MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 RMDCN within RA VI - status and perspectives - Matteo Dell’Acqua ECMWF

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Contents l Background l RMDCN configuration l Network performance and reliability l Benefits and Developments l Future

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Background l RMDCN Steering Group was established in 1994 l ITT was issued in March 1998  Equant was selected as the provider for the RMDCN l Contract was signed in December 1998 l Service Commencement Date was 15 March 2000  Contract runs for 5 or 8 years

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 The Network l Virtual Private Network based on Frame Relay PVCs  Guaranteed bandwidth ( CIR )  Ability to take advantage of unused network capacity ( EIR )  PVC costs are in function of the CIR and the location of the end- points  No limit to the number of Sites that can be connected  No limit to the number of PVCs that can be established l TCP/IP is used as a transport protocol  Fully managed Cisco routers l Connection via a PTT access line to the in-country POP l Backup service ( ISDN, PSTN, dual access line )

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Initial Deployment - membership l Deadline to be included was 1 April 1999 l Larger than anticipated, 31 countries in total  All 17 ECMWF Member States Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey  3 ECMWF Co-operating States Hungary, Iceland and Slovenia  11 Region VI countries outside ECMWF Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Jordan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Syrian Arab Republic

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 RMDCN Configuration - 1 l Today, 32 countries + ECMWF are connected to RMDCN  Estonia was connected in December 1999  Poland was connected in February 2000  Croatia was connected in June 2000 l Syria  Regulatory issues are being resolved l Russia  Connection to UK Met Office  RMDCN Accession Agreement has been signed by Russia l Eumetsat  Connections to ECMWF and DWD by RMDCN circuits  Awaiting the approval of Eumetsat council

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 RMDCN Configuration - 2

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Reliability and Performance l Since 15 March RMDCN has been used for operational communications l Network very stable  Almost all PVCs get more than 99.5% availability  Number of problems reported to the local Help Desk is stable l Bandwidth delivered has been very good  EIR mechanism works very well and provides most PVCs with more bandwidth than requested

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Service Availability

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 RMDCN repair time

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 RMDCN performance

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Benefits - 1 l Upgrade of the GTS links and changes in the GTS configuration l Acceleration in the migration from X.25 to IP l A more flexible modernized network  New connections and changes can be easily introduced l Network is monitored by ECMWF on a 24h basis l Costs saving

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Benefits - 2 l One point of contact for the RMDCN membership  uniformity l RMDCN Operations Committee  Co-ordination between all RMDCN participants  Network performance and reliability  Members are All RTHs participating, 2 NMCs participating, WMO Secretariat and ECMWF l RMDCN Web Site  Set up by ECMWF to disseminate information on the project to the participating countries  RDT to diagnose network problems before opening a TT

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 RMDCN developments l New potential members  Countries are requesting pricing information to join the network l Some of the RTHs are considering to use the RMDCN for links to other GTS regions l Changes to the GTS architecture are likely to continue l New requests for bandwidth increases, mostly based on asymetric PVCs. l New request for Mission Critical connection.

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Future - 1 l In response to the ITT, only Frame Relay solutions were offered l Large IP networks are being built by network suppliers for Extranet and intranet applications l Quality of service is becoming available for IP l More and more fibre networks are being built l New satellite communication networks are planned

MD RMDCN within RA VI – status and perspectives CBS/ET-IMTN, June 2001 Future - 2 l An all-IP solution  With higher link speed  With features such as IP multi-casting  With QOS to guarantee end-to-end traffic l Pilot an IP/VPN solution l Investigate the use of Internet VPN for backup