Grid5000:Network

Grid'5000 backbone network infrastructure

Renater's WDM infrastructure

Grid'5000 backbone network infrastructure is provided by RENATER

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

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

The actual phase of the network is RENATER-5, the deployment has been completed by January 2009.

The "standard" architecture is based on 10Gbit/s dark fibers and provides IP transit connectivity, interconnection with GEANT-2 (http://www.geant2.net/), overseas territories and the SFINX (Global Internet exchange).

For more information on the Grid5000 Backbone Network Architecture, please check the Network_interlink page.

Grid5000 project

10Gbps lambda activated for Grid'5000 in Renater's Dark Fiber infrastructure

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 used to be full mesh topology based on MPLS tunnels (LSPs) established between the RENATER PoPs on which are connected the Grid'5000 sites. Sites were interconnected through 1Gbit/s VLANs.

Dark fibre

RENATER-4 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. RENATER-5 has enhanced the dark fiber infrastructure and all Grid'5000 sites are now connected to it (Bordeaux and Orsay were missing from it in RENATER-4).

With the dark fibre infrastructure, Grid'5000 sites will see each others inside the same VLAN at 10Gbit/s speed (with very few bottlenecks).

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.

Monitoring and Metrology

You can find the monitoring and metrology done on Grid5000 by Renater and the Grid5000 staff on the Network_interlink#Monitoring section.

Grid'5000 sites network infrastructure

Sites Interconnection

Every Grid'5000 site has a specific network hardware and configuration. The schema below presents an overview of the network infrastructure for all sites..

(click on the image to get the high resolution picture).

High speed network technologies

Grid'5000 features both Myrinet and Infiniband network infrastructures (See high speed networks availability).