EU research network upgraded to 100 gbps as it marks tenth birthday

GÉANT, the pan-European research and education network, has announced it will be upgrading to 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) capacity on key routes. At 100 Gbps the entire contents of a dual-layer Blu-ray disc, typically used for feature-length movies, could be transmitted across the network in just four seconds.

GÉANT launched 10 years ago, in November 2000, and is operated by the not-for-profit company DANTE on behalf of Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), connecting national networks together. This major upgrade, which will increase speeds by up to a factor of ten, is in response to the rapidly growing capacity needs of European researchers. This is being driven by a combination of new projects, changing ways of working, and an increasing number of users.

“Since its launch in 2000, GÉANT has transformed how research is carried out, driving and enabling collaboration across Europe and the entire world,” said Matthew Scott, General Manager, DANTE. “However, our forecasts predict that the combination of major new scientific experiments and innovative new ways of working together is creating an explosion of data for which we need to be ready.”

In the next ten years major new projects including the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope and the ITER nuclear fusion experiment are projected to come on stream. These will join other major research projects, such as the Large Hadron Collider, in requiring high bandwidth, real-time connections to share the massive amounts of data they produce with scientists in Europe and around the world.

Additionally, greater collaboration in areas such as genetics and climate change is driving a growing demand to access shared central databases of information across research disciplines, exponentially increasing network traffic.

The new 100 Gbps connections will light fibre on GÉANT’s existing 12,000 km of optical fibre links. Procurement for equipment to enable the 100 Gbps links will start early 2011 with implementation expected by mid 2012. The majority of connections on the GÉANT network currently have a minimum capacity of 10 Gbps, with busier routes using recently introduced 40 Gbps links.