Welcome to the RUBIS network
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Overview - ENS de Cachan and RUBIS
Synopsis
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Due to the initiative of École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (ENS de Cachan) and Paris Sud university, with the support of the Vallée Scientifique et Technologique de la Bièvre (VSTB - Scientific and Technological Bièvre Valley) Development Committee, the project of a territorial telecommunications network for the VSTB was launched in order to allow research and education sites to accomplish their activity and partnerships in the best possible conditions and to equip the territory with an infrastructure which reinforces its competitiveness.
1. Context
1.1 The Scientific and Technological Bièvre Valley: a remarkable scientific pole
Extending on twenty towns in the Val-de-Marne and Hauts-de-Seine departments – from Clamart to Villejuif and from Antony to Gentilly, the VSTB is a remarkable territory by the density of the scientifc and technological research activities. This research potential is not recent – the first Cancer Institute was established in Villejuif by Gustave Roussy in 1926 and Fontenay-aux-Roses was the cradle of civil nuclear power in 1946 – but has been kept in the shadows by the impressive scientific concentrations of Paris and Orsay.
Today, the education and research potentiel is enormous: the higher education establishments, including five universities and eight schools, welcome over 25,000 students and there are 230 public or private research laboratories, in which over 10,000 people work including 4,000 researchers and engineers. This potential allows the VSTB to be among the most important research concentrations in Europe and exceeds the concentration inherited by most French regions.
The three main domains are Biology in a medical environment (with, in particular, the strongest European concentration on cancer research), Engineering and Human and social sciences (from law to economy and the present day history institute).
To reveal, consolidate and open on the economic and urban environment this educational and research pole represents a major opportunity for the development of the VSTB. The launching of a project for a high debit network on the VSTB territory is an essential contribution to this territorial development strategy.
1.2 The problems of higher education and research establishments
It is generally agreed that access to very high debit communication networks has become an imperative need for the higher education and research community, and this is proven by the multiple projects and achievements of this type of network launched in France and worldwide. Telecommunication services occupy a increasingly central place in higher education and research activities and the growth of the requirements in band-width that they induce undeniably constitute an important trend.
The development of telecommunication services is associated with key stakes in higher education and research activities: the management and sharing of knowledge (with information access services: databases, electronic publishing, ...), the geographical dispersion and the essential network availability of research activities (with exchange services between researchers who are physically distant: electronic messaging, visio meetings, …), the shared use of heavy equipment, increasingly expensive in investment terms (with the distant use of shared ressources: calculators, …), the new teaching methods (with the development of e-learning, …).
The stake is to offer satisfactory solutions, at the regional level, to connect the various higher education and research sites to the Renater (national network for technology, teaching & research) network as well as to other operators.
This is why, for 2 years, the research and higher education community of the Paris region is organised geographically to share a high debit access to Internet . Several projects of high debit networks have been launched or are about to be: Paris Academic Network (RAP), Evry-Génopole (REVE), Marne La Vallée Polytechnicum (REMUS), Versailles-St. Quentin (ROYAL), Plateau de Saclay …
RUBIS réseau Bièvre is part of this dynamic force. It aims in priority at meeting the needs of the VSTB higher education and research establishments, while attempting to find the best fit with the projects launched on other scales or in other territories.
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2. Objectives of the Réseau Bièvre project
In this context, RUBIS réseau Bièvre has two aims which, although each one has its own dynamics, must be continued in parallel:
- to meet in priority the needs of the territory's higher education and research establishments, by engaging a dynamics of cooperation between these establishments in order to equip them with a high debit network;
- to contribute to a true territorial project, by encouraging research partnerships, while anticipating the potential contributions of the réseau Bièvre to the development of the VSTB, and by involving all the actors (higher education and research establishments, local administration, private companies, …).
These two objectives are intrinsically dependent insofar as the cooperative dynamics created by the higher education and research establishments contributes to consolidate the territory's "Scientific and Technological" component. Likewise, the existence of a territorial approach on the level of the VSTB has been determining in the launch of RUBIS réseau Bièvre and bestows, in the duration, a political legitimacy and a favorable framework for development.
These two objectives imply that the network project for higher education and research establishments is part of a global territorial project while taking care not to hinder the dynamics created by these establishments.
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3. The procedure
The first phase made an inventory of the needs of the territorial higher education and research establishments who expressed an immediate interest in the project. The second phase will soon be launched. This survey identified the first core of partners, representive of the territory's scientific and technological potential, and to define a network project between these partners (perimeter, structure, services, costs, ...).
RUBIS réseau Bièvre received in June 2000 a financial support of more than 3 Meuros from the Conseil Régional Ile-de-France and, in 2002 received 350 000 euros over 2 years from the Ministry of Research. This support is intended to cover the majority of the capital expenditures engaged by the partners on the whole project.
The first operational phase of the project associates the 12 following partners (in alphabetical order) :
- Centre Chirurgical Marie Lannelongue - Le Plessis Robinson
- Cemagref - Antony
- DGA/CTA - Arcueil
- Ecole Centrale Paris - Châtenay-Malabry
- ENS - Cachan
- EPF with 3 sites - Sceaux
- ESTP - Cachan
- INRETS - Arcueil
- Institut Gustave Roussy - Villejuif
- IUFM de Versailles with 2 sites - Antony
- ONERA with 2 sites - Châtillon and Palaiseau
- Université Paris Sud with 5 sites initially
among 40 potential partners on the VSTB territory.
A multi-gigabit backbone made it possible to interconnect 7 partners at 1Gbit/s in August 2002, the others were connected in March 2003.
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