Since March 2021, the Restena Foundation operates a new connection point at the heart of the national RESTENA network shared by the Luxembourg research and education community. The main backbone of the network now consists of 12 primary Points of Presence (POPs) spread across the country.
An additional location in the centre of the country
From the municipality of Bissen in the centre of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the 12th point of presence is located between those in Ettelbrück and Mersch to which it is connected in 10 Gigabit per second (Gbit/s). Above all, it is directly connected at 100 Gbit/s to one of the two international network nodes: the Luxembourg-Kirchberg node. In this location, as in Bettembourg, the RESTENA network connects to the pan-European research network GÉANT, which brings together some 40 research and education networks in Europe and guarantees access to their global counterparts.
This direct link provides the institutions connected to Bissen with the best and most efficient connection and interface that the RESTENA network can offer. Since the national network's connectivity increase from 10 to 100 Gbit/s, this is the first time an infrastructure has been connected to international research networks via a bandwidth of 100 Gbit/s.
Serving the Luxembourg supercomputer
MeluXina, the Luxembourg supercomputer operated by LuxProvide, is the first to be connected to the new RESTENA network point of presence in the LuxConnect data centre. Restena's interconnection to the pan-European GÉANT network thus provides an efficient response to its network performance requirements, but not only. It directly benefits Luxembourg's research and projects requiring the processing of large volumes of data or even complex calculations, an undeniable asset for the country.
Thanks to the new POP, MeluXina joins all the supercomputers deployed in Europe within the framework of the Luxembourg-based EuroHPC, the European Joint Undertaking on High-Performance from the European Commission aiming at making Europe a world leader in high-performance computing and quantum computing.
Updated RESTENA network map
➔ All institutions connected to the RESTENA network wishing to benefit from a 100 Gbit/s connection on one or more of their sites are encouraged to contact the Restena Foundation.