Challenges and opportunities in IP interconnecting the Med Andreas Pitsillides & Agathoclis Stylianou Cyprus Research and Academic Network (CYNET)

Background Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference of November 1995 – stressed in its economic chapter that the support for the development of the scientific and technological community of the Mediterranean partner countries, together with the upgrade and modernisation of local telecommunication infrastructure, are two pivotal elements for the success of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership. The EuroMed Net ’98 Conference ( –The 350 delegates called for the initiation of a program to support IS activities in the region, and through concrete suggestions laid the foundation stone for the EUMEDIS program. The need for IP interconnection was clearly spelled out. In February 1999 the European Commission –approved a comprehensive regional MEDA initiative for development of the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society specifically designed to reduce the region's informational and technological gap vis-à-vis the neighbouring countries. The name of this initiative is EUMEDIS (Euro- MEDiterranean Information Society).

Med Interconnection Initiative project description  EuroMedNet’98 vision Among the conference conclusions was: –Internet connectivity is a relatively scarce resource in the Mediterranean partner countries; there is virtually no direct inter- Mediterranean connectivity (between 2 Mediterranean countries), modest internal connectivity (among research centres in a given partner country) and very modest Euro-Mediterranean connectivity. –That the Commission takes necessary steps including the provision of adequate funding support from MEDA program and other sources to rapidly interconnect Euro- Mediterranean research institutes via the Internet as a necessary facilitator for application projects. Major European Information Society initiatives in this field and in particular the TEN-34/TEN-155 project could be a target of this interconnection initiative.

Interconnection project main objectives create main regional backbone infrastructure and connectivity to interconnect the 12 Third Mediterranean countries of the region, as well as provide connectivity to the TEN-34/155 Pan-European Research and Academic infrastructure. utilise and further develop existing national network management and operation service centres. provide training and education of national network management centres, to enable their collaboration with others in the region, to encourage the sharing of experience and facilities, and to offer advanced networking services so that they can support the needs of the projects.

main objectives (cont.) facilitate and accelerate collaboration between Med region and EU on projects –will enable smooth introduction of technical know how necessary for lifting and economic viability of the region and its gradual introduction in the global marketplace. facilitate and accelerate collaboration on specific projects between countries in Med –Will enable subsequent collaboration on social, cultural, and economic projects such as health, education, e-commerce, cultural heritage and tourism, earthquake crisis management, water management, solar energy etc. enhance Cultural Exchange and capitalise on richness of heritage in region, where cultural civilisation is reported to have been born, spanning over 4000 years.

Opportunities Current initiative by EC to act on the EUMEDIS strand 1 Interconnect Project –One of the main objectives of EUMEDIS is to fund the (Internet based) interconnection between the European research network and the research networks of the Mediterranean partner countries (EUMEDIS Initiative Strand one Lot 2). This inter-connectivity will not only boost the development of the Internet in each Mediterranean country, but will also create an infrastructure all around the Mediterranean region, which will transport any sort of co-operative research application developed by the partners of the Barcelona process.

Challenges Economic –As Internet connectivity is a relatively scarce resource in some of the Mediterranean partner countries, the rental of high-capacity international Internet circuits presents indeed a challenge –Current budget of 7 Million Euro to intra and inter connect the Med is hardly enough for any reasonable interconnection topology and bandwidth –Current state of regulated monopolies in some of the 12 Third Mediterranean Countries may not allow the best prices to be reached. Political –Due to the political climate of the region difficult to interconnect according to the ‘best’ (technologically speaking) topology.

Challenges (cont.) Technology  Provide a stable multi-megabit/s transport network for production- quality data communications to meet expected end-user demand resulting from the strong growth in Internet usage and emergence of new applications and service.  Be based on a multi-megabit/s (resilient) core capable of matching the aggregated need of European and Mediterranean academic and industrial researchers and the nationally available services.  Provide an environment for demonstration and validation of advanced networking applications based on new services on a sufficient scale to test and improve desirable new capabilities.  Offer a flexible and scalable access topology from all connecting countries by providing one point of presence (PoP) in the largest possible number of the 12 NRNCs.

Challenges: Technology (cont.)  Be easily accessible for research needs, on an open non- discriminatory basis, and provide access to pilot projects. The NRNC organisations shall describe and publish detailed procedures and the measures to be taken for accessing the services offered in accordance with national policies.  Include means for extensive traffic measurements. The NRNC organisations shall take measures to provide access to these data, and define terms and conditions for accessing this information, while preserving the commercial sensitivity, privacy and confidentiality.  Aid in the Global connectivity by making the interconnection network of the European and the Mediterranean partner countries a valued peering partner to other research and education networks organised nationally or collectively in broader geographic regions world-wide.

Benefits The EUMEDIS IP Interconnection Initiative –will address the limited Internet connectivity in the Mediterranean area –will foster relations between Northern and Southern scientific communities by connecting the National Research Networks (NRNs) in the partner countries (managed by the National Research network Centres – NRNCs) among themselves and also with the European backbone of NRNs (in Europe GEANT, which interconnects all the European NRNs). –will upgrade the Mediterranean partner countries overall international Internet resources –will provide a platform for the co-operative pilot projects to be launched in the framework of the EUMEDIS Strand two initiative.

Economic and Social Impact high speed interconnection of Mediterranean NRN will enhance future development in countries involved and benefit the population at large by promoting the advance of both pure and applied research, as well as improving facilities for higher education. The advanced networking services offered by new network will encourage development and deployment of (networked) multi-media applications that will permit new ways of working, teaching, and distributed collaboration between Europe and Mediterranean region. These will enhance more effective competition in global research community.

Economic and Social Impact (cont.) development of high performance communications infrastructure critical to future of Euro-Mediterranean industry, and will influence the well being of its economies in years to come. will contribute to a more rapid integration of the region towards Global Information Society, by bringing interaction between industries, citizens, research communities and government, and by creating an appropriate political and regulatory framework. advances made in scientific and industrial research will lead to improvements in quality of life through developments in diverse domains of public interest, such as medicine, environment, health, education, culture, tourism, etc., in view of the forthcoming Information Society.

Exploitation of results provide an opportunity for Euro-Med networking research community to benefit from information and know-how exchange, in the area of new networking services. contribute to the development of the Euro-Med IS, as well as the gradual introduction of the Med region to the global marketplace. allow NRNs to optimise their investment in bandwidth, providing quality of service provision to their users for a given cost. Use of new technologies will allow wider use of advanced multi-media applications and services. New generations of users will be trained in the exploitation of new communications technologies.

Exploitation of results (cont.) enable, facilitate and accelerate collaboration between the European Union and the Mediterranean region in order: –to generate new R&D issues in the Mediterranean region –to promote social, cultural and economic cohesion –to utilise and further develop existing network management –to enhance the evolution of networking in a uniform level and generate a common and unified set of services –to deploy and promote joint research projects and pilot applications

Conclusions Despite the –Social –Economic –Political –Technical challenges,  the Euro-Med region will benefit from rapidly implementing the IP Interconnection.  The EUMEDIS project can be the catalyst in the implementation of such an initiative.

Conclusions Of course, finally one wishes that peace and prosperity in the region will prevail, which in some small way has been aided by the collaboration made possible by the IP interconnection between the Med countries.