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.35, October 1999

Editor: Cathrin.Stover@dante.org.uk

TEN-155: NEW AND UPGRADED EUROPEAN CONNECTIONS

The connection between TEN-155 and the national research network of the Czech Republic, CESNET, was upgraded to 45 Mbps on 20 September 1999.

Within the network, the existing circuit connecting the TEN-155 PoPs in Brussels and Amsterdam was supplemented with a second 34 Mbps line between Brussels and Paris. The new link, which became operational on 20 October, will improve the resilience of the Belgian connection. Similarly, an additional 155 Mbps line has been delivered to connect the TEN-155 PoPs in Switzerland and Italy; this will be of particular benefit to the Italian national research network, GARR.

AUCS (AT&T Unisource Carrier Services) won a tender for the interconnection of TEN-155 and the European commercial Internet. The interconnection will be rolled-out over the next few months in four TEN-155 PoP locations across Europe.

The average access port availability of TEN-155 in September improved to 99.75% with nine of the nineteen connected research networks enjoying 100% access port availability. However, failures on the link between Switzerland and Germany, as well as Switzerland and the Netherlands led to a 10-hour outage for the Swiss research network, SWITCH and for CERN.

TEN-155: NEW CONNECTIONS TO JAPAN AND US

Co-operative research between scientists in Europe and Japan received a boost when the interconnection between TEN-155 and NACSIS was significantly upgraded on 1 October 1999. NACSIS is the National Center for Science Information Systems of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture and is one of the Inter-University Research Institutes which serve all university researchers in Japan. The interconnection is based on a 10 Mbps IP service via the DANTE New York PoP to the TEN-155 PoP in Frankfurt and a 15 Mbps connection to the TEN-155 Managed Bandwidth Service at the TEN-155 PoP in London.

As previously announced a 45 Mbps interconnection between those European national research networks using the DANTE US connectivity and Abilene, one of the networks supporting the Internet2 project in the US, became operational. More information can be found in the Press Release.

EXPERIMENTS CONTINUE IN THE QUANTUM TEST PROGRAMME

During September and October experiments in the Quantum Test Programme (QTP) continued. The experiments carried out by a DANTE/TERENA task force, TF-TANT, have focused on MPLS (Multi Protocol label Switching), Differentiated Services and QoS Monitoring, ATM Signalling, Policy Control, IP over ATM, Multicast, IPv6, Flow based monitoring analysis and RSVP to ATM signalling mapping. On 1 October the working group leaders of TF-TANT presented their first results to the Quantum Policy Committee in an open workshop organised by DANTE in Frankfurt. The presentations can be found in the TF-TANT pages.

Roberto Sabatino (DANTE) was appointed the new Chairman of TF-TANT by the members of the taskforce during their last meeting held in Frankfurt on 30 September 1999. Roberto took over from Christoph Graf (SWITCH) who chaired the TF-TANT in the last year.

DANTE AT TELECOMS 99

On behalf of the Quantum consortium and as a major customer of KPN, DANTE was invited to exhibit at the KPN stand during Telecoms 99 in Geneva from 10-17 October 1999. To have a visible demonstration of the TEN-155 network, DANTE asked the EDISON project to demonstrate their use of the TEN-155 Managed Bandwidth Service (MBS). In addition to a distributed simulation for astronauts' and ground controllers' training, EDISON showed a demonstration of distributed vibro-accoustic car design as well as design for an automated transfer vehicle used to support the International Space Station.

The TEN-155 MBS connected EDISON sites in France and Germany to the PalEXPO Centre in Geneva.

The photos show the EDISON demo on the KPN stand. The 3-D screen projects the space docking demonstration where astronauts and operators practice the manual docking of an Automated Transfer Vehicle with the International Space Station.

The TEN-155 network also supported a number of European projects at the EC stand during Telecoms 99.

TEN-155 MBS SUCCESSFULLY SUPPORTED THE IDC 99

The TEN-155 Managed Bandwidth Service (MBS) supported the Third International Distributed Conference in Madrid from 22-24 September 1999. To connect interactively participating sites, a Virtual Private Network was established between the conference site in Madrid and sites in Switzerland and Portugal.

A free TEN-155 MBS brochure is now available. This brochures is a User Guide for projects interested in using the service.