Tenfold connectivity increase between Ukraine and European research and education network

The research and education (R&E) communities in Ukraine will be better able to exchange and collaborate with their peers from around the world, following a tenfold increase in speed in the network link between Ukraine and the GÉANT pan-European R&E network.

By upgrading this link from 1 to 10 Gigabits per second in June 2017, the EU-funded Eastern Partnership Connect (EaPConnect) project and its Ukrainian partner URAN are fulfilling the goal of bringing a world-class R&E network to Eastern Partnership countries, in line with the European Neighbourhood policy that supports increased interconnectivity and economic development for the European Union and its neighbours.

The upgraded link between Ukraine and the GÉANT pan-European network is based on services provided by RETN (UK) and includes the following features:

• a protected lambda service Kiev-Vienna – 10 Gbps
• a protected ‘local tail’ in Kiev that provides good quality and high-availability service for URAN.

Opportunities for development and collaboration

This improved connectivity enhances the collaborative capabilities of researchers within the Eastern Partnership countries – Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Georgia – and allows them to participate in global research collaborations.

Researchers from Eastern Partnership countries will have the opportunity to explore how R&E networks and other e-infrastructures can support their work during the 2nd Eastern Partnership E-infrastructures Conference (EaPEC 2017), which will be hosted by UIIP NASB (BASNET) in Minsk on 27-28 September. The event will feature a keynote speaker from the Human Brain Project, presentations from the second regional Enlighten Your Research awards, and a focus on research and e-infrastructures for open science. Information and registration: https://www.eapconnect.eu/eapec/

“This new connection with significantly higher bandwidth is wonderful because it allows new possibilities for Ukrainian researchers in high-energy physics and biomedicine. For example, the Kharkiv physical technical research institute has new possibilities to exchange data with the CERN Hadron Supercollider over the special science logical network LHCONE: firstly, we increased the speed of exchange more than twice and secondly reached the long-awaited quality of the channel – the percentage of packet loss is less than 10-8. And another interesting result – the speed of access from the National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery to medical databases increased several times due to connecting via the 10 Gbps link.” Volodymyr Galagan, Executive Director of URAN

“It is an honour for us to win GÉANT’s approval and to continue our cooperation, providing international network services and 24/7 technical support underpinned by an infrastructure based on the most up to date technology. We are certainly ready to support GÉANT’s strategic developments in the future and are looking forward to doing so.” Andrey Gazizov, RETN’s CTO in Europe

“The world needs greater understanding in all kinds of fields, such as seismology, climate change, biomedical sciences or high-energy physics. GÉANT is proud to support the ability of Ukrainian researchers to contribute their talents and expertise to such global collaborations, and to facilitate the growth of those talents and expertise within their country and the Eastern Partnership region.” Erik Huizer, CEO of GÉANT