Network Performance Services
 
Delivering consistently high performance is key to a successful user experience. Users can benefit from the range of GÉANT network monitoring, security and support services employed by NRENs to assure optimum performance for projects and institutions.

Connectivity is supported by a comprehensive range of network monitoring and management services.  These optimise network performance by providing 24x7 monitoring across the GÉANT Service Area infrastructure, enabling fast identification and remedy of any faults on the network as well as providing powerful security to prevent and detect malicious attacks.

The areas of tools and services in this group include:

• Performance measuring and monitoring
• Performance enhancement
• Network provisioning
• Security

Performance measuring and monitoring

Analysing performance in global research networks is complex since any single path might go through several domains – campus, local and national networks as well as the GÉANT backbone. Offering comprehensive multi-domain monitoring (MDM) features, GÉANT’s perfSONAR MDM services allow users to access network performance metrics and perform network monitoring actions across multiple domains, ensuring that any source of congestion or outage on a point-to-point connection can be quickly and easily identified and addressed.

Performance enhancement
The Performance Enhancement Response Team (PERT)  provides an investigation and consulting service to academic and research users on their network performance issues. The service is achieved via eduPERT, the federated structure that combines the PERTs from the local institutions, NRENs and GÉANT and fosters knowledge-sharing across the GÉANT network community. eduPERT is part of GÉANT’s commitment to helping users get the best performance from their connections.

Network provisioning
GÉANT’s network provisioning services under development take the concept of dedicated
capacity via point-to-point connections one tep further, providing bandwidth-on-demand to
users with exacting requirements who will be able to reserve the bandwidth they need, as and when they need it. The AutoBAHN service will calculate a route across the multi-domain environment for the required capacity at the required time, and balance the demanding users’requirements with those of traditional users so that each receives the agreed level of service.

AutoBAHN was in development during the previous project (GÉANT2) but the focus now is to bring it into production. Visit the GÉANT2 AutoBAHN pages to read more about the research on this service.  

Security
In an online world, network security is of paramount importance. GÉANT takes a proactive approach to security to maintain the integrity of the network, implementing advanced defences that offer sophisticated handling of network incidents.

• Securing the GÉANT Service Area network elements through design and implementation of recommended access and usage policies.
• Building proactive security services based on incident databases, anomaly detection tools and common procedures for mitigation of denial-of-service attacks.
• Defining a common approach and processes for coordinating responses to security issues.

The providing of strategies for incident prevention, detection and handling, the GÉANT security systems will allow users to keep network domains secure by monitoring traffic and routing information.