North America

From its launch in late 2001, the GÉANT network offered global connectivity as a fully integrated part of the overall service available to all participating NRENs. It established connections from the pan-European backbone to North America (NASA, and the research networks Abilene, ESnet and CA*net4), which have been in service since January 2002.

GEANT2 has established two interconnection points in the USA. The original GÉANT2 PoP was established in New York in 1998. More recently, a second PoP has been established in Washington. There are a number of 10Gbps links connecting the USA and Europe. Two of these are funded by GÉANT2, with a further two being funded, from the American side, by the National Science Foundation and by Internet2. In addition, the possibility of a direct Canada-Europe link is under discussion.

DICE: International Collaboration

CANARIE, ESnet, GÉANT2 and Internet2 have built on earlier co-operation to implement a strategic initiative on trans-Atlantic cooperation within the framework of the GÉANT2 technical programme. Regular technical meetings provide the opportunity to discuss issues of common interest, helping the participants to build a more complete picture of the international context in which they operate.

These meetings have given rise to workshops and ongoing collaboration in specific areas within the GÉANT2 technical programme, with engineers working together to advance their research. Further information about these DICE (DANTE-Internet2-CANARIE-ESnet) meetings and workshops is available from the link alongside.

PerfSONAR

One significant result of this collaboration is the PerfSONAR network monitoring prototype, which provides information on link capacity and link utilisation across all the circuits of the Abilene, ESnet and GÉANT backbone networks. Access is being provided initially to a restricted group, but with the intention of enabling more widespread access once the tool is stable and proven. PerfSONAR has been built as a result of close work between engineers from ESnet, GÉANT2 and Internet2; ESnet and Internet2 are also deploying the system on their own networks. This means that networks in both continents are presenting the same data in a consistent manner.