As digital transformations bring new challenges to networking ranging from big data transfer and storage to vast scale Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications, network providers must find ways to automate processes to be able to manage increasing operational workloads. To facilitate such automation, providers need to move to abstracting network resources to ensure agility and technology agnostic network service behaviour. These challenges do not only apply to commercial providers, but also to the NREN communities. For GÉANT, with its more than 40 country members, it is therefore crucial to drive this network evolution forward with a common strategy, in a way that would allow for automation, orchestration and virtualisation (OAV) of network services in a multi-domain and inclusive fashion, bringing all partners on board while accommodating already existing solutions. Read more...

The Network eAcademy team has investigated a list of required features and capabilities necessary to be supported by an OAV architecture solution of an research and education (R&E) network ecosystem. This list is by no means exhaustive or prioritised in any way, and can be used as a supporting cross-reference checklist when deciding about new architectural designs or approaches, technologies or components. Read more...

A number of architecture proposals and solutions are discussed in this section in order to provide a general overview of the existing implementation paths and their major focus. The short list of investigated architectural solutions has been compiled by the Network eAcademy in order to cover diverse approaches including the most prominent examples given by standardisation bodies, but also proposals that have played a major role in our community being part of research projects. Read more...