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VIOLA

Vertically Integrated Optical testbed for Large Applications

This project has been successfully finished.

In addition to the ever-growing demand for bandwidth in the Internet, new types of applications with extreme communication demands are evolving, e.g. in the areas of Virtual Reality and Grid-Computing. These applications often require short-term dynamic provisioning of high bandwith and Quality-of-Service. Such demands cannot be fulfilled by todays production networks. The project VIOLA addressed these issues by setting up an optical testbed in the area of North-Rhine-Westfalia with an extension to Bavaria. In a vertically integrated approach, a consortium with partners from from industry, research laboratories, universities and the DFN association deployed and evaluated advanced networking equipment and developed middleware and applications that make use of the novel testbed features and serve to stress-test the network.

The major goals of VIOLA were:

Test of advanced network equipment and network architectures.
Development and test of software tools for the user-driven dynamical provision of bandwidth.
Interworking of network equipment from different manufacturers.
Enhancement of middleware and deployment of a production Grid in support of the applications.
Enhancement and test of new advanced applications (e.g. Grid, Virtual Reality).
Cooperation with similar projects in Europe and elsewhere.

The VIOLA Consortium contained 10 partners and three associated partners from German industry, research laboratories and universities:
DFN - Deutsches Forschungsnetz (Project coordinator)
Alcatel SEG AG
caesar - center of advanced european studies and research
Fachhochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität Bonn
Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
Siemens AG
T-Systems International GmbH

Associated Partners:
Friederich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
GasLINE GmbH
Navtel Communications Inc.

The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under Contract Number 01AK605L. The grant period is 01.05.2004 until 30.04.2007.

More information: VIOLA project website