Grid5000:Network

The network infrastructure of Grid'5000 is provided by RENATER

Grid'5000 users, for more information please consult Network_interlink#Renater4

Presentation

RENATER is the French National Telecommunication Network for Technology, Education and Research. More information can be found on our web site: http://www.renater.fr

RENATER offers about 30 POPs (Points Of Presence) in France, at least one POP for each region, on which are connected metropolitan and regional networks. More than 600 sites (Universities, Research Centers, ..) are interconnected through RENATER.

The actual phase of the network is RENATER-4, the deployment has been completed by November 2005.

The "standard" architecture is based on 2,5Gbit/s leased lines and provides IP transit connectivity, interconnection with GEANT-2 (http://www.geant2.net/), overseas territories and the SFINX (Global Internet exchange).

Grid5000 project

Initial design

The initial design of Grid'5000 sites interconnection has been adressed within the RENATER backbone using a Ethernet Over MPLS (EoMPLS) solution. It is a full mesh topology based on MPLS tunnels (LSPs) established between the RENATER POPS on which are connected the Grid'5000 sites. In practice sites are interconnected through 1Gbit/s VLANs.

Dark fibre

RENATER-4 also introduced a dark fibre infrastructure allowing to allocate dedicated 10Gbit/s "lambdas" for specific research projects. It also provides interconnection with GEANT-2 (see picture above), with increased capacity compared to GEANT-1 and dedicated interconnection for projects.

This new infrastructure is still under deployment (April 2006) and Grid'5000 sites are connected to it, one by one, as soon as it becomes available on the local POP. With the dark fibre infrastructures, Grid'5000 sites will see each others inside the same VLAN (10Gbit/s).

Current state

The picture above shows the current state of the architecture (along with the maximun number of lambdas that can be allocated on each link).

Sites connection

Inside the RENATER POPs, Grid'5000 sites are directly connected to the switches, by-passing the routers which are used for "standard" IP traffic (and Grid'500 sites that are still using the EoMPLS initial solution).

Metrology

You can find the metrology done on Grid5000 by Renater on the Network_interlink#Renater4 section.

(November, 20 2006) grid5000@renater.fr