The uptake and use of the KVCS has been tremendous, with many planned and ad-hoc VC's being held.

Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd (REANNZ) welcomes Datacraft as the network operations manager for the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN).

Following a robust procurement process, Datacraft has been selected to provide service management services for KAREN. This includes day-to-day network monitoring activities, issues management, and KAREN member support. The contract is for an initial term of four years.

Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd (REANNZ) selects Fujitsu as supplier of Brocade Ethernet switch technology for the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN).

Following substantial interest from a large range of industry participants and a robust procurement process, Fujitsu New Zealand has been selected to provide the Brocade MLX Ethernet Switching platforms for KAREN.

REANNZ has selected FX Networks to provide the national network for KAREN from December 2010.

Want to find out whether you can use KAREN from your desktop computer? Use our new KAREN tester to find out.

We're stoked to reveal the new network map graphic for KAREN. This graphic includes links currently under development that will extend the reach of KAREN.

KAREN Member update on REANNZ's RFPs for national and international connectivity, and associated equipment and services.

REANNZ last night released four RFPs for KAREN connectivity and services.

KAREN wiki highlights, recent updates and cool stuff you should know about for October 2009.

Keynote speakers at New Zealand's IPv6 Hui 2009 have been announced. Register now for this event.

REANNZ has today released two reference documents on standards for neutral Points of Presence and New Zealand's interregional fibre optic connectivity.

Is your organisation prepared for IPv6 adoption? You are invited to this ‘must-attend’ technology planning event.

Learn how to tune your workstation and devices to get the best from KAREN.

Due to high demand, we are running a second video conference on enabling multicast over KAREN on Friday 3 April.

IT staff and network specialists are invited to a multicast workshop on 3 April. This workshop will help you take advantage of the benefits of multicast on KAREN.

IT staff and network specialists are invited to a multicast workshop on 2 April. Run by REANNZ this workshop will help you take advantage of the benefits of multicast on KAREN.

Speaking at the recent Commerce Commission's 'Broadband at a crossroads' conference, Donald Clark gave an insight into the next generation of KAREN - towards a hybrid optical / packet network.

A whopping 730 Terabytes of data zoomed its way across KAREN in December 2008. This exponential increase smashes our previous milestone of 300 Terabytes of traffic for November. Congratulations to you all for your part in helping us reach such lofty heights only two years into KAREN's operation.

November saw us reach a new milestone in the use of KAREN, with total traffic volume exceeding the 300 Terabyte mark for the first time. This is a great increase on the already impressive achievement of over 200 Terabytes of traffic every month from July.

Network minded and interested in latency, jitter or troubleshooting and measuring network performance? Then check out the KAREN NOC Services Proof of Concept.

The team at REANNZ has been working on the implementation of a suite of open source tools to provide more visibility of the operation and performance of the network to our members.

For the past 3 months traffic* over KAREN has totalled over 200 Terabytes every month. This is equivalent to about 42,000 DVDs.

KAREN video conference trial participants are making the most of this service and simplifying real-time collaboration. Are you taking advantage of this fantastic service?

For the technically inclined, APAN26 features hands-on training and know-how workshops on advanced networking technologies and equipment.

If wireless security or video room design are your thing register to participate in an Ozeconference.

The question 

A question has recently arisen about REANNZ’s attitude to collaboration over getting the physical connection to KAREN. The answer is quite straightforward from our perspective.

Network engineer or specialist in network measurement and monitoring? You can not miss the perfSONAR workshop at APAN26 Sustainable Networking, 4-8 August.

Calling all network graduate students and researchers: get involved in the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference in Queenstown by submitting a paper to the Network Research Working Group.

The APAN Network Research Working Group is holding a one-day workshop on 4 August as part of APAN26.

REANNZ has released the first KAREN Members Report. This report provides an overview of the activity undertaken to support both members and the network for the six months to 30 June 2007.  It also includes information about the performance of KAREN during this time. 

The primary KAREN VLAN was changed to support a 9000 byte IP MTU on Tuesday, 26 June.  This change allows members to take advantage of the low latency, high bandwidth characteristics of KAREN to achieve greater data throughput than conventional networks permit.  This is achieved without impacting the support for existing traffic.

KAREN members have already been taking advantage of the possibilities that this change allows. Ben Yeldon of AUT and Craig Miskell of AgResearch have performed some initial testing.

"Testing has shown a 3-fold increase in overall throughput when using large (4000byte+) frames vs 1500byte frames", says Craig.

This performance gain was seen without performing any tuning of the systems involved.

Several network access providers have enquired about the possibility of providing aggregation services, ie sharing a core KAREN connection with more than one end customer.  Such a service can be useful where customers do not have the funding available to purchase a 1Gb/s last mile connection or the required equipment to deal with the routing and other specifications of a core KAREN connection. 

Through REANNZ's international partnership with Taiwanese network, TWAREN, and Singaporean Network, SingAREN, KAREN members now have improved access to their peers in these countries. KAREN recently signed Memoranda of Understanding with TWAREN and SingAREN confirming peering arrangements, and as a result widening the reach of KAREN and speeding up access to international collaboration partners in these countries.

Peering is an interconnection of separate networks or groups of networks allowing the exchange of traffic between network customers.

NZNOG 07

REANNZ was represented for the first time at the NZ Network Operators Group (NZNOG) 07. NZNOG provided an excellent opportunity for some of us to get together and discuss KAREN, the status of connections and some of the future possibilities for the network and those who use it.

TECH Blog1

Hi all, as you know KAREN is now live. We terminated the first connections on 17^th December and now have seven Active members peering via IPv4, and one who is also peering via IPv6. Currently connected members are:

MEDIA RELEASE 

For those of you not on Bill St Arnaud's mailing list, here is a link to a GEM of an article originally posted on enterprisenetworksandservers.com.  It highlights the cost-effective potential for deploying fibre within your organisation beyond the core.

IPTV trials on JANET go mainstream

UK Company Inuk has been trialing an IPTV multicast service over the UK's advanced network, JANET, for the last year.