and theCosta Rican and Colombian NRENs.With Brazil and Mexico also integratedwith the RedCLARA gatekeeper whichis in turn integrated with eduCONF,users of videoconferencing facilitiesbehind the RedCLARA gatekeepercan now dial terminals behindeduCONF in Europe, and vice versa.

An additional aim of ELCIRA wasto improve collaboration for Europe-Latin American research communities.This has been done through thecreation of a virtual federated platform,known as Colaboratorio V1.0. Theplatform makes tools and servicesdelivered by Latin American and

European NRENs available to endusers in a single location andfacilitates collaboration in the following ways:

• Webconferencing through the VC Espresso tool.

• Large file transfer through the eNVIO service, based on FileSender, and provided by GARR.

• The reservation of multi-point H.323 videoconferencing facilities behind SIVIC, RedCLARA’s equivalent of eduCONF

• Participation in discussions and events organised by RedCLARA user groups

• A search facility for documents produced by RedCLARA and the user groups supported by RedCLARA.

• A search facility for funding opportunities, project partners and collaboration opportunities.

An active dissemination programmehas ensured visibility of ELCIRA andits successes both in Europe and Latin

America, including participation inleading international conferencesincluding the International Conferenceon Research Infrastructures, theTERENA Networking Conference andthe TICAL Conference for ICT directorsof Latin American universities.

Since June 2012 the ELCIRAproject has provided a significantboost to improving the ways in whichacademics in Europe and LatinAmerica are able to collaborate,adding extra value and neededservices above and beyond R&Econnectivity in Latin American and thetransatlantic connection to GÉANT.

52 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

Q&A

CCOOFFFFEEEE BBRREEAAKK QQ&&AAEach quarter we invite one or two GÉANT projectparticipants to tell us a bit about their role at GÉANT and themselves. Grab yourself a coffee and enjoy!

NNAAMMEE::Scott Edwards

JJOOBB TTIITTLLEE AANNDDOORRGGAANNIISSAATTIIOONN::IT Engineer – Contractor

TTEELLLL UUSS AABBOOUUTTYYOOUURR RROOLLEE OONN TTHHEEGGÉÉAANNTT PPRROOJJEECCTTI am a member of the IT Team, dealingwith every day support and queries, andplanning and building a better tomorrow.

WWHHAATT’’SS TTHHEE BBEESSTTBBIITT AABBOOUUTT YYOOUURRJJOOBB??Variety is the spice of life. DANTE isVERY spicy!

FFAAVVOOUURRIITTEE FFIILLMM??Very tricky, in terms of enjoyment andsomething I watch every few years. ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Leon:The Professional’ is a very close 2nd.

RREEAADDIINNGG AANNYYTTHHIINNGGIINNTTEERREESSTTIINNGG??Nothing, I am not a big book reader, butdo spend most of the day reading allsorts of things online.

GGOOTT AANNYY HHOOBBBBIIEESS??TTEELLLL UUSS AALLLL!!I own 4 arcade cabinets and have acollection of 30 or so arcade gamePCB’s from the late 80’s/early 90’s. Myprized possession is an original 1986Atari Rolling Thunder cabinet, which mygirlfriend bought me! When I have time Iplay and repair them (old PCB’s have ahabit of breaking!). When I have acustom games room/ arcade built in thegarden of my new house (coming laterthis year!), I will be spending more timeplaying than repairing I hope!

FFAAVVOOUURRIITTEE MMEEAALL??Pizza- no brainer! And yes Pizza IS a meal.

TTOOPP TTHHRREEEE AALLBBUUMMSSOOFF AALLLL TTIIMMEE??Very tricky!

1. Depeche Mode – Speak and Spell2. Rage Against the Machine

- Rage Against the Machine3. Faith No More – Angel Dust

FFAAVVOOUURRIITTEE MMOODDEE OOFFTTRRAANNSSPPOORRTT??Bike when it’s not raining, car when it is.

AA MMEEMMOORRAABBLLEEEEXXPPEERRIIEENNCCEE YYOOUU’’LLLLNNEEVVEERR FFOORRGGEETT OORRSSOOMMEETTHHIINNGG AABBOOUUTTYYOOUU TTHHAATT NNOOBBOODDYYKKNNOOWWSS??As a birthday gift my girlfriend boughtme a day’s experience driving a stockcar! Never in my adult life have I felt soscared or totally out of my depth! Thefact that my day ended by my car beingwritten off and me being taken tohospital after spending a few minutesunconscious in the car certainly addedto the lasting memory of fear!

53

Q&A

NNAAMMEE::Bartłomiej Idzikowski

JJOOBB TTIITTLLEE AANNDDOORRGGAANNIISSAATTIIOONN::Senior IT specialist PSNC (PoznańSupercomputing and NetworkingCenter)

TTEELLLL UUSS AABBOOUUTTYYOOUURR RROOLLEE OONN TTHHEEGGÉÉAANNTT PPRROOJJEECCTTI've been engaged in eduCONF taskfrom its beginning (GN2, 2008). Most ofdesign and development work was ledby our team. I had also shorter episodesin perfSONAR and GEMBus.

WWHHAATT’’SS TTHHEE BBEESSTTBBIITT AABBOOUUTT YYOOUURRJJOOBB??In general, applications of cutting-edgetechnologies (as 4K and 8K) to createnew functionalities and discoverscientific solutions is extremelycompelling.

In GÉANT it's about creating anattractive service together withinteresting people, in order to integratevideoconferencing societies and makethe e-communication more reliable and easily available.

FFAAVVOOUURRIITTEE FFIILLMM??I'm not a connoisseur of cinema, but Ido appreciate niche films. I also likedocumentaries about touristexpeditions, as "Long Way Round" and"Long Way Down" with Ewan McGregorand Charley Boorman.

RREEAADDIINNGG AANNYYTTHHIINNGGIINNTTEERREESSTTIINNGG??Started to read a lot of books afresh,just after getting an e-book device.Mostly crime stories, recently.

GGOOTT AANNYY HHOOBBBBIIEESS??TTEELLLL UUSS AALLLL!!I'm addicted to music, whichaccompanies me almost all the time(very wide range of species, from metalto jazz). I'm interested in automotivetechnologies and sports (enduro, rallies),as well as on motorcycle tourism.

TTOOPP TTHHRREEEE AALLBBUUMMSSOOFF AALLLL TTIIMMEE??Hard to point just three :-))

FFAAVVOOUURRIITTEE SSPPOORRTT??Off-road motorcycling, recently alsomountain bike riding.

FFAAVVOOUURRIITTEE MMOODDEE OOFFTTRRAANNSSPPOORRTT??Definitely motorbike, but car is mostcommonly used.

54 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

ABOUT GÉANT

GE

AZAR

>=1Gbps and <10Gbps

10Gbps

20Gbps

30Gbps

>=100Gbps

www.geant.net The Pan-European Research and Education NetworkGÉANT interconnects Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Together we connect over 50 million users at 10,000 institutions across Europe.

GÉANT is co-funded by the European Union within its 7th R&D Framework Programme.

BY MDBelarus MoldovaAzerbaijan Georgia

Austria

Armenia

UA Ukraine

GÉANT connectivity as at January 2014. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.

20Gbps

0Gbps1

0Gbps>=1Gbps and <1

00Gbps>=1

30Gbps

20Gbps

GE

ARARARAR AZ

GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 2014. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’GÉANT connectivity as at January 2014. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’GÉANT connectivity as at January 20

Armenia

GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20

Armenia

GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20

Armenia

GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20

Armenia

GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 20GÉANT connectivity as at January 2014. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’GÉANT connectivity as at January 2014. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.14. GÉANT is operated by DANTE on behalf of Europe’

Azerbaijan

Austria

Azerbaijan

Austria

GeorgiaGeorgiaGeorgiaGeorgiaGeorgiaGeorgiaGeorgia MDMDMDMDBY MoldovaMoldovaMoldovaMoldovaMoldovaMoldovaMoldovaMoldovaMoldova UAUAUA UkraineUkraineUkraineUkraineUkraineUkraineUkraineUkraineUAUAUAUAUAMoldova

EUROPE’S RESEARCH AND EDUCATION DATA NETWORK

GÉANT is the pan-European research and education network that interconnectsEurope’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Together weconnect over 50 million users at 10,000 institutions, supporting research in areas such as energy, the environment, space, health and medicine.

AABBOOUUTT GGÉÉAANNTT:: AANN AATT--AA--GGLLAANNCCEE GGUUIIDDEE

ABOUT GÉANT

55

AT THE HEART OF GLOBAL RESEARCHNETWORKINGThe GÉANT network has extensive links to other world regions throughcollaboration with further networks, including those in North and LatinAmerica, the Balkans, the Mediterranean, Black Sea, South Africa, Central and Eastern Asia.

www.geant.net

www.twitter.com/GEANTnews

www.facebook.com/GEANTnetwork

www.youtube.com/GEANTtv

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

56 CONNECT ISSUE 17 2014

ABOUT GÉANT

ENHANCING YOUR EXPERIENCE OF THE NETWORKThe GÉANT project delivers innovative services to enhance users’ experienceof the network. We’re here to support you with a portfolio of advancedconnectivity, network support and access services, designed to meet theneeds of NRENs, institutions, researchers and students. Discover more here:hhttttpp::////wwwwww..ggeeaanntt..nneett//SSeerrvviicceess//PPaaggeess//hhoommee..aassppxx

SERVICES

NNeettwwoorrkkiinngg SSeerrvviicceess GÉANT IP Core IP connectivity between NRENs. Costeffective, reliable, open and independent.

GÉANT Plus Layer2 point-to-point connectivity. Assuredbandwidth, secure.

GÉANT Lambda Layer2 ultra-high capacity point-to-point connections for demanding applications

GÉANT Peering Layer3 IP interconnectivity with 3rd partyproviders.

GÉANT Open Flexible, open Layer2 interconnectivity between organisations

GÉANT L3 VPN Logical virtual IP networking – ideal for one-to-many or many-to-many connectivity.

GÉANT Bandwidth on Demand Flexible “on-demand” layer2 connections toprovide high performance networking

GÉANT OpenFlow Facility A flexible testbed facility to help develop newnetworking services.

UUsseerr AApppplliiccaattiioonn SSeerrvviicceess eduroam® National and International wi-fi roaming. Secure, simple and global.

eduCONF An easy to use directory of VC facilities acrossEurope.

eduGAIN Federated AAI services offering assured, simple single sign-on.

TToooollss aanndd MMaannaaggeemmeenntt SSeerrvviicceess perfSONAR Multi-domain monitoring service. EnablingNREN NOCs and PERTs to collaborate inproviding seamless network performance for their users.

eduPERT Federated Performance Enhancement Response Teams - helping network users getthe best performance from their connections.

eduPKI Supporting service developers by helpingmanage digital certificates.

ABOUT GÉANT

57

SHAPING THE INTERNET OF THE FUTUREPart of GÉANT’s role is pushing the boundaries of networking technology toshape the internet of the future. The GÉANT Innovation Programme exists to develop an advanced portfolio of technologies, to develop into services, tools and network capabilities for tomorrow’s researchers.

Here are just a few ways the GÉANT Innovation Programme is driving discovery in networking technology.

THE GÉANT INNOVATIONPROGRAMME

RREESSEEAARRCCHHPPRROOGGRRAAMMMMEESSThe research elements of theGÉANT project focus on threecore areas:

• Network architectures for Horizon 2020

• Technology testing for advanced applications

• Identity and trust technologies

By being technology and supplierneutral, these research activitiescontribute greatly to thoughtleadership in networking servicesacross Europe.

OOPPEENN CCAALLLLThe Open Call projects bring infresh ideas and support new usesof the network. €3.3m is beinginvested into 21 independentprojects for research intoadvanced networkingtechnologies. In support of theHorizon 2020 aims, each project isaligned to one of the GÉANT JointResearch Activities. The four subject areas are:

• AApppplliiccaattiioonnss aanndd TToooollss – supporting advanced research activities and projects.

• AAuutthheennttiiccaattiioonn – helping support secure end-to-end authentication of systems and people.

• NNeettwwoorrkk AArrcchhiitteeccttuurree aanndd OOppttiiccaall PPrroojjeeccttss – studying future networking systems.

• SSDDNN - exploring Software Defined Networking potential tomeet new networking demands.

TTEESSTTBBEEDDSS“Testbeds as a Service” providestwo types of testbed capabilities tosupport the network researchcommunity. Dynamic PacketNetwork Testbed Service supportsupper layer network research, andthe Dark Fibre Testbed providesphotonic layer long haul facilitiesfor testing novel optical/photonictechnologies in the field.

SSTTAANNDDAARRDDSSThe use of standards andinformation from standards bodiesare essential to the development ofGÉANT services to ensureinteroperability with services ofother networking organisations.Members of the GÉANT projecthave leadership roles in the OGF(Open Grid Forum) and IETF(Internet Engineering Task Force)standards organisations and makesignificant contributions to theformation of standards.

AASSPPIIRREEFFOORREESSIIGGHHTTSSTTUUDDYYASPIRE (A Study on the Prospectof the Internet for Research andEducation) providesrecommendations to policy anddecision makers on topics likely tohave a significant impact for thefuture of research and education(R&E) networking. For instance:

• The adoption of cloud services• The integration of mobile

services into NRENs service portfolios

• Middleware and managing dataand knowledge in a data-rich world

• The future role of NRENs

The final report can bedownloaded from the TERENAwebsite:wwwwww..tteerreennaa..oorrgg//ppuubblliiccaattiioonnss

wwwwww..ggeeaanntt..nneett

This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of DANTE and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. CONNECT/1014