About cNIS

cNIS (Common Network Information Service) is a set of software modules that collects, manages and shares network topology data. cNIS can be used either as a component to build higher-level services and applications, or as a standalone repository of network topology data that supports network engineers and administrators in their daily work.

cNIS guarantees the quality and consistency of the topology information it collates, providing network administrators and operators with the network information they need to operate their chosen services across the GÉANT network.    

Powerful modules for data management and presentation   
cNIS provides a unified repository of all relevant network information about a single administrative domain. In addition to the internal functionality required for populating, validating and sharing the database, it is equipped with powerful visualisation tools for data management and presentation. Automatic population, or "topology discovery", is an important feature of the cNIS system, as it greatly simplifies the work of network administrators. 

Network topology data for GÉANT's multi-domain services
cNIS is a supporting tool for some of the GÉANT multi-domain connectivity services, namely the Bandwidth on Demand and Wavelength services. It provides network topology data to the AutoBAHN provisioning system, which many NRENs use at the core of their Bandwith On Demand service. Ongoing development work by the cNIS development team and the cNIS community, will continue to enable the cNIS tool to support other GÉANT applications.