Third generation Géant network joins up European research centres

Data sharing of leading-edge research impossible without Géant

Géant's end-to-end managed 10Gbit/s connectivity makes LHC data sharing possible

The third iteration of the Géant pan-European network was announced today at a launch event in Stockholm.

The upgraded Géant will connect National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) across European states including Belgium, France and Ireland to create the Géant Service Area.

The Géant Service Area has been built and operated by the academic network provider Dante (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe) on behalf of Europe’s NRENs.

Dante claims that Géant will be the most advanced international research network in the world.

The network will be managed "end-to-end" from a Dante's network operations centre in Cambridge.

Speaking at the launch, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding said that Géant will ensure that Europe is the central hub of research and education making Europe increasingly competitive on a global scale.

She said: "Géant is also boosting collaboration between researchers on a global scale."

Géant provides advanced interconnectivity between Europe’s NRENs through 50,000km of mostly optical fibre. This gives nearly 40 million research and education users in over 8,000 institutions the ability to share vast quantities of data, and collaborate across multiple disciplines across Europe.

The Géant project, which runs until 2013, recently got funding of €93m (£84m) from the European Commission (EC) under the EU’s seventh Framework Programme, an amount matched by Europe’s (NRENs).

The project intends to upgrade its current 10Gbit/s optical fibre links to 100Gbit/s within the next three years, but without Géant, high bandwidth data sharing from Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments would be impossible.

The UK part of Géant has multi-gigabit links to Belgium, France, Ireland and Portugal.