Design and Migration for GÉANT2

Design

GÉANT2's design objective is to maximise operational and service flexibility. The ability to handle the increase and change in future traffic patterns is crucial to its success.

The expectations for future traffic flows on GÉANT2 contradict the traditional view of research networking (large numbers of users with small requirements). The prediction is that in future, a small but increasing numbers of users and projects will individually be transferring high volumes of data.

In order to meet these anticipated demands, GÉANT2 has a common infrastructure that includes both routed IP and switched optical network elements. This maximises the utilisation of networking resources, and reduces the time, complexity and costs associated with delivering services.

GÉANT2's design has taken into account:

• User requirements for basic IP service
• The rate of development of applications with demands for dedicated high-speed connectivity between a limited number of sites
• Technical and economic implications of transmission and equipment choices to accommodate routing and switching
• Availability of connectivity
• Progress on standards development.

Reliability during development and the introduction of new technologies is also a key requirement. Such reliability demands a balance between introduction of innovation in development where definitely required, and the retention of existing technology when it is recognised as "doing the job", and where new technology is not sufficiently mature for use in production service.

Migration

The migration from GÉANT to GÉANT2 has demanded meticulous planning that needed to be:

• Precise, because continuity of service had to be guaranteed
• Flexible, because it is impossible to be certain of the order of events when multiple suppliers are involved.

The success of the project's migration planning has been demonstrated by its achievement of a seamless transition from the GÉANT network to GÉANT2, offering uninterrupted, reliable service.

The public tenders for GÉANT2 connectivity, and equipment and management services were launched in January and July 2004 respectively. A decision on the basic design, technologies and topology of the network was announced in mid-June 2005, with the first links coming into service in December 2005.