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The new network

This is a new project to develop the next version of the network. It is a key strategic development for New Zealand’s Research and Education community that REANNZ is undertaking over the next 3 years to ensure that the network remains advanced.

About the project

The new network project will establish REANNZ's network as a long-term infrastructural asset with much lower per-unit costs of bandwidth than the present approach of regular periodic purchase of managed services. The change to ownership of infrastructure is a fundamental one that will ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the network while adding considerable flexibility. It signals a coming of age for the network.

While having a strong technical base, this project requires a comprehensive and broad approach in its planning. It includes:

  • comprehensive technical planning and feasibility work
  • significant community consultation and stakeholder consultation in both the technical and usability areas
  • a strong focus on promoting and enabling better use of the network, and
  • a significant procurement process with its attendant financial management.

Consideration will also be made of what additional services REANNZ could provide to its members.

The successful outcome of this project will be a world-class, highly scalable and sustainable research network provisioned at the lowest per-unit cost of bandwidth that will provide certainty of capacity and performance over 20+ year time horizon. It will satisfy the requirement for an “advanced network” for the research and education sector for the foreseeable future. It will also ensure that our research organisations are able to take advantage of the high bandwidth international links as they come on-stream.

Most importantly, REANNZ will ensure that New Zealand researchers and educationalists are able to use the advanced network to its full capacity, to help them meet the challenges of participating in the global research arena. In this respect it will be a key enabler that will provide effective access to the rapidly developing research-orientated cloud-computing infrastructure.

Who can I talk to about the new network?

If you have any questions or comments about this, you can talk to:



by Dr. Radut.