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.32, April 1999
Editor: Cathrin.Stover@dante.org.uk
POLAND CONNECTED TO TEN-155
The rollout of the TEN-155 network entered its final stage in March, after the circuits Austria-Hungary, Austria-Germany and Germany-Italy had been brought into service in succession on 2 and 3 February 1999. Except for Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain all participating national research networks have now completed the migration from TEN-34 to TEN-155. These countries are expected to migrate to proper TEN-155 PVCs or lines within the next six weeks.
With the transition from TEN-34 to TEN-155 in its final stage, TEN-155 is becoming more and more stable and the first trends can be observed. For the transit countries high availability is recorded which is related to the design of the network, especially to the rings and the dual links. In spite of a number of circuit problems, most transit countries had 100% ATM availability with the overall ATM availability calculated at 99.83% in March. IP access port availability for eleven of the seventeen to TEN-155 connected networks was higher than 99.94%.
Joining TEN-155 as a newcomer, the Polish research network POL-34 was connected with a 34 Mbps link to TEN-155 on 10 March 1999.
US CAPACITY TO BE UPGRADED
DANTE will double the capacity of its US service at the DANTE EuroPoP in Telehouse, New York, in May 1999. In addition to the current 155 Mbps link between Frankfurt and New York, a 155 Mbps link will be installed between London and New York to cater for the increasing traffic between Europe and the US. Currently the national research networks of Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland and Portugal are using this DANTE service, with Spain joining shortly. The German research network, DFN, is co-located with DANTE in Telehouse, New York.
Q-MED: ISRAEL TO BE CONNECTED TO TEN-155
The national research network of Israel, IUCC (InterUniversity Computation Center), will be connected to TEN-155 via London at the beginning of May 1999. This connection is the direct result of the Q-MED project, a complementary project to Quantum with the principle objective of connecting the national research network of Israel and the University of Cyprus to TEN-155. The project provides for general IP connectivity as well as for the deployment of Quality of Service management in the network. Israel will be the first Southern Mediterranean country to join TEN-155 which gives TEN-155 a new geographic dimension. The formal opening of the Israeli link to TEN-155 will take place on 27 May in Tel Aviv.
MBS - NOW IN BETA PHASE
The TEN-155 Managed Bandwidth Service (MBS) allows the definition of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) between sites of specific user groups at universities and research organisations connected to a participating national research network, as well as to organisations participating in EC supported research and development activities with sites in countries of a participating national research network. The TEN-155 MBS is being introduced in three successive phases with the alpha test coming to a successful end at the end of February. The alpha test report will soon be available from the DANTE MBS pages.
At the beginning of March the beta test phase started. The objective of the MBS beta test is to extend the scope of the MBS to more users in more countries and to verify the MBS procedures. For the moment three user groups have successfully made use of the MBS as beta testers. The beta test phase will continue until the end of May. The MBS is expected to become fully operational by mid-99.
QUANTUM TEST PROGRAMME
The Quantum Test Programme (QTP) has the objective of testing and validating new technologies, products and services with a view to introducing them into the operational TEN-155 service at some future date. A DANTE/TERENA task force, TF-TANT, is in charge of carrying out the experiments of the QTP. For many of these experiments, the QTP makes use of the VPN (Virtual Private Network) facilities offered by the TEN-155 Managed Bandwidth Service.
Using the TEN-155 Managed Bandwidth Service, a 2 Mbps VPN has been set up in April between the participating sites for experiments on MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching). Label-based switching is a technique based on the integration of layer 2 switching and layer 3 routing. This technique has been designed for high-speed networks to combine the performance of switching with the scalability and flexibility of IP routing in a more efficient way.
Experiments will also soon start on Differentiated Services and Multicasting (IP and ATM). The goal of the differentiated service (diffserv) architecture is the enhancement of the IP protocol for the support of Quality of Service in a scalable manner, i.e. without relying on either signalling protocols or per flow state information.
With regard to Multicasting (IP and ATM) testing of new technologies and services necessary for the evolution of the operational TEN-155 Mbone will commence shortly. These will involve the set-up of a monitoring and performance measurement environment on selected user premises and on backbone borders with an emphasis on IP multicast routing monitoring and performance measurements. The Cisco and GATED implementation of the Multiprotocol Border gateway Protocol (MBGP, also known as BGP4+) will also be evaluated and tested.
Results of these experiments and also IP over ATM should become available in May. More information about TF-TANT and experiments in other areas of advanced technologies can be found at the group's webpage.
DANTE at TERENA/NORDUNET Conference
DANTE will be participating in the TERENA/NORDUnet Conference from 7 to 10 June 1999 in Lund, Sweden. Roberto Sabatino, Head of Network Engineering and Planning at DANTE, will talk about the implementation of TEN-155 during the session on High Speed Networks on 8 June. He will also present the work of the DANTE/TERENA joint task force TF-TANT (see above for more information on TF-TANT) in the TERENA Technical Programme session on 9 June. The Quantum and Q-MED Projects will also be presented during the Telematics for Research seminars on 8 June. Additionally, there will be a DANTE exhibitor's stand during the event. More information on the TERENA/NORDUnet conference.
DANTE at INET'99
Roberto Sabatino, Head of Network Engineering and Planning, will give a presentation "TEN-155: High-Speed Networking for European Research" at the INET'99 Conference in San Jose, California, on 23 June 1999. Roberto's paper is available as DANTE in PRINT.
NEW DANTE IN PRINT AVAILABLE
DANTE in PRINT No. 38 is now available from the DANTE website. In this latest issue of DANTE in PRINT, Dai Davies discusses the impacts of the liberalisation of the European telecommunications market on pan-European research networking. This paper was written for the "IP Networks - Internet, Intranet and Extranet" Conference held in Slovenia on 24 and 25 May.
STAFF AT DANTE
David Harmelin (FR) joined DANTE on 15 March 1999. David works as a Network Engineer in the DANTE Network Engineering and Planning Team. Before starting at DANTE, David worked for twenty months in Israel as a project manager for Dalet Digital Multimedia Systems, and as a consultant for one of Dalet's customers in the UK for three months. David graduated from the "Ecole Centrale de Lille" in France two years ago.
John Horton left DANTE at the end of March 1999. John joined a systems integrator in Cambridge, where he is responsible for security related matters.
Having been with DANTE for one year, Peter Gietz left DANTE on 30 April 1999. Peter returned home to his family in Tübingen and started working for the DFN Project AMBIX, a project to set up a Directory Competence Centre at the University of Tübingen.
Maria Pallares worked on DANTE projects as a consultant since DANTE was set up in 1993 and before that on the COSINE/IXI projects. Maria left DANTE on 30 April 1999 and started consulting work with a Belgian Mobile Telecommunications Operator.
Within DANTE, Cathrin Stover took over Maria's project management responsibilities, including specifically the preparation of reports and deliverables to the EC. Cathrin will continue to have overall responsibility for DANTE's External Relations.
WORKING AT DANTE
We are currently recruiting for the position of External Relations Manager at DANTE. More information can be found at the DANTE jobs page.
