NREN and other e-Infrastructures

This section is devoted to the link to NREN and other e-Infrastructure providers that cooperate with the DC-NET project.

What is an NREN?

NRENs are National Research and Education Networks. An NREN is responsible, on a national basis, for the provision of data communications networks and services to the research and education community of its country. The NREN network typically connects other networks at regional or metropolitan level. Look at the list of national NRENs and see if it exists in your country.

What is GEANT?

The GÉANT network is the fast and reliable pan-European communications infrastructure serving Europe's research and education community. Co-funded by European National Research & Education Networks (NRENs) and the EC, the GÉANT network and project (also known as GN3) is entering its third generation, along with associated development activities. GÉANT's core objective is to deliver real value and benefit to society by enabling research communities across Europe, and the world, to transform the way they collaborate on ground-breaking research. 

What is TERENA?

It is the Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association that offers a forum to collaborate, innovate and share knowledge in order to foster the development of Internet technology, infrastructure and services to be used by the research and education community.
TERENA is first and foremost a collaborative organisation. Its core business is to bring together managers, technical specialists and other people in the research networking community with their counterparts from other countries in Europe, mobilising the expertise and experience of hundreds of professionals in the research and education networking area. Many of the people who participate in TERENA task forces, projects, conferences or workshops are not employees of TERENA member organisations but work in the wider research networking community, for example, in universities, research institutes or in industry.  

What is DANTE?

DANTE has been delivering pan-European research networks since 1993. It is the only organisation of its kind and was created by Europe's National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) for the specific purpose of providing pan-European research networks on their behalf. It has a track record of success - four generations of pan-European research networks. It has repeatedly been the managing partner in projects receiving co-funding from the European Commission. Its staff collectively have unparalleled knowledge and experience of European research networking.

What is EGI?

The European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) enables access to computing resources for European scientists and researchers from all fields of science, from High Energy Physics to Humanities.

Iis a federation of resource providers set up to deliver sustainable, integrated and secure computing services to European researchers and their international partners.

EGI is composed of a small central coordinating body (called the EGI.eu) and National Grid Initiatives (NGIs).

What are NGIs?

National Grid Initiatives (NGIs) performing the following tasks: Authentication of individual users as the people they claim to be; Allocation of project or discipline collaboration members to Virtual organisations (VOs) where resources are shared; Allocation of computing resources to those VOs which VO members will be authorized to use; Authorization of VOs to run computing jobs, store and retrieve data on individual computing resources (machines, data centres, facilities, etc.);  Distribution and scheduling of computing jobs, workflows, data retrieval and access requests to authorized computing resources; Monitoring of the jobs submitted, processed, and the data stored by individuals; Accounting of users and VO in their allocations and usage of computing resources; Reporting to each NGI of their allocation of resources to VOs, and the use of those resources by individual users, in order to enable the NGI and the national funding bodies to account for the use of funds in terms of the research results produced by VOs; Coordinated management of software updates and hardware upgrades while maintaining a continuous service.

The NGI in each member state needs to support these functions so that it can interact with EGI. The activities of the NGIs are not limited to the tasks that each NGI performs at national level to maintain its infrastructure, but extend to international tasks that allow the sharing of IT resources in a robust and transparent way and the support of the international application communities.

Look at the list of national NGIs and see if it exists in your country.

 

Which are the relationships between DC-NET and these initiatives?

DC-NET has signed a Memorandum of understanding with some of these organisations. This signature represents the starting point for integrated research, shared policies and high quality implementations.