GÉANT2 Testbed Service

The testing of new network technologies is an important activity in support of the overall aims of the GÉANT2 project. In addition to a specific research activity dedicated to investigating emerging and unproven technologies, a testbed service has been continued from GÉANT into GÉANT2, and extended with the addition of a number of optical cross-connects.

The GÉANT2 testbed provides NRENs and DANTE with a facility to test new hardware, operating system upgrades, vendor interoperability and other new features. The testbed allows new services to be validated before they are made available on the production network.

The testbed is currently constructed of five Alcatel 1678 Metro Core Connect SDH cross-connects located in selected GÉANT2 POPs, and interconnected via a set of dedicated wavelengths provided by the GÉANT2 WDM infrastructure. It is intended that the testbed facility will be available to the GÉANT2 research programme, the most notable use being that of the bandwidth-on-demand activity, which will make use of the testbed to trial automated provisioning of end-to-end, bandwidth-on-demand service instances (circuits).

The GÉANT2 testbed will have a number of ports which are allocated for interconnection to NREN national testbeds. NREN testbeds can be connected permanently, or temporarily whenever a need or opportunity arises (for example, during the temporary loan of equipment to be tested in the context of procurements or other research projects).