RedIRIS

RedIRIS is the Spanish academic and scientific communities' advanced communications network, to which over 300 institutions belong, including all of Spain's universities and public research entities.

RedIRIS is financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and is included on its map of Singular Scientific Technological Facilities. It is managed by the public business entity, Red.es and provides its users with a high speed core network, with connection to a global research intranet, with special characteristics in terms of transmission capacity and innovative services.

RedIRIS came into being in 1988 as a project for the interconnection of the National Plan's computer resources and it was pioneer in Spain in the introduction of internet and different online services, playing an essential role in the evolution of the Information Society in Spain, as well as in the interconnection and development of regional research networks with projects such as ALICE (Latin America) or Eumedconnect (South Mediterranean).

Twenty years after its creation, RedIRIS continues to be at the cutting edge in new online services, co-operating with other academic and research networks at a global level. To do this it co-ordinates and interconnects, at a national level with regional research networks, and at a world level with Géant2, from where it links up with the rest of Europe and covers global connectivity with the other research networks: RedCLARA (Latin America), Internet2 (USA) or TEIN2 (Asia-Pacific).

So that RedIRIS can continue to promote innovation in this sector and help towards the development of e-science, it is planned that during this legislative term RedIRIS will progress from its current leased capacity model to a dark fibre network model, which will make it possible to provide multiple high speed circuits on a single fibre, thus increasing the interconnection and service capabilities. This is similar to that which is being carried out by academic and research networks in other countries around Spain.

This new dark fibre network will be deployed within the framework of the project called RedIRIS Nova, led by the Ministry of Science and Innovation in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade and carried out by the public business entity Red.es, the responsibilities of which include the operational management of RedIRIS. Red.es will also have the collaboration of the autonomous regions.