On October 24, 2006, a new cross-border fiber-optic connection between Poland and Germany was opened at the Collegium Polonicum in Słubice. The ceremonial opening was performed jointly by representatives of the German and Polish scientific communities – Dr. Johann Komusiewisz, State Secretary at the Brandenburg Ministry of Science, and Grzegorz Żbikowski, Director General of the Department of Scientific Information Systems at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, as well as representatives of both countries’ networks: Prof. Wilfried Juling and Prof. Jan Węglarz.
The new fiber-optic link between Słubice and Frankfurt (Oder) enables a direct connection between the infrastructure of two state-of-the-art research networks: the German X-WiN network, provided by Deutsches Forschungsnetz, and the PIONIER network – Polish Optical Internet, operated by the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center. Both networks connect universities, research institutes, schools, hospitals, and public administration units, providing connections to European scientific resources and the Internet.
The main goal of this cross-border link is to create entirely new opportunities for scientific cooperation, not only between Poland and Germany but also for the entire European scientific community, in fields requiring very high-bandwidth computer networks. Such networks are currently used, for example, by physicists who, thanks to direct connections, can conduct research experiments between centers in Karlsruhe, Geneva, or Krakow, or by radio astronomy centers in Toruń and Bonn.
The second very important benefit of the new connection is the possibility of creating regional broadband networks. The new information superhighway means a completely new quality for the Pro Europa Viadrina Euroregion and the nearest academic centers. The new super-fast link enables better resolution of problems that transcend the borders of both countries, such as crisis management, flood and weather simulations, or research into human migration phenomena.
Utilizing scientific potential through new infrastructure
Both research and education networks, represented by Deutsches Forschungsnetz (DFN) and the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center (PCSS), create a massive fiber-optic infrastructure, providing broadband links to Internet resources, as well as point-to-point connections and dedicated virtual private networks (VPNs) at gigabit speeds. The combination of high transmission parameters and the capabilities of virtual networks can be used by scientists in many fields, crossing national borders and providing secure access to distributed resources combined into a single organism. A great example of such a virtual organization is the cooperation between physicists within the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva.
Another important part of the research is work on grid technologies (pervasive network service systems connecting distributed network resources), which are already becoming the basis for advanced research in meteorology, the creation of medical databases, or astrophysics. A great example here is also radio astronomy, which requires processing huge amounts of data collected by specialized antennas distributed around the world to computing centers, where the data is correlated. This correlation provides a much greater research effect than the capabilities of a single, very expensive antenna. Only super-fast networks open up the possibility of delivering research results in practically real-time, making it possible not only to detect phenomena such as supernovae but also to observe them.
Relations between Poland and Germany in science have always been very good. Close contacts between scientists in neighboring countries are cultivated at the European University Viadrina and Adam Mickiewicz University through the Collegium Polonicum in Słubice. Another example is the cooperation between the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow and the University of Karlsruhe. There are also very close contacts between research teams at the Jülich Research Center, where, among others, Prof. Lucjan Jarczyk from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow was honored with the “Minerva Preis 2000” award for outstanding services in the field of cultural and scientific exchange between Krakow and Jülich and for a lasting contribution to the scientific and personal dialogue between Poles and Germans.
National networks and the European network
In Europe, National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) operate; currently, about 30 such national networks form a huge infrastructure for scientists and students – in some countries also for primary and secondary school pupils. European national networks (NRENs) decided to organize and coordinate connectivity. Some of these networks formed the DANTE organization for this purpose, located in Cambridge. DANTE currently administers the GEANT2 network, which connects national networks into a single European infrastructure.
The new information superhighway between Poland and Germany creates new opportunities not only for the networks of neighboring countries but can also be useful for expanding the existing capabilities of European infrastructure. Data transmission between Poland and France, for example, can take place via this link and the German network. Crucially, the cost of such a transfer will be relatively low. Hence, such a connection creates huge potential for the integration of European science.
German Research Network DFN
The German research network DFN is an independently managed infrastructure providing network connections for the scientific community in Germany. It connects universities and research institutes and facilitates the development and testing of new network applications. The name of this infrastructure is the X-WiN network. Through the European GEANT2 network, X-WiN is directly integrated into the global community of research networks. Peering agreements ensure the community’s connectivity to the global Internet – more at: http://www.dfn.de/
PIONIER – Polish Optical Internet
The Polish research and education network, an infrastructure founded in 2000 as part of the program (Polish Optical Internet – Advanced Applications, Services, and Technologies for the Information Society), continues the traditions of the Pol-34/622 network established in the nineties and provides the Polish scientific community with broadband connections based on fiber-optic networks. It connects the Polish scientific community to the GEANT2 network and global Internet resources. The infrastructure consists of approximately 6,000 km of fiber optics and connects 21 metropolitan area networks (MANs). More at www.pionier.gov.pl/crossborder