mren
Home page
Objectives
Activities
Organization
Projects
Contact
Links

MREN services

MREN CA
MREN CERT
Campus Best Practices
eduroam
eduGAIN

MREN GREEN ICT

Environmental Policy

MREN GRID

Montenegro grid initiative

 

 

Projects

 

Projects in progress:

VI-SEEM
VI-SEEM is a three-year project that aims at creating a unique Virtual Research Environment (VRE) in Southeast Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean (SEEM), in order to facilitate regional interdisciplinary collaboration, with special focus on the scientific communities of Life Sciences, Climatology and Digital Cultural Heritage.

VI-SEEM builds on the success of its predecessor e-Infrastructure projects that have been crucial for enabling high-quality research & ICT developments by providing networking and computational resources, application support and training, in both South East Europe and Eastern Mediterranean, and have supported the European vision of inclusive and smart growth, based on knowledge and innovation, enriching the European Research Area.

The project unifies existing e-Infrastructures into an integrated platform to better utilize synergies, for an improved service provision within a unified Virtual Research Environment to be provided to scientific communities of high impact in the combined South East Europe and Eastern Mediterranean region.

VI-SEEM will significantly leverage and strengthen the research capacities of user communities, thus improving research productivity and competitiveness on the pan-European level. Joining, sharing and exploiting the resources across the SEEM region in a common platform will ensure continuity and expansion of the available resources and services that will further propel excellence across the region.

Objectives:

  • Provide scientists with access to state of the art e-Infrastructure – computing, storage and connectivity resources – available in the region; and promote the inclusion of additional resources.
  • Integrate the underlying e-Infrastructure layers with generic / standardized as well as domain-specific services for the region. The latter are leveraging on existing tools with additional features being co-developed and co-operated by the Scientific Communities and the e-Infrastructure providers, thus proving integrated Virtual Research Environments.
  • Promote capacity building in the region and foster interdisciplinary approaches.
  • Provide functions to facilitate data management for the selected Scientific Communities, engage the full data management lifecycle, link data across the region, and provide data interoperability across disciplines.
  • Provide adequate user support and training programs for the user communities in the SEEM region.
  • Bring high level expertise in e-Infrastructure utilization to enable research activities of international standing in the selected fields of Climatology, Life Sciences and Cultural Heritage.

GN4 Phase 1
The GÉANT Project's GN4 Phase 1 (GN4-1) is a 12-month project beginning 1 May 2015, and ending 30 April 2016. As part of the GÉANT2020 Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA), it is funded by the European Union’s Horizon2020, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020). GN4-1 is the first step of a new phase in providing a stable, yet highly innovative, environment for the growth of GÉANT as the European Communications Commons for the European Research Area, providing the best possible digital infrastructure to ensure Europe remains in the forefront of research and other knowledge endeavours. Close cooperation with other European e-infrastructure providers and large scientific projects generating vast volumes of data (e.g. ESFRI projects, CERN) will ensure the unique challenges of this dynamic community are met.

The GÉANT Project is a truly pan-European collaboration between 38 partners: 35 European NRENs, GEANT Limited (Project Coordinator), GÉANT Association and NORDUnet (representing the five Nordic countries).
There are over 250 project participants from across the NREN partners, and through the partners, GÉANT delivers a range of services across the network for institutions, projects and researchers.

The work of the project is divided into 15 activities within three areas of work: research; service development and delivery; outreach and coordination.

  • Networking Activities (NAs) support all GN4-1 activities with the full extent of both internal and external communications, promotion, international liaison and business development.
  • Development Service Activities (SAs) develop the GÉANT services for the research and education community.
  • Production & Security Service Activities (SAs) provide the GÉANT services for the research and education community.
  • Joint Research Activities (JRAs) are targeted at critical analyses of future network and application technologies with a view to future deployment of emerging technologies across the network and services.


Completed Projects:

GN3+
Through the GN3 project, GÉANT has established itself as the reliable state-of-the-art, high-speed, international Research and Education Network working symbiotically with the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in Europe in what is sometimes termed the “GÉANT ecosystem”. Where the predecessor project, GN2, was revolutionary in its technology objectives, GN3 has been revolutionary in terms of the services developed. GN3plus will – in its limited lifetime of two years – take the services a step further, adjust the governance mechanisms and target research activities to prepare the future beyond the GN3plus project with the help of external partners.

GÉANT offers world-class global connectivity and services reaching 40,000,000 end users from more than 8,000 universities, higher education institutes, research institutes, libraries, museums, national archives, hospitals, etc. and a further 22,000 primary and secondary schools.

Through the organisations of its partners, GÉANT offers connectivity to 62 countries outside of Europe, reaching all continents through the TEIN and ORIENTplus (Asia Pacific and South Asia), EUMEDCONNECT (Mediterranean), RedCLARA (Latin America), CAREN (Central Asia), C@ribnet (Caribbean) and UbuntuNet (Southern and Eastern Africa) networks, as well as the North American Canarie, Internet2, ESnet, NISN and NLR networks. These connections, and other collaborations, make GÉANT the most widely connected Research and Education Network in the world, and have positioned Europe as a global hub and a model of excellence and collaboration.

The GÉANT service is an exemplary and stable collaboration built up over many years, during which the competencies and resources of its partners have been leveraged to achieve remarkable results. This service offers cost-effective, terabit-capacity international connectivity, robust multi-domain and multi-layer services, federated identity services with global management, video and access to data and computing, independently of a user’s geographical access point. The European scientific and education community greatly benefits from this every day.

The GÉANT production network is operated by DANTE (the coordinating partner of the GN3plus project), and is constantly updated both technologically and with services and support adapted to the evolving needs of the research and education community. It controls 12,000 km of recently acquired (in the GN3 project) optical fibre to ensure the international connectivity required with at least 99.999% availability expected and constant monitoring. The GN3 project has also installed leading-edge optical switches with terabit switching capacity to provide very fast access to vast amounts of data on demand – with guaranteed performance.

With nearly all scientific disciplines now depending on ever-increasing volumes of data for their research (the “data deluge”), more sustained effort is needed to maintain and secure this position for the benefit of European society as a whole. Global scientific collaborations are created around new instruments (physics, astronomy, biology, etc.), generating huge amounts of data to be accessed and analysed, and using computing facilities that may be based in other locations.

The GN3plus project is proposed by 41 partners: 38 are National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and three – DANTE, TERENA and NORDUnet (representing the five Nordic countries) – are international organisations created by NRENs with the aim of ensuring optimal collaboration, exchange of experience and cost-efficient joint international connectivity procurement. All told the project represents 43 NRENs from Europe and nations with FP7 third country agreements.


The key GN3plus Activities directed at the future are as follows:

  • Explore the opportunities and challenges for research networking arising from the pervasiveness of the cloud paradigm.
  • Investigate the level at which mobility services, such as eduroam and eduGAIN, should and could be extended to mobile devices.
  • Work with the other e-infrastructure providers to the research and education community in Europe (e.g. EGI, Helix-Nebula, PRACE, EUDAT, etc.) in order to gain insight into the new networking requirements posed by cloud computing, the data deluge, HPC developments, grid computing and major data-generating scientific instruments planned for construction as part of worldwide collaborations.
  • Explore whether the considerable experience in operating high-performance and robust European and global network infrastructure and services built up through GÉANT can become an asset for national or European public services (e.g. education, health, social, etc.) outside of the research and higher education sector. Reliability, data security and protection, standards, use of cloud services (proprietary, community specific, European/national or not, etc.) for both computing and data storage are all highly relevant beyond the research and education sector.
  • Maintain the quality of the GÉANT service. This includes introducing new services and developing existing ones in depth or in breadth – a necessary task in the rapidly evolving domain of e-infrastructures for science and education.
  • GN3plus will continue the community building of the “GÉANT ecosystem” by improving and innovating in the services to the research and education community as a whole:
    • The GÉANT Plus Bandwidth on Demand (BoD) service will be rolled out to more countries as a production service available to link end to end across multiple domains, underpinned by continued work on the standardisation of the global network provisioning protocol Network Services Interface (NSI), monitoring (perfSONAR MDM) and security tools.
    • Service Level Specifications and Service Level Agreements (SLSs/SLAs) will be available for GÉANT’s BoD service, and the Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) services will be strengthened, as required.
    • The requirements for improving the regional connectivity infrastructure in areas where it can improve “digital inclusion” will be evaluated, and a federated AAI service (Federation as a Service), addressing the NRENs that do not have access to a national identity federation, will be offered.
    • A business case for a 100 Gbps upgrade to the transatlantic link will be developed with the vision of creating a “North Atlantic REN” effort with optimal coordination between all North American and European actors. If the case is compelling, the implementation will follow quickly.
    • Single sign-on capabilities will be extended beyond the current web-based solution.
    • A new “Testbeds as a Service” (TaaS), designed to facilitate disruptive network research and large-scale experiments with network technology at all levels, will be introduced. TaaS will include offering a long-haul dark fibre testbed crisscrossing Europe, for the benefit of both public and industrial research. The planned general service will contribute to the global positioning of Europe as a leading networking infrastructure provider.



GN3
The successful GÉANT network and project that lie at the heart of the EU’s e-Infrastructure strategy began a third term in April 2009, and are due to continue for four years. GÉANT is co-fundedby 34 European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and the EC under the EU's 7th R&D framework programme.

The previous GÉANT project which ended early 2009, was mainly focussed on building the high capacity network itself. Now that this infrastructure has been completed, the current GÉANT project is focussed on developing and rolling out tools and services to enable the research and education community to get the best performance possible from the network.


GÉANT’s key objectives are 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
  • Operate and expand the European backbone network, interconnecting NRENs through high bandwidth links
  • Develop and support the GÉANT Service Area, a portfolio of advanced multi-domain network support services, and provide a portfolio of end-user application services for NRENs to deliver to users to ensure seamless network performance
  • Pursue initiatives targeted at closing the “digital divide” of research and education networking in Europe and investigate emerging technologies that will help shape the future Internet. [web site]

SEERA-EI aim to ensure equal participation of the region in European networking and Grid computing trends. SEEREN initiative has established regional network and SEE-GRID the regional Grid. SEE-LIGHT project is currently establishing dark-fibre backbone in the region, and SEE-GRID-SCI empowering strategic regional user communities in common use of the eInfrastructure. Close collaboration of National Research & Education Networks and National Grid Initiatives in the region was crucial in materialising this vision. The above initiatives have also raised awareness of national ministries for the necessity of local programmes and financial support for eInfrastructures: a number of ministries have contributed to local network funding and regional interconnections, as well as national Grid programmes.

SEERA-EI will capitalise on this momentum and link national-level programme managers and provide an open forum for information exchange, in order to enable coordination of national programmes in eInfrastructures, and to set the framework for a common regional agenda. The project will gather and exchange information regarding current programmes and carry out a state-of-the-art analysis; produce set of best practices and guidelines for national eInfrastructure programmes; and identify areas for joint regional activities, ranging from short-term soft actions, mid-term policy-level actions, to preparatory activities for long-term actions.

SEERA-EI will reduce fragmentation of national programmes, create a harmonised approach to national-level initiatives in eInfrastructures, ensure local commitment, and pave the way towards common regional vision, strategy and sustainable cooperation which will give the region a common voice on European and international stage and strengthen the ERA as a whole, enabling collaborative high-quality research across a spectrum of scientific fields. [web site]

EGI-InSPIRE

The EGI-InSPIRE project (Integrated Sustainable Pan-European Infrastructure for Researchers in Europe) started on 1 May 2010, co-funded by the European Commission (contract number: RI-261323) for four years, as a collaborative effort involving more than 50 institutions in over 40 countries. Its mission is to establish a sustainable European Grid Infrastructure (EGI). 

EGI-InSPIRE is ideally placed to join together the new Distributed Computing Infrastructures (DCIs) such as clouds, supercomputing networks and desktop grids, for the benefit of user communities within the European Research Area.

EGI-InSPIRE is a consortium of 50 partners, including 37 National Grid Initiatives (NGIs), CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), EMBL (the European Molecular Biology Laboratory) and eight partners from the Asia Pacific region.

EGI Inspire link : http://www.egi.eu/projects/egi-inspire/

HP SEE

HP-SEE will support and strengthen a number of strategic Virtual Research Communities, which will bring together users across the SEE region within a common cooperative research space, enabling them to share HPC facilities, software, tools, data and results of their work. Thus, the project will directly contribute to the co-ordination of high-quality research and ease, and enhance the access and usability of the available infrastructure.

The project brings together 14 partners from the South-East European region, while more than 10 institutions have been selected to participate in the project as third parties to the consortium partners. Additionally, the involvement of scientists from the countries of the Black Sea region contributes also towards the achievement of the Black Sea Synergy Initiative aims.

The initiative builds on the lasting cooperation in the SEE region, embodied in a number of EC-funded initiatives: the SEEREN initiative has established a regional network, while the regional Grid infrastructure has been created through the SEE-GRID project; the SEE-GRID-SCI project had a catalytic effect in empowering strategic regional user communities in common use of the eInfrastructure. SEERA-EI provides an open forum for national-level programme owners in order to enable the coordination of national programmes in the field of electronic infrastructures. The Greek-sponsored SEE-LIGHT project is currently establishing dark-fibre backbone in the region.

With HP-SEE, regional scientists and engineers that will be provided with access to capability computers of leadership-class, will remain competitive at the European and international level, thus overcoming fragmentation in Europe.

HP-SEE, www.hp-see.eu

 

 

SEE-GRID-SCI (SEE-GRID eInfrastructure for regional eScience) is a 2 year project  co-funded by the European Commission, starting on 01/05/2008.
eInfrastructure in Europe has reached a mature state where the GÉANT network forms a communications backbone on top of which a distributed computing infrastructure – the Grid – provides processing and storage services for eScience research. The South-East European eInfrastructure initiatives are committed to ensuring equal participation of the less-resourced countries of the region in European trends. SEEREN initiative has established a regional network and its GÉANT connection and the SEE-GRID initiative the regional Grid.

SEE-GRID-SCI leverages the SEE eInfrastructure to enable new scientific collaborations among user communities

  • SEE-GRID-SCI stimulates widespread eInfrastructure uptake by new user groups extending over the region, fostering collaboration and providing advanced capabilities to more researchers, with an emphasis on strategic groups in seismology, meteorology and environmental protection. The initiative thus aims to have a catalytic and structuring effect on target user communities that currently do not directly benefit from the available infrastructures.
  • In parallel, it aims to enlarge the regional eInfrastructure to cater for demands of the communities by increasing the computing and storage resources and involving new partner countries in the region.
  • Finally, SEE-GRID-SCI targets to help mature and stabilise the National Grid Initiatives in the region, allowing them to join the new era of longer-term sustainable Grid infrastructure in Europe.
In longer term, SEE-GRID-SCI aspires to contribute to the stabilisation and development of South-East Europe, by easing the digital divide and stimulating eInfrastructure development and adoption by new user communities, thus enabling collaborative high-quality research across target scientific fields. [web site]

 

SEEREN2 aims at creating the next generation of the southeast European segment of GEANT, that intends to make leading-edge technologies and services available to the entire Research and Education communities and all scientific sectors without discrimination between users and sites in southeast Europe in an attempt to further ease the 'digital divide' that still separates most of the SE European countries from the rest of the continent. The central element of this infrastructure is the SE European R&E backbone network that extends, through the participating NRENs, to the end-users in all participating countries. With respect to its predecessor (SEEREN), the infrastructure will be substantially enhanced in its performance but more significantly will add a new key item to its fundamental characteristic, the consolidation of the networking and Grid infrastructures, into an eInfrastructure for SE Europe, fully integrated with the pan-European efforts (GEANT2, EGEE, SEE-GRID etc). [web site]

SEEREN2 - Research and Education network in South-East Europe (local languages)

 

SEE-GRID intends to provide specific support actions to pave the way towards the participation of the SE European countries to the Pan-European and worldwide Grid initiatives. This will be accomplished through disseminationconferences and training material including cookbooks, pilot and demonstrationtest-beds for hands-on experience, applications' adaptations to be able to use the Grid, operational and support centre schemes and organisation, and finally feasibility studies and roadmaps for the integration of the SEE to the European Research Area (ERA) via an extended Pan-European Grid infrastructure. [web site]

Press release about the SEE-GRID-2 project - kick-off meeting (English language)

Press release about the SEE-GRID-2 project - kick-off meeting (local languages)

SEE-GRID2 Newsletter no.1, 08.12.2006.

Faculties and companies mentioned below signed an Memorandum of supporting and developing GRID technologies in Montenegro as well as its implementation in scientific and research purpose

University of Montenegro
Centre of Information System - CIS
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering,
Faculty of Metallurgy and Technology,
Faculty of Natural sciences and Mathematics,
Faculty of Civil Engineering,
Institute of Marine Biology,
Faculty for information technologies, Mediterranean University

 

Hydrological and Meteorological Service of Montenegro,
T-com,
Cikom – ICT engineering, ltd,
IT Advanced Services ltd. (ITAS).

[download memorandum]