Academic and research network of Slovenia
Introduction
Easy access to a variety of different types of information, and cooperation with related organizations are of crucial importance to the success of research institutes, universities and other organizations involved in development, education and culture. This can be facilitated with computer networks. As there is a great difference between the general purpose commodity Internet on the one hand and the high performance network that satisfies the needs of researchers and teachers on the other, so-called National Research and Educational Networks (NRENs) can be found in all countries. These networks provide ‘production’ level services to educational, research and cultural institutions and serve as a test bed environment for the demonstration and validation of advanced networking applications in research and education. Academic and Research Network of Slovenia (ARNES) [1], [2] is the NREN of Slovenia.
ARNES was established as an independent public institution in 1992. It is funded primarily by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. Its services are free for the majority of users. The exception is development departments in industry—they have to cover the costs of the services they use, calculated on the basis of their incoming network traffic. The main expense for ARNES is international connectivity, representing about 60% of all costs. The next largest sum is used for national connectivity, accounting for 20%. Purchasing new equipment takes an additional 11%. All other costs (salaries, maintenance of equipment, etc.) amount to 9%.
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Services
In order to facilitate cooperation between education and research organizations, ARNES provides a set of services grouped into three main areas: network connectivity, network services and user support.
International cooperation
ARNES is a full national member of TERENA [5], a shareholder in DANTE [6], a member of CEENet [7] and a member of RIPE [8].
Trans-European Research and Educational Networking Association (TERENA) was established in 1994 through a merger of the former RARE and EARN associations. The mission of TERENA is the promotion and development of a high quality international information and telecommunication infrastructure to support European research and education. TERENA is an association and its members
TERENA research activities
The major network development activities of TERENA are conducted through its Task Forces. These are small groups of volunteers who undertake specific activities on behalf of the TERENA Technical Committee. ARNES staff is involved in the work of most of them. The following Task Forces are currently active:
TF-CACHE: The Caching Task Force aims to promote and disseminate information on network caching. Analysis of network traffic on the Internet has shown that significant savings can be made if
Conclusion
The main task of ARNES is the development, operation and management of the communication and information network for education and research. TERENA has produced a comparison of all NRENs in Europe [10]. The study highlights some differences in organization and the scope of supported user communities, however, the services provided for research and education are similar. With the development efforts of all NRENs such as ARNES, the community leads the way in Internet development and innovation.
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Cited by (2)
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2011, Asian Himalayas International Conference on InternetAnalysis of videoconferencing and videostreaming implementation in Southeastern Europe
2004, Elektrotehniski Vestnik/Electrotechnical Review
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