The upgrade of the link between the GARR network and the European research network GÉANT has been successfully completed. The entire Italian scientific and academic community can now rely on an international connection of 600 Gbps in total, thanks to the double link with a single capacity of 300 Gbps.

The capacity increase responds to a need of the Italian research community which daily exchanges huge amounts of data in international collaborations.

Clear evidence is provided by the traffic data in the days following the activation of the new connection, which recorded peaks of over 200 Gbps and averages of 120 Gbps during the Data Challenge dedicated to LHC experiments. The event indeed involved all the facilities worldwide participating in this scientific collaboration. Over a period of two weeks, all data centers (from Tier0 to Tier2) exchanged data with each other to test the impact on the network and perform analyses on the processing.

This evolution represents a further step forward that increasingly makes our national network at the forefront, following the recent production launch of the connection between the CERN and INFN-CNAF data centers thanks to the sharing of optical spectrum.

The enhanced interconnection with Géant also fits into a path that sees the two networks collaborating at the level of optical network with the common adoption of an open optical line system that allows greater scalability and better control. In this way, new possibilities for using the infrastructure are opened up not only for data transmission but also for communicating time/frequency signals, carrying out sensing experiments, and quantum communications.