Completed international projects

AARC2 – Authentication and Authorisation For Research and Collaboration
Period: 05/2017–04/2019

Programme: H2020

The goal of AARC is to address technical and functional gaps that prevent the interoperability of existing R&E AAIs.

GN4-2 (SGA2-GEANT2020) – Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA)
Period: 05/2016–12/2018

Programme: H2020-EINFRA-2014-2, EINFRA-2016-2017

GÉANT communications infrastructure currently makes network services available to approximately 40 million users at more than 3,500 institutions in 38 European countries. The connectivity provided includes connection of European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) via GÉANT with similar networks such as the Internet2 and ESnet in the USA, the CANARIE in Canada and networks on other continents. The seven years framework project GÉANT2020 was launched in May 2015.

GN4-2 was the ongoing second phase of the GEANT2020 project. The project was a follow-up on the implementation defined in the framework agreement (FPA) made between the GÉANT Consortium and the European Commission in April 2015 for a period of 68 months. The project objective was to develop a pan-European communications infrastructure for GÉANT R&D and to follow up on the implementation of the project GA4-1.

8K Studio over IP bridge (8KSVIP)
Period: 06/2016–09/2018

Programe: Eurostars-2

The project objective was to create blocks for economic connection of networks and SDI type video interfaces for devices working at the 8K (UHD-2) resolution. The project outcomes would enable creation of products for 8K video with high video quality and low latency using implementations of JPEG2000 and TICO type codecs.

BEBA (Behavioural-Based Forwarding)
Period: 01/2015–03/2017

Programme: H2020-ICT-05-2014

BEBA’s goal was to entail platform-agnostic programming of stateful flow/traffic processing logic directly within network nodes, thus rescinding the today’s necessary reliance on external (slow-path) controllers. Moreover, BEBA was provided the programmers with the ability to control, via the above stateful behavioral descriptions, an extended set of actions and primitives specifically devised for the monitoring and network security domain, so as to permit platform-agnostic programming of middlebox-type network functions.

Digital restoration of Czech film heritage
Period: 08/2014–04/2016

Programme: Norské fondy

The objective of the project is to digitise and restore ten Czech archive films using new networking technologies. The film restoration process can be made more efficient and faster using the remote supervision method for retouching and colour corrections, first tested by CESNET in recent years. CESNET’s role consists in the provision of systems and know-how for video transmission in film quality and making available high-speed and high-capacity data storage for transmissions between the contractor and the NFA.

GN4-1 (SGA1-GEANT2020) – Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA)
Period: 05/2015–04/2016

Pprogramme: H-2020- EINFRA-8-2014

GÉANT communications infrastructure currently makes network services available to approximately 40 million users at more than 3,500 institutions in 38 European countries. The connectivity provided includes connection of European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) via GÉANT with similar networks such as the Internet2 and ESnet in the USA, the CANARIE in Canada and networks on other continents. The seven years framework project GÉANT2020 was launched in May 2015.

During the project’s initial 12-month phase, CESNET was most notably participating in tasks related to the establishment of a testing environment, measured to ensure network security, the provision of cloud services within European infrastructure and the deployment of AAI.

XIFI (eXperimental Infrastructures for Future Internet)
Period: 04/2014 – 09/2015

Programme: FP7-ICT EU

Its task was to build a pan-European XIFI infrastructure based on the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) principle. It was the major experimental platform of FIWARE Lab to test outputs known as the Future Internet. Interconnection of nodes distributed across Europe was provided by the GÉANT R&E backbone.

NEAT-FT (Network for European Accurate Time and Frequency Transfer)
Period: 2012–2015
The joint NEAT-FT research project was deal with the accuracy and stability of time and frequency transfer required in metrology. It develops methods of optical link use for comparison of optical atomic clocks, the most stable frequency source developed thus far. The time transfer accuracy ranges from 10 to 100 ps over a distance of 1,000 km.
CHAIN-REDS (Co-ordination and Harmonisation of Advanced e-Infrastructures for Research and Education Data Sharing)
Period: 2012–2015
The project objective was to promote and support technological and scientific collaboration of various e-infrastructures based and operated on different continents. It aims at defining the path towards a global e-infrastructural ecosystem, which will enable the scientific community and research teams to access and effectively use distributed sources such as data services, storage areas, tools and applications world-wide.
GN3plus—Multi-Gigabit European Academic Network
Period: 2013–2015
The goal of the GN3 project was to develop next-generation European backbone infrastructure fulfilling the needs of scientists, researchers and educators. Main focus was given to ad hoc infrastructures (grids) built for the purposes of particular applications, to the user mobility in so cold European Research Area (ERA), and to support dedicated high-quality end-to-end interconnections.
ORIENTplus
Period: 2011–2014
The project ORIENTplus continued the project Orient implemented in 2007 – 2010. The purpose of the project is to maintain and further develop the infrastructure between GÉANT and China, link the European and Chinese scientists.
EGI InSPIRE—Integrated Sustainable Pan-European Infrastructure for Researchers in Europe
Period: 2010–2014
The EGI InSPIRE project aimed to further develop the pan-European grid infrastructure built by the EGEE project series. Its partners were the National Grid Initiatives from nearly all European countries. The project boosted the performance of grid infrastructure and provided support for users and applications. Research activities (which are suppressed in this project) dealed with the development of tools simplifying the usage of grid infrastructure.
EMI—European Middleware Iniative
Period: 2010–2013
Goal of the EMI project was the development of middleware components for the EGI grid and another computational infrastructures.
CHAIN—Co-ordination & Harmonisation of Advanced e-INfrastructures
Period: 2010–2012
The goal of this project is to interconnect EGI grid with grid infrastructures in Asia, Latin America and Africa. EU supported (or supports yet) particular projects in above-mentioned regions to establish EGI-compatible infrastructures. CHAIN strives to integrate them closer and to enable real global cooperation of scientific teams.
OSIRIS—Towards an Open and Sustainable ICT Research Infrastructure Strategy
Period: 2010–2011
The OSIRIS project is a platform for the coordination of research initiatives development in the ICT field. It strives to collaborate efficiently by creation of international European ICT infrastructures.
EGEE III – Enabling Grids for E-sciencE III
Period: 2008–2010
EGEE III project developed the original goals of the EGEE and EGEE II project – creation of stable grid infrastructure based mainly on clusters of available computers (IA-32, IA-64 or AMD64 CPU architecture, Linux operating system and large data storage). The project focused on operational aspects, research was reduced.
We worked on the middleware development, namely on further development of task monitoring and presentation of its status to the user. We maintained the user education and application support. We operated secondary regional operational centre (ROC) of the grid.
EUAsiaGRID
Period: 2008–2010
Heart of the project was dissemination of the gLite grid middleware developed in the EGEE project series in Asia. Participating sites were located in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Australia. CESNET led application support and participated in the analysis and user education.
FEDERICA – Federated E-infrastructure Dedicated to European Researchers Innovating in Computing network Architectures
Period: 2008–2010
FEDERICA project served european researchers requiring to test new computer network architectures and communication protocols. Complete infrastructure of the project was highly virtualised to eliminate mutual influences of the experiments.
CESNET belonged to the core of FEDERICA infrastructure and participated in the research too – we developed a monitoring system to keep track of the infrastructure and present its status to the users.
GN2 – Multi-Gigabit European Academic Network
Period: 2004–2009
GN2 was a follow-up of the GÉANT project. There was significant shift in the communication network paradigm—previous generations of Europen backbone leased transmission services, GN2 deployed the CEF (Customer Empowered Fibre network) approach. It leased dark fibres and deployed own equipment. Our influence on this decision was indispensable.
Core of the GÉANT2 network used DWDM technology and provided n×10 Gbps. GN2 project incorporated quite wide research, where we participated mainly in the measurement, security, new services development, testing and mobility.
EGI_DS – European Grid Initiative – Design Study
Period: 2007–2009
The goal of EGI_DS was to specify requirements of establishing a long-term sustainable European grid infrastructure and perform initial steps towards implementation of this design. Essential principles were described int the EGI Blueprint. In the implementation phase, national grid initiatives (NGI) wer established in participating countries and started to collaborate on creation of the European infrastructure.
CESNET participated in the development of proposals and documents. In 2009, CESNET was acredited by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic to become NGI of the Czech Republic. In our NGI role, we participated in the EGI Council and collaborated on the praparation of follow-up projects and initiatives.
PHOSPHORUS
Period: 2006–2009
PHOSPHORUS project developed and implemented arhitecture to use networking resources in a heterogenous environment. Its main result was the G2MPLS software to control routing and signalling protocols which enabled collaboration of devices manufactured by various vendors.
We contributed by offering a testbed and CzechLight optical devices including its adaptation. We also participated in the development and deployment of NDL (Network Description Language) to describe network infrastructures.
ORIENT
Period: 2006–2009
ORIENT project established high-quality interconnection between Chinese research and educational networkts and their European counterparts. CESNET role was quite small, we applied our experience in optical technologies.
EGEE II – Enabling Grids for E-sciencE II
Period: 2006–2008
Continuation of the EGEE project focused on the diversification of the constructed grid infrastructure. Motivation for the establishment of European grid were experiment in physics performed in CERN. EGEE II satisfied more communities requiring high-performance computational and data storage systems.
Besides continuing activities from the first phase (development and deployment of tools for task monitoring, user and application support), we were responsible for the Grid Incident Response team for the middle Europe which virtual organisation we managed.
Ithanet
Period: 2007–2008
Topic of the Ihanet project was the usage of information and communication technology for hematologists, geneticists and molecular biologists dealing with thalasemia and related hemoglobinopathies in Mediterranean area. We applied our experience in remote collaboration tools and provided a common communication infrastructure.
EuroCareCF – European Coordination Action for Research in Cystic Fibrosis
Period: 2007
Project coordinated scientific and clinical research in cystic fibrosis and related diseases. Besides medical topics, it encompased also remote collaboration tools. We participated in this area.
Porta Optica Study
Period: 2006–2007
Project supported development of dark-fibre based high-speed research and educational networks in countries of Eastern Europe, Baltic countries and Southers Caucasus. It mapped local situation, prepared case studies and disseminated the results in supported countries.
CESNET participated in mapping of available optical infrastructure in supported countries and in making case studies.
LOBSTER
Period: 2004–2007
LOBSTER used monitoring tools developed by the SCAMPI project, developed them and used them to build a large-scale monitoring infrastructure covering Europe and non-European computer networks.
Our main development task was the data anonymisation subsystem for which we used COMBO6 cards with the hardware acceleration of developed algorithms.
EGEE – Enabling Grids for E-sciencE
Period: 2004–2006
EGEE project build on the results of DataGrid project and continued the development. It established a Europe-wide grid (70 partners from almost all Eropean countries participated) connected to corresponding infrastructures in the world (U.S., Japan, Korea). It focused on stability and reliability of the infrastructure which became a real tool to solve demanding scientific tasks.
We participated mainly in the development of tools to monitor and manage tasks. Basides this, we were involved in the user education and application support. CESNET was responsible for establishing and operation of virtual organisation for Middle Europe.
SEEFIRE – South-East Europe Fibre Infrastructure for Research and Education
Period: 2005–2006
SEEFIRE supported the development of research and educational networks in South-East Europe by the design and dissemination of suitable technology and organisation. The results were applied in many more areas—Baltic countries, Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, Mediterranean area and South-East Africa.
We participated mainly in the fieald of optical technology and dark fibre equipment.
SCAMPI – A Scaleable Monitoring Platform for the Internet
Period: 2002–2005
SCAMPI project focused on the monitoring of high-speed networks. Its goal was to develop a monitoring adapter for bandwidth up to 10 Gbps, an open monitoring architecture and tools for monitoring of various attacks or security incidents.
We participated in all aread of the project. Originally, our contribution should be in the experimantal evaluation (we led this workgroup), but then we played an important role in the design of monitoring adapter. We used our inhouse-designed COMBO6 card for this purpose.
GÉANT
Period: 2000–2004
GÉANT was the third in series of projects developing European backbone for research and education. Its goal was to increase bandwidth to the gigabit order of magnitude. Original intent expected initial bandwidth of 1 or 2.5 Gbps which should be increased later, but the rapid development of communication technology and strong concurrency enabled to deploy 10 Gbps in the first phase of the project.
Czech Republic became part of the network core during the launch of first generation of the GÉANT network in 2001. We followed the European infrastructure by the CESNET2 national backbone which also offered gigabit bandwidth.
6NET
Period: 2002–2004
Goal of the 6NET project was to establish a large international network using the IPv6 network protocol. Practical experience gained by the creation of operation of this network were published. Thanks to the participation in 6NET, we brought first international native IPv6 line into the Czech Republic.
Ou engagement consisted mainly in development of open hardware-accelerated IPv6 router (Liberouter).
DataGrid
Period: 2001–2003
Led by CERNu, 20 partners aimed to create a large computational and storage infrastructure to evaluate results of expected experiments performed on new CERN facilities.
Besides participating in the infrastructure, we collaborated on the development especially in the resource planning and management, logging service and security.
QUANTUM—QUAlity Network Technology for User Oriented Multi-Media
Period: 1998–2000
QUANTUM followed the preceding TEN-34 project. It focused on further development of the built backbone infrastructure, provide higher bandwidth and new quality of service. It established an ATM-base network named TEN-155 with the bandwidth of 155 Mbps and guaranteed quality of service (QoS).
Besides network operations, the project encompassed many research tasks. CESNET participated in both areas. TEN-155 CZ backbone network was caused in the Czech Republic with parameters corresponding to the European infrastructue.
TEN-34
Period: 1996–1998
TEN-34 European project aimed to provide to Eropean reseacr and academic institutions a computer network comparable to the NSFNET in U.S. It was a response to disconsolate situation in Europe where fading telecommunication monopolies kept prices of communication lines very high. In consequence, common network bandwidth in Europe was an order of manitude lower than in U.S. at that time.
As a result, TEN-34 European research and educational backbone was established. It was an ATM-based network offering the 34 Mbps bandwidth. The Czech republic was—thanks to CESNET—the only country from the former Eastern Bloc participating in the project. Our national infrastructure named TEN-34 CZ carried similar features. It was created as a result of the TEN-34 CZ project funded by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. It was the first network built by CESNET as a separate organisation.

Last change: 22.5.2019