SCIENCE

LONDON, ENGLAND -- Cisco Systems, Inc., today announced Europe's first 10Gbps academic research networks, with a total investment in excess of $30 million in Cisco 12000 Internet Router technology for; the United Kingdom's Education & Research Networking Association (UKERNA)'s high-speed IP Core, SuperJANET4, Holland's SURFnet5 and Sweden's national education network (SUNET). By deploying the Cisco 12000 Internet Router, academic research networks can offer users guaranteed packet delivery and prioritization and the lowest latency reportedly available today for real-time service delivery. The Cisco 12000 Internet Router is part of the Cisco family of next-generation Internet Routers, the industry's most comprehensive and operationally efficient platforms for next-generation IP routing, with the industry's highest scalability and performance and the best investment protection. In addition to the Cisco 12000 Internet Router, the family includes the Cisco 7400, Cisco 7600, and Cisco 10000, scaling performance from one million pps to 400 million pps with interface speeds scaling to 10Gbps. UKERNA's IP Core called, SuperJANET4, SURFnet5 and SUNET, constitute Europe's most advanced deployments of high-speed optical technology, enabling enhanced communications and information sharing amongst Europe's academic and key research groups. They create an environment for leading edge applications such as distance learning, sharing of high capacity applications and real-time collaboration, in addition to providing a test environment for new applications and network capabilities. UKERNA has further extended its high-speed IP Core, SuperJANET4 to 10Gbps capacity deploying the Cisco 12416 Internet Router and the Cisco 12016 Internet Router to enhance bandwidth capacity. The network will enable the use of new GRID applications, an infrastructure enabling the integrated collaborative use of high-end computers, networks, databases and scientific instruments owned and managed by multiple organizations and disciplines. These include collaborative working on metrology, human genome research and radio astronomy. The GRID will link Europe's super computers, and SuperJANET4 will enable UK to play a key part in the advancement of European science. SURFnet, the Dutch computer network for higher education and research, has launched the next generation of its broadband network, SURFnet5, which offers a hundredfold increase in capacity, operating at a 10Gbps rate using Cisco 12000 Internet Routers. SURFnet5 constitutes a national network linking over 200 institutions in higher education and research, which will benefit from the availability of large-scale deployment of new Internet applications. SURFnet5 is also the network on which the GigaPort project resides -- a project to advance networking capabilities through a research and development collaboration between SURFnet and Cisco. SUNET, Sweden's university network, has deployed Cisco 12000 Internet Routers and advanced optical fibers to build a next generation multicast enabled network, enhancing the capacity for distance learning across Sweden. The network will connect the country's 24 university colleges, with a 10Gbps capacity to increase the capacity 16 fold and meet the growing demand on the network, which is currently doubling at a yearly rate. "Cisco continues to work closely with educational institutions around the world to eliminate the barriers of time and distance that have hampered the sharing and development of ideas and learning. IP-based academic networks have enabled fantastic leaps in scientific understanding and technological breakthroughs," said Chris Dedicoat, Group Vice President, Cisco Systems EMEA. "Enabled by the 10Gbps capacity, the speed of information sharing can be compared with sending the Encyclopedia Britannica between any two points, even across the world, in half a second. The opportunity this presents to schools, colleges and higher education institutions is clear." With the news of Cisco 12000 Internet Router deployments by SuperJANET4, SURFnet5 and SUNET, Cisco continues to deepen collaboration with the world's leading research and academic institutions to deliver high-capacity IP networks that are essential for the sharing of information, ideas and learning. Cisco already provides its family of next-generation Internet Routers to a large number of leading academic and research networks, including: Germany's Deutsches Forschungsnetz-(DFN), France's Renater network and the pan-Nordic academic network, Nordunet as well as CESNET, the Czech National Research & Education Network. For additional information visit www.cisco.com