ICFA Report

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Appendix 1. GEANT2 Status Summary for ICFA Review

Submitted by Cathrin Stover (Cathrin.Stover@dante.org.uk)

February 2008

GÉANT2 IP Backbone:

The GÉANT2 project is the seventh generation of the pan-European backbone for research and

education. It provides an international IP network connecting National Research and Education

Networks in 34 countries across Europe. The network, now fully operational, comprises 50000

km of leased circuits and 12000km of GÉANT2-operated dark fiber. The IP network, designed to

be over-provisioned and operating at speeds of up to 10 Gbps, provides high-bandwidth

international connectivity for more than 30 million users connected to European NRENs. The

project has connected India, Africa, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey to the European

backbone for the first time. This network is the provider of the international connectivity essential

to LHC Tier 2 sites across Europe.

GÉANT2 Point-to-Point services:

Importantly for users with high data transfer requirements, such as the LHC Tier 1 sites,

GÉANT2 also provides the dark fiber connectivity - connecting 15 European NRENs - to offer

dedicated Gigabit Ethernet and 10Gbps point-to-point circuits. To date, a total of 33 such circuits

have been delivered to the European research and education community. It is GÉANT2's circuit

capability which provides the collection of 10Gbps wavelengths which contribute to the LHC

Optical Private Network (OPN). The LHC OPN connecting national Tier 1 sites globally to Tier

0 at CERN currently has 10 operational 10Gbps wavelengths over GÉANT2 infrastructure. In

addition to services connecting the seven European LHC T1 Centers, this figure includes circuits

to transport traffic from the Taiwanese and Canadian Tier 1 sites from their European landing site

to CERN in Geneva.

The pre-provisioned GÉANT2 hybrid platform is used to interconnect researchers at sub-

wavelength capacities. For example, the Prague (CZ) Tier 2 is connected to the Karlsruhe (DE)

Tier 1 by a GE circuit and similarly, there are 2 GE transatlantic circuits linking the LHC Tier 1

sites at IN2P3 (FR) and FNAL (USA).

The GÉANT network also carries IP traffic between European Tier 2s and US Tier 1s which is

then transported across the Atlantic by US-LHCNet's wavelength and onward through ESnet

stateside.

Aside from the HEP community, GEANT2 provides point-to-point services in Europe for a

number of demanding international research projects. The EC-funded EXPReS project (Radio

Astronomy) utilizes GÉANT2 GE circuits to connect 5 telescopes with a central correlating

supercomputer. Three more sites will be added soon.

Other user examples include DEISA for which GÉANT2 connects Europe's national

supercomputing sites using 10Gbps wavelengths and Phosphorus for which GÉANT2 GE circuits

have been used to create a network testbed environment.