JANET extends Aurora network

1/12/08: As one of the largest research test-beds in Europe, the Aurora network is about to get even larger.

JANET has been granted additional funding of £2.7M to support the expansion of its Aurora fibre network.

As one of the largest research test-beds in Europe, the Aurora network was developed in 2006/7 to interconnect the research groups at the universities of Cambridge, Essex and UCL, and to enable research groups to pursue their research away from the constraints of a production service network. The additional funding will enable the Aurora infrastructure to be connected to the research groups at the Universities of Aston and Southampton and extend the operating period of the enlarged network to April 2011.

JANET will be continuing its business relationship with ntl:Telewest Business to extend the infrastructure, and fibre connections to the two additional sites are expected to be completed by the end of April 2009.

Early work supported by Aurora was based on the transfer and expansion of existing work, but other projects are now starting to take shape, enabled by the new infrastructure; these include those awaiting submission to research council funding programmes.

Professor David Richardson, Deputy Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at Southampton University says "This is tremendous news for all involved in photonics and computer science research at the University of Southampton. A direct connection to the Aurora fibre network will allow us to work much more closely with our partners around the UK to develop and properly trial the new components, subsystems and network concepts required to support future generations of the Internet, and to explore the exciting new services that they will enable."

"Southampton has made several major contributions to the development of optical fibre communications that span over 40 years. Access to a fibre network will help keep both the ORC, and the UK, at the forefront of the field. The news is particularly timely as we move into a fantastic new facility housing state-of-the-art clean rooms and photonics laboratories that will be used to deliver technology to trial on Aurora. We look forward to the exciting times ahead."

Already a number of important national and EU funded research projects are taking place over the network. The Aurora infrastructure is also beginning to attract international attention from research communities considering directions for a future Internet. These typically need deep access to network infrastructures, which is exactly the service that JANET Aurora and JANET Lightpath provide, so there the prospect for some interesting collaborations will emerge in the next year or two.

“The ground-breaking Aurora network is already delivering major benefits and its welcome extension to other universities will increase collaboration across the research community. ntl:Telewest Business is meeting Aurora’s needs for a high capacity, flexible solution through our advanced fibre network around the country and partnership approach,” said John Cunningham, Director of Business Markets, ntl:Telewest Business.

Further information can be found on the JANET Aurora web pages, including links to the University groups, the infrastructure, supported projects, and related operational information.