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- 012.42a ITALY
- by Stefano Trumpy
- <TRUMPY@icnucevm.cnuce.cnr.it>
-
- GARR is the Harmonization Group for Research Networks operating
- under the Ministry of the University, Scientific and
- Technological Research (MURST). GARR is also the name of the
- Italian research network.
-
- The aim of GARR is to interconnect the Italian research and
- academic networks and to coordinate connections to international
- networks. The network is operated by three public research
- institutions and three consortia offering computing resources to
- Italian universities. The three public research institutions,
- the founding organizations, are the National Council for Research
- (CNR), the National Council for Research on Nuclear and
- Alternative Energies Sources (ENEA), and the National High Energy
- Physics Institute (INFN). The three consortia are CINECA, CILEA,
- and Tecnopolis-CSATA.
-
- The backbone of the network provides four TDM channels over 2
- Mbps lines, carrying IP, DECnet, SNA and X.25 traffic. The X.25
- protocol carries traffic destined for the European backbone IXI
- developed by the EUREKA-COSINE project.
-
- Mail traffic on the network uses IP/SMTP and X.400. The
- electronic-mail GARR task force has adopted the policy of having
- every Italian domain registered through the DNS to be directly
- reachable through the Internet or indirectly through an SMTP to
- other protocol mail gateway. Another mail path is through the
- COSINE X.400 WEPS. GARR has recently been recognized as a
- non-forwarding Italian ADMD by the public X.400 administrators.
-
- GARR includes a Network Information Service (NIS) whose most
- important responsibility is information support for the Italian
- academic and research networks. It offers direct support to the
- managers of GARR network nodes or regional networks and indirect
- support to end-users via the circulation of information. The NIS
- is the reference point for the registration procedures (e.g., of
- organizations, networks, domains, and persons) required to access
- GARR and international networks. For information about the NIS
- please send e-mail to info@garr.it.
-
- The backbone is built up by the original seven primary sites
- located in Milano (CILEA), Bologna (CINECA and CNAF-INFN),
- Pisa(CNUCE-CNR), Roma (ENEA and NIC-INFN) and Bari (CSATA).
- Recently the University of Naples (CISED) joined the backbone.
- The MURST also funded a project to connect the over fifty
- universities in Italy; the major ones will be connected as
- extensions of the backbone, while the others will be attached
- with 64kbps lines to the primary sites.
-
- At present, besides Napoli the following cities plan to connect
- within 92 their metropolitan area networks at high speed: Torino,
- Padova, Trieste, Palermo, and Calgiari. Another thirty sites are
- planning to connect within a year or so at lower speed. GARR
- will continue to maintain connections to the major research
- networks, including RIPE, EASInet, Internet, BITNET/EARN, EUnet,
- HEPnet, IXI-COSINE, EBONE, EMPP and other networking initiatives.
-