Current status and future direction-of NTT's global networks for experiments, GEMnet

NTT Laboratories has been operating its network for experiments Global Enhanced Multifunctional Network (GEMnet), for the research and development of global information sharing services and in order to validate such services on a real network. This article describes the current network configuration of GEMnet, experiments using it, and plans for its future direction to provide on overview for this special feature, "Topics on Global Enhanced Multifunctional Network (GEMnet)." In Japan, GEMnet connects three of NTT's Research and Development (R&D) Centers. Globally, it connects NTT Musashino R&D Center to NTT America's San Jose facilities with a 33-Mbit/s ATM link and to NTT MSC's R&D Center in Malaysia with a 1.5-Mbit/s ATM link. In June 2001, GEMnet was connected to Abilene, which is the backbone network of Internet2, making possible joint experiments using Abilene. In the future, the use of GEMnet for global services creation will be promoted, ties with other research and education networks will be strengthened and the subjects of the experiments will be reviewed.