National Research and Education Network RENAM:

actual state and perspectives

Andrei Andries, Director General, RENAM

www.renam.md

Chişinău, May 2007

1st RENAM UC – 2007National Research and Education Network

User’s Conference

14 - 15 May, 2007

RENAM network general information

RENAM network provides connectivity to:

about 5000 scientists and professors, 1000 Ph.D. students and more than 80 000 university and colleges students.

Now RENAM networking

infrastructure unites: 22 research institutes, 9 universities and 5 colleges.

RENAM infrastructure provides

connectivity to the universities

and organizations placed

in other localities of Moldova.

The network node was

realized in Balti State University,

which joins also four technical

colleges from Balti City.

RENAM network has multi-home Internet connectivity and access to the Moldovan Internet Service Provider's information exchange point, which are realized through RENAM external information exchange nodes. Main external connection is provided through direct gateway of 32 Mbps capacity to RoEduNet – Romanian NREN and consequently - to GEANT2 Trans-European Academic network. RENAM Chisinau metropolitan backbone at present has twelve nodal access points, distributed at distances of 1 to 12 km and being interconnected via fiber channels of 100 Mbps/1 Gbps capacity, E1 or xDSL technology leased channels. One network node was realized in Balti State University “A. Russo”, which joins also four technical colleges from Balti City.

RENAM network general information

Current topology of RENAM Chisinau MAN

Current topology of wireless RENAM network

Territorial and external connections of RENAM network

RENAM external channels capacity extension Increasing traffic capacity of the radio-relay cannel Chişinău – Iaşi up

to 16 Мbps and negotiation of lasing additional 16 Мbps bandwidth of the existing radio-relay cannel Chişinău – Iaşi (2005-2006);

organization of supplementary channel for INTERNET access by using resources of StarNet ISP for providing additional permanent traffic and backup facilities for RENAM network: 4Mbps (backup 8 Mbps) – 2005; 4Mbps (backup 10 Mbps) – 2006; 8Mbps (bacup 16 Mbps) - 2007;

assuring 100Mbps optical connection to the “Internet Exchange Point” of “Moldtelecom” S.A. (2005) and increasing IX access capacity up to 1 Gbps (2007);

widening bandwidth of the radio-relay cannel Chişinău – Iaşi over 32Мbps (November 2006);

Elaboration and promotion of international projects for upgrading RENAM-GEANT via RoEduNet connection by using radio-relay cannel facility and new fiber optics link Chişinău-Iaşi construction:

–    1st stage – extension of the cannel up to 155 Мbps (2007);– next stage – extension it up to 1 Gbps (2008-2009).

RENAM – RoEduNet – GEANT cooperation

In 2006 RENAM and RoEduNet signed the Agreement that indicates the stages, terms of realization and traffic exchange parameters:

The parties stipulated that they ensure that the direct Dark fiber connection will operate at data transmission not less than 1 Gbps. Full 1 Gbps capacity will be used for information exchange between RoEduNet and RENAM internal networking segments; Access for all RoEduNet and RENAM users to the local IX points in Bucharest, Iasi and Chisinau will be provided at the communication speed not less than 100 Mbps; RoEduNet ensures the following traffic exchange capacity for access to resources of the Trans-European network GEANT II for RENAM network users:

155 Mbps – de la 01.07.2007 64 Mbps – de la 01.01.2007 1 Gbps – de la 01.07.2008

External Channels Capacity Grows Dynamics

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RENAM Traffic Distribution Among Main Beneficiaries

Volumul traficului Internet (Kbps) N/o Denumirea instituţiei

2004 2005 2006 2007

1. Academia de Ştiinţe 960 1728 2720 6144

2. Universitatea de Stat 2176 2560 4096 6144

3. Universitatea Tehnică 1024 2048 3072 5120

4. Universitatea de Medicină si Farmacie 256 1024 3072 5376

5. Academia de Studii Economice 768 2048 3072 4608

6. Universitatea Pedagogică de Stat - 256 512 1024

7. Universitatea Agrară de Stat - 640 1024 2048

8. Universitatea A. Russo din Bălţi - - 1024 1536

The RENAM Association’s activities have as the principal purpose the continuous development of communication and information infrastructure for the scientific and educational community, as well as for hospitals, museums, libraries and other non-profit organizations in Moldova.

Main directions of future activity can be systemized as following:

External connections development and participation in international and regional projects;

Wide installation of “Dark Fiber” (DF) links for transferring principal arterial RENAM network connections to new technological basis. The central, mostly overloaded traffic exchange highways proposed to be realized by means of DF optic communication media and creation multi Gbit Ethernet technology fiber segments.

Implementation of xWDM communication technology in optical Chisinau MAN backbone taking in account the necessity to implement in near future 2,5-10 Gbps Ethernet connections.

Chisinau & Belti MAN backbones infrastructure development New territorial links construction.

Increasing the capacity of the existing Radio-relay link to Iasi up to 155 Mbps that will be used as supplementary and back-up connection to RoEduNet (2007).

The second stage includes the fibre optics link construction to Romania (Chisinau – Iasi, 2007-2009);

The third stage assumes to build connection to the Ukraine through the Eastern border (2009).

External connections development plan:

RENAM-RoEduNet Fiber Optic Channel Construction: channel topology detailed map

Coarse WDM (CWDM): Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM) combines

up to 16 wavelengths onto a single fiber. CWDM technology uses an ITU standard 20nm spacing between the wavelengths, from 1310nm to 1610nm. With CWDM technology, since the wavelengths are relatively far apart (compared to DWDM), the transponders are generally not very expensive.

RENAM-RoEduNet Fiber Optic Channel Construction: expected technology

The “Porta Optica Study” is an European Commission co-funded Specific Support Activity project, with the ultimate goal of the stimulation and consolidation of initiatives to ensure the successful, dark-fiber based research network deployment in the Eastern Europe, including Republic of Moldova, Baltic states and Southern Caucasus regions.

EC “Porta Optica Study” project

Building infrastructure by RENAM

MAN backbone development:

Extension of dark fibre network in Chisinau City that will cover all municipal districts where research and education institutions are located (there are about 20 km of DF links in the city at present and there will be 50 km of DF links until the end of year 2008);

Finalizing installation of wireless backbone links that are used for connecting far situated campuses and are simultaneously playing a connection backup role that complements existing DF and leased telephone lines connections;

Putting in operation 5 GHz Wireless access points for connecting small size corporate LANs, individual and mobile users.

Perspective technologies for RENAM networking infrastructure implementation

The necessity of implementation of modern educational systems and applications, new learning technologies deployment requires to increase the capacity of internal and external communication links, communication equipment possibilities and introducing new communication technologies having high degree of Quality of Service (QoS) parameters.

The accumulated experience and existing international recommendations for NREN infrastructure development clearly indicate that Dark Fiber links construction is the most effective and for a long time living solution that allows permanent and scalable upgrading the connection capacity. During network development projects realization in 2002-2006 various fiber optic technologies were examined. Actual decision now relies on wide used fiber technologies like multi Gbit Ethernet that may be considered as the most effective and flexible technology for IP based networks. Currently the network development focused on creation of fiber optics backbone having nodes linked by dark fiber medium and utilizing multi Gbit Ethernet switching and routing equipment.

IPv6 Services

GRID Applications

User support service Helpdesk (Ticketing System)

Mailing Lists Management

Web Hosting Instrumental Support

Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT)

Video Conferencing

Public Key Infrastructure

Video web casting

IP Telephony and VoIP Services

Video On Demand

New services for RENAM users community

The gradual deployment of broadband networks throughout the research community and the fact that network capacity grows with much greater rate than CPU power and storage capacity (Moore’s Law vs. Storage improvements vs. Optical improvements) have led to the creation of a distributing environment for sharing resources known as the Grid paradigm. This integrated networking & middleware environment is also called e-Infrastructure. The technologies of the Grid-enabled e-Infrastructure, which are being developed around the world, allow new methods of global collaborative research – often referred to as e-Science. Inauguration and round table will be devoted to MD-GRID initiative establishment.

National MD – GRID initiative

First GRID node in Moldova: FRET UTM

MD-CERT - CERT is a center of internet security expertise, located at the RENAM, Research and Education National Association from Moldova.

It studies Internet security vulnerabilities, research long-term changes in networked systems, and develop information and training to help all network users’ community to improve security operation.

MD – CERT

http://cert.acad.md/

The current program of QoS services deployment in RENAM network is envisages the following priority actions:

– Implementation and providing support of world-wide videoconferencing

service for the higher education and research community. This technology

would be implemented in cooperation TERENA Task Force Videoconference

Service Studies (TF-VSS) that is rendering to RENAM accumulated know-

how experience;

– VoIP/IP telephony services deployment. This activity realization program is

supposing close cooperation with RENAM members’ LANs and campus

networks administration that mean integration of their telephony facilities in

common R&E networking infrastructure. ;

– Video on demand service and associated protocols installation. Now these

are standard tools for modern distance learning technologies realization.

The mentioned tools are activity introducing in close cooperation with

PIONEER project staff that successfully implemented this technology in

Polish NREN

Multimedia technologies implementation

– Implementation the universal system of the network operation

monitoring, billing of the network resources consuming and

resources allocation management. For these services realization

commercial software packages like NetFlow and Checkpoint are

planning to be adopted, as well as facilities that are elaborating by

TERENA within LOBSTER project. The main goal of LOBSTER

project is to deploy an advanced pilot European Internet Traffic

Monitoring Infrastructure based on passive monitoring sensors at

various data transfer speeds.

– Installation of NetFlow based tools for floods detection and

blocking of all external connections operating in RENAM network;

– Coordination floods control with RoEduNet security tools operating

in RoEduNet Iasi node;

Network monitoring and control technologies

Plans of new security technologies implementation and security policy development in RENAM network

Access control technologies

(Boundary protection; Authentication; Authorization)

System integrity technologies (Antivirus software; Integrity checkers)

Cryptography technologies

(Digital signatures and certificates; Virtual private networks)

Audit and monitoring technologies

(Intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems; Security event correlation

tools; Computer forensics tools)

Configuration management and assurance systems

(Policy enforcement applications Network management; Continuity of operations

tools; Scanners; Patch management )

Conclusions

The necessity to shift toward new perspective networking technologies and services, implementation of modern educational systems and research applications deployment requires to increase the capacity of internal and external communication links, communication equipment possibilities and introducing new communication technologies having high degree of Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. These challenges suggest implementation of modern solutions that can satisfy the rising community needs.

RENAM network is permanently adopting new communication technologies and ready to provide comprehensive set of networking services.