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Research & Education Network

The Hong Kong Academic and Research NETwork (HARNET) is the high-speed advanced network infrastructure built to facilitate the exchange of information for academic, educational, research, collaboration of Hong Kong higher educations. The HARNET/Internet infrastructure provides inter-campus network connectivity and enables collaborative advanced research and teaching in Hong Kong and globally.

Connection to CERNET

The JUCC and the CERNET (China Education and Research Network) signed an agreement in November 2003 to upgrade the HARNET-CERNET connection to 155Mbps. Through a collocation router set up in Hong Kong, HARNET connects to CERNET’s Northern China Regional Network Centre in Beijing. Both HARNET members in Hong Kong and CERNET members in China Mainland enjoy direct and good connectivity for research and academic collaboration.

CERNET is China’s first and largest national academic Internet backbone. It is supported by the Chinese government and directly managed by the Ministry of Education. Its network infrastructure serves the universities, institutes, colleges and schools all over the China.

Connection with Internet2

By signing a Memorandum of Understanding, the JUCC has been an international partner of Internet2 since September 2000.   HARNET currently has access to Internet2 via our peering and connection links with research and education (R&E) networks and regional consortium, namely APAN (Asia Pacific Advanced Network) and TEIN4 (Trans Eurasia Information Network).

Internet2 is a member-owned advanced technology community founded by the leading higher education institutions of the United States.  Since 1996, Internet2 provides a collaborative environment for U.S. R&E organizations to solve common technology challenges, and develop innovative solutions in support of their educational, research, and community service missions.  The Internet2 community includes leading U.S. universities, corporations, government agencies, and not-for-profit networking organizations, as well as international partners.

Connection to TEIN

HARNET’s connection to TEIN4 (Trans Eurasia Information Network) was upgraded to 150 Mbps in March 2015. Since JUCC joined TEIN2 as a non-beneficiary partner in October 2008, HARNET is closely collaborating with the European and Asia Pacific TEIN partners. The HARNET-TEIN connection replaced the more costly transpacific direct 45Mbps IPLC for Interent2 connection. It provides direct connectivity to Europe’s networks and other research and education communities across Asia Pacific, significantly reduces the turnaround time and supports both daily communications and research activities.

The first TEIN Network was launched in October 2000. TEIN2 began in 2004, run by DANTE, under a contract with the European Commission, which has contributed 10 million Euro (80%) towards the total cost of TEIN2 project. The JUCC joined TEIN2 as a non-beneficiary partner in October 2008 and HARNET was recognized as a TEIN3 partner when the TEIN3 project was launched in January 2009. The TEIN project is in its 4th phase, with 16 million Euro of funding from the EU and Asian partners. Using the powerful network links of bandwidth up to 10Gbps, researchers across Asia-Pacific region are participating in world-class collaborative research projects. While TEIN4 is expected to end in 2015, TEIN5 is now under preparation.

Peering with Other R&E Networks

The JUCC also has peering arrangements established with the following regional and national research and education networks (NREN) :

  • APAN-JP (Asia Pacific Advanced Network – Japan)
  • ASGCNET (Academia Sinica Grid Computing Network, Taiwan)
  • ASNET (Academic Sinica, Taiwan)
  • KISTI/KREONET2 (Korea Research Environment Open Network2 run by Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information)
  • TANET (Taiwan Academic Network)