=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3041/503-507-paper-93
|storemode=property
|title=Development of Effective Access to the Distributed Scientific and Educational E-Infrastructure
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3041/503-507-paper-93.pdf
|volume=Vol-3041
|authors=Grigore Secrieru,Peter Bogatencov,Nichita Degteariov
}}
==Development of Effective Access to the Distributed Scientific and Educational E-Infrastructure==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3041/503-507-paper-93.pdf
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference "Distributed Computing and Grid Technologies in Science and
Education" (GRID'2021), Dubna, Russia, July 5-9, 2021
DEVELOPMENT OF EFFECTIVE ACCESS TO THE
DISTRIBUTED SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL E-
INFRASTRUCTURE
G. Secrieru1,2, P. Bogatencov1,2, N. Degteariov2
1
The Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, 5 Academiei str., Chisinau, MD 2028, Moldova.
2
RENAM Association, 5 Academiei str., of 324, Chisinau, MD 2028, Moldova
E-mail: a bogatencov@renam.md
The article presents the analysis of approaches and solutions for upgrading of the distributed e-
infrastructure of NREN RENAM as a key factor for support of research and educational (R&E)
activities in Moldova. Special attention is paid to the development of cross-border optical connections
for interaction of the national networking infrastructure with the pan-European academic network
GEANT and neighborhood NRENs, the introduction of modern services for support R&E,
improvement of national and regional cooperation. The infrastructure upgrade is focused on
supporting a high-bandwidth distributed environment for deploying and operating a wide range of
services offered to end users by the RENAM-GEANT platform.
Keywords: Distributed e-infrastructure and services, Cross border fiber connections, NREN
optical backbone
Grigore Secrieru, Peter Bogatencov, Nichita Degteariov
Copyright © 2021 for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
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Proceedings of the 9th International Conference "Distributed Computing and Grid Technologies in Science and
Education" (GRID'2021), Dubna, Russia, July 5-9, 2021
1. Introduction
The e-infrastructure for science and education in the Republic of Moldova is based on the
networking infrastructure of RENAM Association, which provides the necessary specific services and
ensures interaction with the pan-European academic network GEANT. Organizational structure of
RENAM Association uses the European model attributed to a National Research and Education
Network (NREN) aimed to support collaborative research of regional and pan-European scale that is
realizing in a form of various international projects. Current trends in the modernization of e-
infrastructures indicate the need to expand the capabilities of the optical networking infrastructure of
NREN RENAM in order to improve regional connectivity and offer possibility to deploy modern
services for support research and education.
Expanding the capabilities of national optical infrastructure and Cross Border Fiber (CBF)
connections are the main directions of RENAM network development that is supported by
international projects. In this direction it is important participation of RENAM in the European
Commission (EC) initiatives focused on analyzing current state and activities of NRENs in the Eastern
Partnership countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), developing
appropriate proposals for the regional NRENs operation enhancement, implementation of modern
services and effective connections to GEANT network.
2. Previous preparation activities
RENAM together with other NRENs of the Eastern Partnership countries in 2006-2007
participated in the EU project "Distributed optical gateway from Eastern Europe to GÉANT (Porta
Optica Study - POS)" [1]. Within the framework of the project, a feasibility study of possible solutions
for creation of a regional fiber-optic infrastructure for the integration of NREN of Eastern European
countries into GÉANT was carried out. Specific recommendations have been developed for the
construction of a number of cross-border CBF connections that will integrate neighboring NRENs and
potential points of presence (PoP) of GEANT backbone were specified for connecting the regional
infrastructure to GÉANT network.
Within the framework of the following projects (2011–2015), the study of possible solutions
for development of e-infrastructures for support R&E in the Eastern Partnership countries and creation
of cost-effective, reliable and scalable optical connections was continued [2]. These studies included
argumentation of the need to use of long-term optical connections based on Independent Rights of Use
(IRU) approach with operational support for 10-15 years, as well as CBF-based solutions for
interconnecting regional NRENs and connecting them to GEANT backbone via selected PoPs of
GEANT. The elaborated recommendations, proposed technical solutions and support of EC projects
allowed establishing in the region direct optical links between NRENs from Romania and Moldova,
Poland and Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. Thus, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus gained effective cross-
border connectivity to satisfy the current users communities’ needs. However, to comply with GEANT
resilience backbone construction requirements, it was necessary to create new back-up connections to
GÉANT network for NRENs of Moldova and Ukraine.
The first RENAM external optical connection for access to GEANT network was Chisinau -
Iasi - Bucharest channel (initially with a scalable bandwidth of 1-10 Gbps). The optical channel was
created and put in operation in 2010 as part of the successful implementation of two international
projects: SEE-GRID-SCI (funded by the European Commission) and NIG 982702 (funded by NATO).
The first RENAM-RoEduNet-GÉANT optical connection was implemented by using Nortel – Ciena
optical equipment [3].
In 2012, after successful implementation of the initial optical connection of RENAM to
GEANT, a dialogue between experts from GEANT, EU NREN, RENAM and other EaP NRENs was
resumed. New stage of research was initiated in order to identify priority areas and possible solutions
for the integration of all Eastern Partnership countries into GEANT. Based on the data obtained, the
needs of the national R&E communities for connectivity, computing resources and specific electronic
services were analyzed. The collected information and accumulated experience formed the basis for
the development of conceptual directions of the new EaPConnect project, taking into account the
specific needs of each Eastern Partnership country.
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Proceedings of the 9th International Conference "Distributed Computing and Grid Technologies in Science and
Education" (GRID'2021), Dubna, Russia, July 5-9, 2021
3. Development of regional optical CBF infrastructure
The development of the regional optical networking infrastructure for efficient access to the
GEANT network and associated services required the identification of sustainable and cost-effective
technical solutions. For this, a number of technical workshops were organized, in which specialists
from GEANT, EU and EaP NRENs took part. The results of these studies and discussions within the
technical team allowed to form a common vision regarding the development of the regional network
infrastructure in the Eastern Partnership region and recommendations for the use of long-term
allocated DF or spectrum on fiber connections [4]. The proposed regional network topology is
considering consisting of two sub-regions that will have their own primary and back-up connections to
GEANT:
• Eastern Europe networking segment, which covers NREN Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine;
• Caucasus Networking segment, which includes NRENs from three Caucasus countries.
The developed topology for Eastern Europe networking segment became the subject of
implementation within the framework of the first stage of the EaPConnect project, which was
launched in 2015. At this stage a detail technical solution was developed to create a CBF connection
between Moldova (NREN RENAM) and Ukraine (NREN URAN), to establish effective connections
to GÉANT network PoPs in Poznan (Poland) and Bucharest (Romania) as development of regional
communication arch implemented by support of the EaPConnect project [5].
The general scheme of regional connectivity proposed for implementation, that is taking into
account the requirements of RENAM and URAN, is shown in [fig. 1]. The proposed solution based on
results of previous studies and analysis of new RENAM and URAN connectivity requirements,
overview of the currently available options to use DF, lambda or spectrum resources.
Figure 1. Topology of proposed CBF connections
In the elaborated proposal specified the list of equipment that includes modern optical devices
required to create a reliable network infrastructure in the region. To comply with general approach of
GEANT network backbone extension, for connecting of Eastern Europe NRENs to GÉANT network
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Proceedings of the 9th International Conference "Distributed Computing and Grid Technologies in Science and
Education" (GRID'2021), Dubna, Russia, July 5-9, 2021
proposed to create GEANT PoPs in Kiev (Ukraine) and Chisinau (Moldova). This proposal takes into
account the long-term perspective of possible updates of the NRENs interconnection topologies and
also expansion of the GÉANT network in the Black Sea region.
4. Updating and utilization of distributed computing resources
Over the past few years, during RENAM's participation in the EaPConnect and other
international projects, not only the network infrastructure has been seriously upgraded. The significant
changes were achieved in development of many other e-Infrastructure components: server
infrastructure had been extended with the new high-performance and highly reliable servers, the
uninterruptible power supply and air conditioning systems of server’s facilities were also modernized.
RENAM computer resources were integrated at national level in common distributed infrastructure
with multiprocessor clusters and servers’ resources operated in the Moldova State University and in
the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science. Created robust, performant and secure
infrastructure has become a platform for expansion and improvement of services provided for R&E
institutions of Moldova.
These realizations allowed to intensify the use of the distributed computing resources. One of
the representative examples is recently launched and actively used multi-node distributed video-
conferencing system, that providing facilities for organization of online classes since the beginning of
the lockdowns, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020. Video-conferencing system is
powered by the open-source project BigBlueButton [6]. The system is integrated with the Moodle,
creating a self-sufficient distant e-learning platform and it is now actively used for distant learning by
the main universities of Moldova: the Moldova State University, the Academy of Economic Studies of
Moldova, as well as by some smaller institutions in Chisinau and in the regions (e.g., in Comrat city).
It hosts roughly 1 – 1,2k of concurrent users daily with the peaks up to nearly 2k users in about 60
separate virtual rooms distributer among the servers’ cluster. The statistics for the first half of
September 2021 is presented below [fig. 2].
Figure 2. Number of online users of VC system
The effective use of the VC system has been achieved by uniting 9 distributed BBB nodes in a
cluster using Scalelite project. Scalelite is an open-source load balancer that manages a pool of
BigBlueButton servers. It makes the pool of servers appear as a single (very scalable) BigBlueButton
server. A front-end, such as Moodle or Greenlight, sends standard BigBlueButton API requests to the
Scalelite server which, in turn, distributes those requests to the least loaded BigBlueButton server in
the pool [7]. We are also using Greenlight as a meeting managing plugin and a pool of three Traversal
Using Relay NAT (TURN) servers for relaying the traffic between peers behind the NAT.
The modernization of the network and server infrastructure contributed to the development of
RENAM's Cloud infrastructure to ensure the conditions for solving various R&E problems according
users’ requests. Active work is underway to increase the resources provided by our OpenStack
Clusters, accessible at cloud.renam.md, by increasing the number of computing nodes, switching from
1Gbps to 10 Gbps connections, as well as migrating to a new version of OpenStack middleware.
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Proceedings of the 9th International Conference "Distributed Computing and Grid Technologies in Science and
Education" (GRID'2021), Dubna, Russia, July 5-9, 2021
For the development of eduroam Wi-Fi roaming infrastructure, ensuring safe and fast Wi-Fi
coverage of campuses of educational and scientific organizations, in the first phase of the EaPConnect
project Cisco Wi-Fi equipment was purchased and 140 new Wi-Fi access points were distributed to
operate eduroam in R&E institutions in Moldova. To provide Identity Management service six new
IdPs (Identity Providers) base on the universal software platform have been deployed and supported
for universities, research institutes and medical institutions in Chisinau and Comrat.
5. Conclusions
Within the framework of the EaPConnect project, a CBF regional optical infrastructure was
created with the possibility of increasing the connections throughput up to 300 Gbps by upgrading of
the existing communication equipment. GEANT PoP was deployed in Chisinau, that has connections
by separate lines with two GEANT access PoPs in Europe. The created infrastructure ensures reliable
interaction of NREN RENAM and NRENs of neighboring countries with the GEANT network and is
designed to provide an internal connectivity with a speed of 10 Gbps and more, that corresponds the
current specific needs of R&E institutions in Moldova. Modernization of the network and server
infrastructure allowed to intensify the use of the distributed computing resources and contributed to
the qualitative development of IT services for R&E in Moldova.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by “EU4Digital: Connecting research and education communities
(EaPConect2)” project funded by the EU (grant contract ENI/2019/407-452).
References
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