G-WiN - the Gbit/s infrastructure for the German scientific community

Within the German scientific community, there were growing quantitative and qualitative demands on the network infrastructure caused by increasing tra ffic and by new innovative applications. Forecasts for a new network were m ade based on traffic measurements. The new C-WIN backbone platform is based on SDH/DWDM technology. G-WiN will offer the following services: IP(PoS); Point-to-Point connections; ATM services. This paper describes the reasons for a new Gbit/s network. The G-WiN archit ecture will be discussed including the IP topology on top of SDH/DWDM, whic h is switchable in a flexible way according to changing traffic flows. The characteristics of G-WiN will also be considered. G-WiN commenced operation in June 2000 and its status will be presented. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B .V. All rights reserved.