Géant, Europe’s collaboration on e-infrastructure and services for research and education, and operator of the network that interconnects Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), has extended its 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network into data centres.
Initial connectivity is being provided to Jisc, the UK organisation for education and research digital services and solutions, which enables the Janet network, and CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, to deliver connectivity to their data centre in Budapest.
Géant has deployed Infinera Cloud Xpress to extend GbE services with hyper-scale density, operational simplicity and low power consumption. Its photonic integrated circuit technology can support up to one Terabit per second (Tb/s) of input and output capacity in just two rack units. With its small form factor and low power consumption, Cloud Xpress delivers a full 500 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) super-channel of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) line-side bandwidth over 150 kilometres (km) without any need for additional multiplexers or amplifiers and up to 600 km with an amplified line system.
Together with its NREN partners, the Géant network connects more than 50 million users at 10,000 institutions across Europe, supporting scientific research and discovery. It is a vital element of Europe’s e-infrastructure, providing the high speed connectivity needed to share, access and process the massive volumes of data essential to the study of particle physics and bioinformatics, the advancement of medicine, or enabling arts performers in different continents to perform together in near real-time.