Enabling globaluser communitiesSeamless collaboration to accelerateand enrich research and education

connect • communicate • collaborate

What is GÉANT?GÉANT is the pan-European research and education network thatinterconnects Europe’s National Research and Education Networks(NRENs). Together we connect over 40 million researchers andstudents across Europe, facilitating collaborative research in a diverserange of disciplines, including high-energy physics, radio astronomy,bio-medicine, climate change, earth observation and arts & culture.

GÉANT is part-funded by, and works in close cooperation with theEuropean Commission (EC). GÉANT is fundamental to realising theEU’s vision for the European Research Area (ERA), and is a keypart of the Digital Agenda for Europe, a flagship initiativedriving Europe 2020.

How does GÉANT help research communities?In the digital age, technology underpins collaboration. It provides fast accessto data stored across the globe, links researchers to instruments in real-time,allows the instant exchange of results and delivers the computing powerneeded to quickly analyse enormous volumes of data.

To deliver seamless collaboration, these Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT)-based resources are being organised into e-Infrastructures- platforms built around user needs. GÉANT and its NREN partners are at theheart of multiple e-Infrastructures, connecting over 8000 institutions in 40countries via a backbone of high speed links which also connect a growingnumber of libraries, government departments, hospitals and museums.

And with many NRENs providing connectivity to primaryand secondary education, over 20,000 schools arenow benefitting from the power of GÉANT.

Building the internet of the FutureHigh speed networks and tailored services are at the heart ofmaintaining European competiveness, both within the researchcommunity and in creating new economic opportunities for business,public sector and individuals. The Future Internet Initiative (FII) bringstogether government and the ICT industry. A major component of theEC’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), it funds projects and isinfluential in determining future ICT policy. GÉANT is fully involved inthe FII, endorsing the overall vision and participating in a number ofprojects including the Infinity initiative, which looks at interoperabilitybetween emerging Future Internet infrastructures.

Creating integrated researchinfrastructuresAs well as its own technology research programmes,GÉANT works closely with ESFRI, the EuropeanStrategy Forum on Research Infrastructures todevelop the scientific integration of Europe andstrengthen international outreach through accessto high quality research infrastructures.

Bioinformatics – empowering life sciencesResearch breakthroughs such asDNA sequencing have transformedlife sciences research, with datagenerated by biological experimentsnow doubling every five months.This makes distributing and sharingthese enormous volumes of datato the global user communitya major challenge.

Working together, GÉANT and its partnernetworks provide seamless, high-performancelinks between the EMBL-European BioinformaticsInstitute (EMBL-EBI) in Cambridge and scientistslocated throughout the world, enabling real-timeaccess to the world’s largest collection ofmolecular databases.

The EBI would notexist withoutGÉANT, because ourprimary goal is tocollect anddistribute biologicaldata… withoutGÉÁNT we couldnot do that.

Professor Janet Thornton,Director of EMBL-EBI and Coordinatorof ELIXIR

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Recreating the Big Bang through high energy physicsStudying elementary particles throughhigh energy physics dramaticallyimproves our understanding of theworld around us. As many of theseparticles can only be created throughhigh energy collisions, theinfrastructure needed to powerthese experiments is vast.

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’slargest scientific experiment, produces over 22petabytes of data annually. Research networks,including GÉANT, are critical components indelivering experimental data to scientistsall over the world.

We have usedthe GÉANTinfrastructurevery extensively...providing us with10Gbps directconnectionsbetween CERN and the majorinstitutes as well as a highperformance IP service that allowsus to get the data to and from thesmaller institutes around Europe.

Dr David Foster, CERN

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Real-time radio astronomy to chart the universeMankind has always been fascinatedby the stars. By simultaneouslyobserving the same region of skythrough multiple telescopes aroundthe world, the latest radio astronomytechniques provide us with the mostdetailed view yet of the universe.Sharing these enormous amounts ofobservational data previously involvedshipping disks to a single location tocompare information, makingreal-time observation impossible.

Earth Observation – saving lives throughaccurate weather forecastingMonitoring and gathering information about our planet is centralto building a better understanding of the key problems we face.New generations of real-time monitoring, such as satellite imagingand seismic probes used to address issues such as climate changeand food production are producing an ever growing deluge ofdata that needs to be distributed around multiple locations.

To forecast typhoons the Philippine weather forecasting bureau PAGASA collaborateswith its German counterpart, DWD, receiving accurate, real-time flow of meteorologicaldata. Delivered through the high capacity GÉANT and Asian TEIN3 networks, this providesvital early warning of typhoons, enabling timely evacuations that save lives.

The JIVE project uses GÉANT and other research networks to transmit data in real-time forcentral processing, allowing astronomers to chart previously unseen astronomical events.These networks will be central to the success of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA),the world’s largest telescope due to be operational in 2020.

… working withnetworks suchas GÉANT enablesus to push backthe frontiers ofastronomy.

Dr Huib Jan van Langevelde,coordinator for the EXPReS projectand director of JIVE

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This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union.The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of DANTE and can under nocircumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. BR/USR/0912

Also available in this series:

Transformingthe wayresearcherscollaborate

Deliveringuser servicesacrossborders

www.geant.net

Further Information

Go online to learn more about GÉANT andkeep up to date with the latest developments

www.twitter.com/GEANTnews

www.facebook.com/GEANTnetwork

www.youtube.com/GEANTtv