The Works of DANTE

A bi-monthly electronic newsletter reporting on the activities of DANTE, the company that organises pan-European research network services for the European research community.

No.20, April 1997

TEN-34: UP AND RUNNING

Most of the TEN-34 network is now up and running. The first link to carry production traffic was the leased circuit between Germany and Switzerland on 6 March 1997; the ATM-based circuits linking France, Germany and the UK have been in service since 18 March and Italy was linked (to Germany) on 15 April. The Unisource sub-network started carrying traffic on 29 April. The connections to Austria and Hungary are being tested and are due to come into service on 5 May. The Czech Republic has now made arrangements to connect to TEN-34; a line from Prague to Frankfurt will be brought into service before 1 August.

An updated version of the topology map (April 1997) and brochure is now available and can be obtained by sending a message 'send TEN-34 map' to dante@dante.org.uk

EUROPANET: THE DOWNSIZING

On 1 May the first NRNs which have moved their traffic to TEN-34 will disconnect from EuropaNET. This marks the beginning of a major reduction in the scale of EuropaNET as a pan-European network service. In practice, since EuropaNET runs on the same physical infrastructure as BT's commercial Concert Internet Plus service, there is no difficulty in continuing to provide a smaller scale service to those NRNs which still have no definite plans to connect to TEN-34.

In order to ensure continued connectivity between NRNs already on TEN-34 and the others, DANTE has organised a number of interconnection arrangements. In Geneva, TEN-34 is taking over the 2 Mbit/s EuropaNET port and access line currently used by CERN. Also, a direct connection to the BT network will be made between UKERNA's existing 4 Mbit/s EuropaNET port (to which UKERNA is committed to DANTE and DANTE is committed to BT until 30 June 1997) and the TEN-34 router in London. In addition DANTE is currently finalising interconnection arrangements with Ebone.

TEN-34 LAUNCH

On May 20th the official launch of the TEN-34 network will take place. To mark this important occasion DANTE has organised a half-day symposium in Cambridge to address the accomplishments of TEN-34 as well as the challenges to the future of European research networking. The symposium will be attended by national and European politicians, representatives of the national ministries and funding bodies and, of course, the TEN-34 partners. The official opening of TEN-34 will be performed by M. Robert Verrue, Director-General of DG-XIII of the European Commission.

LIFE AFTER TEN-34...THE QUANTUM PROPOSAL

At the request of a sub-set of the members of the TEN-34 Consortium DANTE has prepared a proposal in response to the Fifth Call under the EC's Telematics Applications Programme. The outline proposal, called QUANTUM (QUAlity Network Technology for User-oriented Multi-media), was submitted by a consortium consisting of CSIC/RedIRIS (Spain), DANTE, DFN (Germany), GR-NET (Greece), INFN (Italy), Renater (France) and SWITCH (Switzerland) together with Telebit (Denmark) on 18 April 1997.

The broad objectives of the proposed QUANTUM Project are to explore and subsequently to implement ways of providing improved Quality of Service, particularly for multi-media applications, across a very high speed (up to 155 Mbit/s) international network. Three phases defined in the project proposal cover experimentation/validation of alternative approaches using a test network in which Telebit would play a significant role, planning and procurement of a network service which would come into operation after the end of the TEN-34 Project, followed by an operational service period.

A DANTE POP IN THE US?

As reported in the previous issue of TWoD DANTE is examining the possibility of establishing its own Point(s) of Presence in the USA. The establishment of a Point of Presence would have the advantage of providing a degree of commercial stability and allow a more flexible approach to provision of transatlantic connectivity. Following discussions with a number of US carriers and facility operators this week DANTE now has several options for implementing a 'EuroPOP' in the US. We will be evaluating the pros and cons of the offers and intend to produce a final proposal within a few weeks.

NEW STAFF

John Horton joins DANTE on May 1st 1997 as Applications Engineer. John will focus on DANTE's activities in the Security area. This includes SIRCE, the Security Incident Response Co-ordination for Europe pilot of TERENA that has been awarded to a DANTE-UKERNA partnership. He will also look at the use of the Directory as a place for storing security-related information. John previously worked for the UK National Health Service where he has been involved in network security including the use of encryption, certification authorities and firewall implementations. In addition he has been working on the strategic development of various aspects of networking technologies including Directory services, e-mail gateways and html/web technology.

JOB OPENING: DIRECTORY EXPERT (X.500 - LDAP) / SERVICE COORDINATOR

We are looking for a service coordinator/developer for NameFLOW- Paradise, the international Directory service coordinated by DANTE. For more information see: http://www.dante.net/jobs. For more information about the job see: http://www.dante.net/jobs

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