Pasito (A platform for telecommunication services)

Contact: Jaime Garcia (). Description: The platform for telecommunications services analysis (PASITO) is a distributed tests laboratory, which offers engineers the chance to construct, refine and evaluate test scenarios for telecommunication services. The laboratory contributes to: Optimizing communications resources Designing and adapting new services to the current needs Certifying equipment and services PASITO is a public infrastructure, based upon the Spanish RedIRIS academic network. It uses varied technologies to enable it to test a wide range of telecommunication services and at the same time guarantee that its activities are isolated from the rest of the academic network's services. This avoids interference with other activities that are in operation within the Spanish scientific community. The platform’s main research areas are: Internet architectures Communication protocols Transport technologies with service quality Virtualization and autoconfiguration of networks and services Technologies and tools to monitor networks and services Optical services for intensive data projects Large scale information distribution technologies Peer-to-peer systems Mobility services Technologies to improve network security Standards for new generation collaboration services

GeoNet (Geographic addressing and routing for vehicular communications)

Contact: Maria Calderon () Description: The goal of the GeoNet Project is to contribute to increase road safety in Europe. The EC and the automotive industry have committed themselves to halving loss of life by 2010. Geonet will significantly contribute to this goal by implementing a reference implementation of a geographic addressing and routing protocol, with support for IPv6 to be used to deliver safety messages between cars and the roadside infrastructure within a designated area. GeoNet shall take the basic results of the CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium’s work to the next step by further improving these specifications and creating a baseline software implementation that interfaces with IPv6. The goal of GeoNet is thus to implement and formally test a networking mechanism as a standalone software module that can be incorporated into Cooperative Systems. This implementation shall enable transparent IP connectivity between a vehicle and the infrastructure, even in cases when delivery must hop over several vehicles or be cached along the way.

Projects in collaboration with NETCOM

BIOGRIDNET (The evolution of bioinformatic applications to network and distributed computation services GRID)

Contact: Arturo Azcorra Saloña (). Description (in spanish): This program strives for significant scientific advances in Networking and Communication Services, genetic research support applications and Grid scientific computing environments. The research & development is based on sharing complementary research knowledge between the three groups and participant companies, so that each group can achieve its own objectives, whilst simultaneously contributing to the scientific program’s joint objective. The objectives are strongly independent. This means that in order for one group to achieve its target, it must rely on all the other groups achieving theirs. Independence stems, on one hand, from the mutual interchange of requirements, and on the other, from technological solutions that promote each research area. The result will be an integrated, but independent advance in the distribution of hi-performance bio-computing solutions over advanced packet networks services.

CAPITAL (Advanced IP Packet Switching for Future High-Performance Optical Networks)

Contact: Ignacio Soto Campos () Description: This project focuses on the field of high-performance switching. The project is a joint effort by research groups from the Universidad de Vigo, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Universidad de Navarra, and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. It encompasses many aspects of networking, from switching systems placed immediately above device level to the implications of lower layers on the network and transport layer. The project’s goals are the design, development and evaluation of techniques, with the intention of improving optical packet switching, optical burst switching, fourth-generation (VOQ) electronic switching and high-performance Ethernet switching. The project will deliver analytical and practical results based on software analysis (OPNET, OMNET) and hardware analysis (Cadence), as well as on laboratory tests and exploitation tests on real networks (CESGA, REDIMadrid and RIX). The project tasks are closely related, both horizontally (through group collaborations) and vertically (through the development of low-level and IP-level multicast/QoS techniques).

CONTENT (Network on Excellence on Content Networks and Services for Home Users)

Contact: Arturo Azcorra Saloña () Description: The CONTENT Network of Excellence targets a key area of Information Society Technologies, namely Content Delivery Networks for Home Users, as an integral part of Networked Audio-Visual Systems and Home Platforms. CONTENT aims to create a European Research Area to focus on this vital aspect of communications. By gathering a group of experts they intend to develop state-of-the-art technologies and further Europe’s lead in the field of content networks. The overall goal of the CONTENT Network-of-Excellence is to integrate the research efforts of all members, in order to address the technical challenges faced at different system levels, thereby enabling and/or expanding the use of easy-to-install and easy-to-use AV services in and between homes. In particular, the main technical objective will be to boost the potential of European Community Networking. This will require advances in Content Distribution infrastructures to improve the delivery of live (streaming) content and interactive stored content, and the integration, in an open way, of tools and mechanisms that enable the curation of multimedia assets and their subsequent access. Ultimately, this will benefit user communities by producing a set of appropriate services, both in the context of "long tail" or applied to (re-purposed) assets created by traditional broadcasters.

DAIDALOS (Designing Advanced network Interfaces for the Delivery and Administration of Location independent, Optimised personal Services)

Contact: Arturo Azcorra Saloña () Note: Having participated in the first phase of this project, which was successfully completed, we are now involved in the second phase. Description: DAIDALOS is an EU Framework Programme 6 Integrated Project. Mobility has become a central aspect of the lives of European citizens in business, education, and leisure. The rapid technological and societal changes and the emergence of a bewildering number of new services has created a complex environment for network operators and resulted in a confusing situation for end users. The enhancement of existing technologies and the development of new Beyond 3G systems will inevitably add to the confusion. Hence, Daidalos will be charged with leading the fundamental rethinking of network architectures necessary to create a new generation of user-centered and manageable communication infrastructure. The Daidalos vision is to seamlessly integrate heterogeneous network technologies that allow network operators and service providers to offer new and profitable services, giving users access to a wide range of personalised voice, data and multimedia services. 46 partners from industry and academia are currently working together to realise this vision.

e-Photon/ONe (Optical Networks: Towards Bandwidth Manageability and Cost Efficiency)

Contact: David Larrabeiti () Description: e-Photon/ONE Network of Excellence (NoE) aims to integrate and focus the rich know-how in the field of optical communication and networks, available in Europe’s universities and in its manufacturers’ and operators’ telecom research centres. Currently, expertise are based in such diverse areas as optical technologies, networking devices, network architectures and protocols and the new services fostered by photonic technologies. The NoE will contribute to the Strategic Objective, “Broadband for All”, with a particular focus (quoting from the EC IST 2003-2004 Workprogramme, page 15) on “low cost access equipment”, “new concepts for network management, control and protocols”, and “increasing bandwidth capacity in the access network as well in the underlying optical core/metro network (including, in particular, optical burst and packet switching)”. The main technical focus of the NoE is to highlight the potential advantages of optical technologies in telecommunication networks with respect to electronic technologies. A close relationship between the NoE´s participants will generate a consensus on engineering choices for the deployment of cost-effective optical technologies in networking.This will, in turn, provide future support to tomorrow’s Internet, providing inputs to the standardization bodies and guidelines to the operators, as well as competitive advantages to European telecom equipment manufacturers. Integration will be pursued primarily by establishing long-term collaborations between partners in research, infrastructure sharing and education and training. To ensure such long-lasting collaborations, the regular exchange of researchers between partners, and the development of joint teaching programs are essential. Dissemination will be pursued by coordinating publication activities, offering training programs, organizing technical events, and through interaction with other consortia that operate in the same technical area. Research activities will mainly be carried out in research programs external to the NoE, both at the national and at the European levels. Well focused technical research programs will also be activated internally to the NoE.

MUSE (Multi Service Access Everywhere)

Contact: Arturo Azcorra Saloña () Note:Having participated in the first phase of this project, which was successfully completed, we are now involved in the second phase. Description: MUSE (IST-2004-507295) is a European thematic network funded by the IST programme (VI FP). The overall objective of MUSE is the research and development of a future low-cost, full-service access and edge network, which enables the ubiquitous delivery of broadband services to every European citizen. The project integrates studies in the following areas: Access and edge network architectures and techno-economical studies Access and edge platforms First mile solutions (DSL, optical access) Interworking of the access network with home gateway and local networks Lab trials

OPTINET6 (Escalabilidad en redes ópticas IPv6 con calidad de servicio)

Contact: Arturo Azcorra Saloña () Description: Throughout its history, the Internet community has faced the challenge of providing the scalability needed to accommodate the rapid growth that its own success has precipitated. Moreover, new technologies boost the amount of information that the network can course, as well as the number of users connected to the net. For instance, the deployment of a network core that uses optical technology provides an increased transmission capability and the new Internet Protocol generation (a.k.a. IPv6) multiplies in several orders of magnitude the number of users that can obtain global connectivity. Other relevant aspects, related to the scalability of the systems, include the provision of mechanisms to assure the quality of the service provided, both at the network level (DiffServ) and at the different link levels. The objective of this project is the analysis and evaluation of the scalability challenges faced by the today’s Internet due to the adoption of these new technologies and the proposal of alternative solutions to them. Several aspects of the problem will be explored as follows: - Access network scalability (EPON technology) and Transport Network Scalability (including switching, OPS, OBS, ASON, GMPLS, OIF, optical network routing); Network layer-link layer interaction scalability (the study will be focused on the mapping between the QoS levels available in the involved link layer technologies (WDM, WLAN and Ethernet) and those used by IPv6 QoS mechanisms); TCP/IP scalability;. Mechanisms to provide multi-homed site support and ISP migration without imposing additional volume in the default free zone routing tables. The impact of enhanced transmission capabilities in the TCP protocol will also be studied and optimization proposed.All these studies will be validated by means of tests and/or simulations, in two stages: in a first stage, local tests will be carried out by the partner involved in the particular deployment. The second stage will deal with a common trial that will integrate into a single test bed all the previously developed mechanisms, to validate scalability on a global basis.

Redimadrid (Design and Operation of the Research Network of Madrid: REDI Madrid)

Contact: Ignacio Soto Campos () Website: http://www.madrimasd.org/queesmadrimasd/RedTelematicaMadrid/default.asp Description: The Spanish authorities are fostering the development of high-speed, regional research networks as a better way to guarantee that the region’s infrastructures allow adequate access to Spanish and international research networks. In this context, the Regional Government of Madrid set itself the challenge of creating Europe’s most advanced high-speed regional research network. It collaborates with the University of Carlos III, Madrid in order to introduce the most advanced, yet cost-effective technology. This has lead to the design and deployment of REDI Madrid, a regional research network for the research and education institutions in the region of Madrid.It is supervised by the Fundación Madrimasd para el Conocimiento, a non-profit organization. IMDEA Networks is currently operating REDI Madrid under a delegation from MadrI+D. REDI Madrid is a valuable research asset, giving us hands-on operations experience, real control and data measurements, and access to an advanced experimentation platform.