NORDUnet has opened its first PoP in central Europe. Located at the CERN Internet eXchange Point (CIXP) in Geneva, the PoP allows NORDUnet to
- Connect directly to CERN, serving connections for a major, global science community and ensuring Nordic high-energy physics research the best possible facilities;
- Connect to CERNlight, the Open Lightpath Exchange point at CERN, in line with the NORDUnet strategy of interconnecting at open exchange points where possible;
- Peer with (commercial) internet and service providers at CIXP, adding important Central-European connectivity to the NORDUnet peering fabric.
The Geneva PoP is a natural extention of the NORDUnet European footprint and matches the NORDUnet strategic objective of controlling cost by having a global peering presence, and of being able to offer the Nordic community first-class connectivity to major partners globally.
The Geneva pop is connected to a new extention of the NORDUnet European footprint. The PoP is connected as part of a ring from Hamburg to Frankfurt, Genava, and back to Amsterdam. The ring is realized as part of a cross-border fibre collaboration with Dutch NREN SURFnet (on the Amsterdam – Geneva stretch) and Polish NREN PSNC (on the Hamburg – Frankfurt – Geneva stretch). The ring is initially 20 Gbps, with an easy upgrade path 100 Gbps as traffic grows. The ring implements an extension of the NORDUnet MPLS fabric, and will be used for both peering and general Internet traffic, and for offering dedicated circuits.
The new pop and network ring allows NORDUnet to provide the Nordic LHC Tier-1 site hosted by NeIC with fully redundant, 20Gbps connectivity to the LHC Tier-0 site at CERN, offering twice the capacity and added resilience from the single circuit solution previously used.
NORDUnet is happy to be able to realize this important extension of the NORDUnet network in collaboration with our long-standing partners PSNC and SURFnet, sharing network infrastructure and leveraging community investments.
