GEANT Testbed Service

Description

The "GEANT Testbeds Service" (GTS) offers user defined experimental networks to the network research community for the purpose of testing novel networking and telecommunications concepts, at scale, and across a geographically realistic European footprint.  GTS provides dynamically provisioned network environments consisting of computational servers, data transport circuits, and switching/forwarding elements.  These testbeds can be scheduled in advance to coordinate testbed experiments with other non-GTS activities, and testbed components can be selected from any of the GEANT core points of presence that have GTS services available. Each testbed constitutes an isolated and insulated virtual environment that can function autonomously from other testbeds or other production services.   

Testbeds can be defined and orchestrated by the user through a web based Graphical User Interface or via a Command Line Tool within a Linux shell/script environment.   The user is able to access their testbed environment though a standard VPN internet gateway.  The testbed itself can communicate with other facilities external to GTS through explicitly defined data flow interfaces incorporated into the testbed data plane itself

The GEANT Testbeds Service is a production capability offered by GEANT.   As a production service, the testbed facilities are made available on 24x7 basis.   The GTS facilities are continuously monitored by the GEANT Network Operations Center and outages of infrastructure generate immediate alerts to the Level 1 support staff.    Level 2 support is available during normal business hours to address unusual or more complex service related problems requiring more expertise.  Level 2 support is available outside of normal business hours by special prior arrangement.

GTS version 1.0 is currently deployed in four GEANT core sites (Copenhagen, Bratislava, Ljubljana, and Amsterdam) with three more to sites available in 2015-Q1 (Hamburg, Paris, and Milan).   These facilities make available approximately 50-100 Virtual Machines, and approximately 20 to 40 virtual Openflow switching fabrics.   These components can be linked via 1Gbps virtual circuits provisioned over the GTS core transport infrastructure with approximately 140 Gbps of total backbone capacity.   

The virtual network environments offered by GTS provide a revolutionary new capability for both network researchers as well as for developers of advanced networked applications.  GTS networks can offer powerful self contained networks for simulations and experimentation, or they can be employed as "software defined exchange" fabrics – intelligent service-infused network domains bonding together multiple otherwise isolated research islands into a contiguous user defined service region.

Please see GTS documents for roadmaps and user guides

*Technical Annex KPI