In 1990, in his early twenties and just two years after joining the fledgling CRP Henri Tudor (created in 1987 and now known as the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology or LIST), Alain was contacted by those who a decade later would become the first two directors of the Restena Foundation: Antoine Barthel and Théo Duhautpas. Their ambition: to produce an initial plan for a national network dubbed RESTENA, which stands for ‘Réseau Téléinformatique de l’Éducation Nationale’ (National Education Computer Communication Network).

Alain joined, as a network engineer, the dedicated research team, which at the time consisted of just two people: him and Antoine Barthel. The duo is soon joined by Théo Duhautpas. Alain focused on technical tasks, Antoine Barthel and Théo Duhautpas took over project management and set the course for the RESTENA network; the national research and education network. Under the guidance of his two colleagues, Alain brought the initial RESTENA network architecture to life.

1990-2000, the decade of first times

Alain was involved in many firsts in the history of the RESTENA network. He quickly installed and supervised the first network equipment. At that time, the Internet (in Luxembourg) did not exist yet, and the menvax computer (microVAX 3300) in his office was used as a server (Mail, Gopher, News and gateway to other services). The beneficiaries of this first RESTENA network connected via modem, an equipment that has become emblematic and recognisable by the noise so characteristic of a past era.

In 1992, Alain set up the first international Internet connection in Luxembourg. He spent 1 hour on the telephone with a colleague from a research centre based in Amsterdam, whose infrastructure made it possible to link Luxembourg to the rest of the world. Before a direct link to Luxembourg was set up between RESTENA and the European network EuropaNET (forerunner of the GÉANT network) in 1992, this temporary connection via the Netherlands and CERN (the Swiss research centre where the World Wide Web was created in 1989) enabled an Internet connection to the United States.

The speed was very slow, the connections very expensive, and he couldn't imagine at the time that this was anything more than a simple technical connection. But, the impact of his technical actions would soon become far-reaching.

After the connection via EuropaNet from what was to become the first access point in Luxembourg, the first customers arrived with requests to register .lu domain names and to connect to the Internet. Alain registered and then configured the very first .lu domain name. He also set up the first official page of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (luxembourg.lu), a sort of directory redirecting users to the Internet pages of the day, using what would today be considered basic encoding. The first connections were made with the Institut Supérieur de Technologie and the Centre Universitaire (now the University of Luxembourg), with research centres, and with the Ministry of Education and the first secondary schools!

The acceleration

The pace quickened, and the small RESTENA project team began to expand. As the project grew, so did the need for recruitment. The first major increase in human resources was around the year 2000 when RESTENA turned from project to foundation and connected the national network to the European GÉANT network. Gilles Massen, the current director of the Restena Foundation, joined the adventure at this key moment in the network's development.

Naturally, Alain refocused his activities on network infrastructure, developing the Points of Presence (PoPs) in Luxembourg and connecting institutions. Many of these institutions relied on him to manage their networks: some have had technical teams since the RESTENA network was set up, others since they set up their own networks.

Alain also co-constructed with his colleague Marc Stiefer, still at Restena to date, a Helpdesk for these institutions and their staff. The end of the second millennium, marked by the growing appetite of research and education institutions for technology, also met a lack of technical knowledge. The terms modem, connection, dial-up, to name but a few, are full of mystery. It is therefore unthinkable not to provide teachers with personalised support. In addition to telephone support and the distribution by post of diskettes containing all the essentials for connecting to the network, training courses are given to teachers in their secondary schools. Alain is one of Restena's trainers.

At the same time, the technical infrastructure of the network was changing, with optical fibre gradually replacing the old leased lines, and the Centre de Technologie de l'Education (CTE), which later became the Centre de Gestion Informatique de l'Education (CGIE), got involved in the management of the technical infrastructure of all the public secondary schools.

Technical catch-up

During two decades, Alain took on the role of technical contact (Access-Point-Manager) for Luxembourg in the successive pan-European research networks (EuropaNET, TEN-34, TEN-155 and GÉANT). At the same time, from 1996 onwards, he installed and managed the equipment for Luxembourg's first Internet exchange platform for local service providers (LIX) - whose activities would be transferred to LU-CIX a decade later. But the years went by and the RESTENA network, then the Restena Foundation, expanded. Alain refocused his tasks on managing the RESTENA infrastructure and the user helpdesk. He gave way to his colleagues in the international meetings (APM and EuroIX meetings), which he attended regularly during the 1990s and 2000s. Alain still remembers that uncomfortable feeling of always being one step behind the other major countries connected in Europe. The lines, speeds and technologies of the European neighbours were more advanced. A complete technical upgrade took place at the end of the 2000s, with the gradual installation of the fibre. Now, the only remaining gaps are in terms of speed - reaching 100Gbit/s in Luxembourg today and 200Gbit/s in the near future.

At the national level, throughout his career, Alain has been the point of contact for the Ministry of Research and Higher Education (MESR), the Ministry of National Education, Children and Youth (MENJE), in particular via the Centre de gestion informatique de l'éducation (CGIE), and local authorities in relation to physical connection requirements for research, secondary, post-secondary and basic education institutions. He also liaises with suppliers and operators of optical lines and fibers, for the leasing of national connections and their budgetary control.

So, Alain is always at the forefront of developments in the technical infrastructure of the RESTENA network, whether from his office in Luxembourg-Kirchberg, or from the one in Esch-Belval - where Restena moved in 2015. From modem access via its individual computer to the initial PoP in Kirchberg, the backbone structure of the national network has come a long way. By 2021, it reached a total of 12 primary PoPs spread across the country. Obviously, Alain is no longer the only one in charge of this development, and a team dedicated to the network is sketching out the architecture of the RESTENA network.

The Restena Foundation has grown - reaching a new cruising speed in 2020 when the number of staff stabilised at just over 20, but that's not the only change Alain experienced. Non-existent at the start of the RESTENA adventure, IT security issues have become an increasingly important part of the network architecture. The innocence of the first developments has given way to a rather cruel reality on the ground. Attacks are commonplace, almost daily, infrastructures must be constantly adapted, and appropriate measures taken.