As a follow-up to the European workshop on research networking held the year before, a second European Networkshop is held in Copenhagen in May.

1986

“Terminate RARE? I believe that in ten years, the programme as we currently see it will have been completed. However, I think new areas will arise all the time and that RARE will have a continuing role to play.”Peter Linington (First President of RARE), Source: Computer Compacts July/August 1986

1987

On 13 June, RARE (Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne) is established as an association under Dutch law by Hans Rosenberg on behalf of the University of Utrecht and Klaus Ullmann on behalf of the DFN Association. The initial Executive Committee consists of Klaus Ullmann (DFN), Kees Neggers (SURF) and Peter Linington (JANET).

On 19 June, the COSINE Policy Group adopts the initial plan for COSINE prepared by RARE: there will be a Specification Phase and an Implementation Phase.

EARN organises its first conference, EARN86, in October in West-Berlin.

EARN becomes an international member of RARE and starts planning its migration to OSI.

Laptop in 1986

Opening RARE Secretariat

“...That reality is already common in the RARE Secretariat. Whenever possible, its staff doesn’t send letters anymore. Instead, they send their messages, thoughts, meeting documents on-line. If you want to read your ‘mail’ you only have to press a few keys. That is so much more efficient; you can’t do without anymore.”Journalist visiting the interim RARE Secretariat

Source: Wetenschapsbeleid, October 1986

On 13 June RARE is established

Microsoft Windows 1.0 operating system is introduced

1985198419831982

This booklet is published in connection with the 20th anniversary of the association of national research and education networking organisations in Europe. When originally founded, the association was called RARE (Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne), a name that was later changed to TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association) when RARE merged with another European organisation, the EARN (European Academic & Research Network) association.

The collaboration in Europe between the national research and education networking organisations has been very successful over the years. When RARE was first formed, connectivity in Europe was very expensive and the international exchange of experience was limited. Since then, there have been many impressive technological developments, in which academic and research networking has played a definite role. Close and fruitful collaboration has developed between the technical experts from the different countries, so that best practice and new ideas spread quickly and effort is co-ordinated across Europe. Europe is now at the forefront of international development in high-speed networking services for the research and education community.

All this has only been possible because so many talented people all over Europe have been contributing – their dedication has been

crucial. There has definitely not always been total agreement on the exact path to take at a given point in time, but these differences of opinion have proved fruitful, ensuring in-depth discussions and deliberations. Thanks to the joint efforts, the entire community has moved forward, because eventually a high and well-founded degree of consensus has been achieved in crucial matters.

Europe has also had considerable intercontinental collaboration during these 20 years, and it is definitely appropriate to mention the fruitful exchange of experience with countries overseas. Especially during the first decade, a lot of progress would not have taken place without close collaboration with North America.

It is always difficult to start mentioning names in a context like this, because so many people have contributed to the joint European success. Since this is a celebration of the collaboration in RARE, EARN and TERENA, I will allow myself a bias and highlight by name only the past presidents of these organisations: Peter Linington, Klaus Ullmann, Kees Neggers, Dennis Jennings, David Lord, Frode Greisen, Stefano Trumpy and David Williams – and then thank without attempting to name them all, the managers and technical experts from the national research and education networking organisations who have contributed over all these years.

Dorte Olesen,TERENA President

Twenty years of European collaboration in research networking

In February, the EARN Association is established as a legal entity. David Lord is President.

On 13-15 May, the first-ever European workshop on research networking is held in the European Commission buildings in Luxembourg. On the evening of 14 May, at an informal meeting of national representatives, it is proposed to form a European association to foster research networking: RARE is born.

At the second ministerial Eureka conference in Hannover in November, the West-German government proposes a project for European collaboration in research networking that will later become known as COSINE (Co-operation for Open Systems Interconnection Networking in Europe).

In July, Peter Kirstein and Larry Landweber (University of Wisconsin) organise a seminar in Oslo. The meeting is described by some as the first meeting in history to take a global view of research networking. It is the first in a series of annual events that become commonly known as the Landweber Seminars.

Towards the end of the year, IBM takes the initiative for a network linking selected computer centres via leased lines, which later becomes known as EARN (European Academic and Research Network).

EUnet becomes operational. EUnet is the European branch of USENET, providing communication between Unix systems on an operating system specific basis.

In September, Peter Kirstein (University College London) convenes a meeting to discuss US-European academic network collaboration.

In Germany, the DFN Association is established.

In the United Kingdom, the first JANET network is created, essentially by expanding and enhancing an X.25 network that was established earlier.

The second Landweber Seminar takes place in Paris.

The first EARN connections become operational.

The original Apple Macintosh is released

“Computer networks, and especially the Internet, have become natural elements of our everyday life. Using e-mail and searching for various information on the Internet are among the most common and standard applications. The Internet is used to an increasing extent also for making phone calls and managing complex scientific experiments, with interactive multimedia applications finding their way to many areas such as medicine or education. I am often surprised to discover that especially the younger generations believe that this was also true in the past.”Jan Gruntorád (Director of CESNET), Source: 10 years of CESNET, 2006

Sony and Philips bring out the compact disc

Paul Mockapetris invents the Domain Name System, translating numerical addresses into easier-to-remember names

EARN stand at SURFnet conference

Berlin Wall opened1989

“We are working towards a future when you can travel around Europe without a passport – albeit only while sitting at your keyboard in your office.” Rob Brinkhuijsen (Former Head of the interim RARE Secretariat)

Source: SURF Magazine, April 1988

In May at the RARE Networkshop in Trieste, Italy, Peter Tindemans (chairman of the COSINE Policy Group) announces the description of the COSINE Implementation Phase.

YUNAC (Yugoslavia) is admitted as a national member of RARE.

The EARN89 conference is held in Heraklion, Greece at the end of May.

In June, EARN decides to restructure the technical work of the organisation.

In August, RARE sets up the interim COSINE Project Management Unit. Howard Davies heads the unit.

1990

On 1 February, the RARE Council of Administration adopts a famous resolution, which signals the beginning of the end of the protocol wars.

IXI (the International X.25 Infrastructure Backbone Service) becomes operational. It is a 64 kb/s European backbone network with a two-star (Amsterdam, Bern)

topology.

In May, RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) becomes a RARE body. The terms of reference for RIPE are published by Rob Blokzijl in September as RFC 1181.

Succeeding the annual RARE Networkshops and EARN Conferences, the first EARN/RARE Joint European Networking Conference (JENC) is held in Killarney, Ireland.

1993

RARE is one of the founding members of the Internet Society, which is chartered in January.

In May, the third annual JENC is held in Innsbruck, Austria. For the first time the conference features a demonstration area and at the conference Tim Berners-Lee makes

one of his first public presentations on the World Wide Web.

A new RARE Executive Committee takes office, with Kees Neggers as President. The statutes of RARE are changed to allow national research network organisations from all countries in Europe to become full national members. ARNES (Slovenia) is admitted as a full national member.

Tomaz Kalin joins RARE as Secretary General in June.

RARE’s technical activities are fully restructured. A RARE Technical Committee is established and the Working Group structure is replaced by a new one. Publication starts of a series of RARE Technical Reports.

RARE sets up the RIPE Network Coordination Centre. RIPE NCC operations start in April with three members of staff.

In May, JENC4 is held in Trondheim, Norway.

The COSINE Implementation Phase is completed at the end of June. DANTE is formally established - Dai Davies and Howard Davies are appointed Joint General Managers.

In July in Amsterdam, RARE and SURFnet organise the first IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) meeting outside North America.

The Networking Services Conference 1993 is organised by EARN in October in Warsaw.

In October, RARE organises a NATO Advanced Networking Workshop in Budapest. It is the start of a tradition: RARE (and later TERENA) organises one or two NATO workshops every year for the next eight years.

Possibilities for further collaboration between EARN and RARE are investigated. The Executive Committees of the two organisations have a joint meeting and recommend a merger.

In September, the national research network organisations from Poland, Hungary, Turkey and Croatia are admitted as full national members of RARE. It is decided that from now on RARE

and RIPE will be independent bodies. The RIPE NCC remains part of the RARE organisation.

EuropaNET (the latest European backbone) becomes operational in October. It offers speeds of 2 Mb/s and uses IP technology.

In November, EARN organises the first Networking Services Conference in Pisa, Italy.

At the end of the year, it is decided to set up the Operational Unit (later known as DANTE) as a limited-liability company in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

From 1991 onwards, RARE becomes an employer under Dutch law.

On 1 January 1991, Bernard Delcourt is appointed Secretary General of RARE.

RARE sets up the COSINE Project Management Unit (CPMU). Dai Davies is appointed as Director of the CPMU and starts on 1 April.

The second EARN/RARE Joint European Networking Conference takes place in Blois, France in May.

The INET conferences succeed the Landweber Seminars. INET’91 takes place in Copenhagen in June. EARN is one of the driving forces behind the event. Starting with INET’92 in Kobe, Japan, the INETs will become the annual conferences of the Internet Society.

RARE establishes a task force to examine the possibility of creating an Operational Unit. The rapport of the task force is accepted by the RARE Council of Administration in December.

Delegates meet in Amsterdam in September to discuss the Ebone 92 proposal. Ebone will be an interim solution providing IP interconnection in Europe. Early October, RARE decides to support Ebone as a special RARE project.

Mid-December, the RARE Secretariat moves to a new office in Amsterdam, Singel 468.

1992

“In 1992, I was chairing a meeting in Zürich of a RARE working group on information access when I was approached by a certain Tim Berners-Lee, who told about a way to make information access more uniform; it was based on hyperlinks and he called it World-Wide Web. Unfortunately I did not see the light straightaway.” Erik Huizer (Former Chair of the RARE WG3 Directory Services and User Information Services),

Source: SURFnet Magazine, May 2000

“The fact that the RARE Networkshop was a meeting of technical specialists became clear from the proposal to print X.400 email addresses on business cards. For example, for the RARE Secretary General, the format of C=NL; ADMD=400net; PRMD=SURF; O=NIKHEF; S=HUTTON; I=J.”RARE Annual Report 1989

COSINE floppy disks for

Mac, DOS and Windows

Horst Hünke (European

Commission) and Kees

Neggers in Trondheim

Slovenia and Croatia declare independence from Yugoslavia

turn>

Following the separation of Czechoslovakia, CESNET (Czech Republic) and SANET (Slovakia) are admitted as full national members of RARE in February. The University of Cyprus is admitted as a full national member in September.

1991German unification: East Germany becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany

The number of hosts on the Internet surpasses 1,000,000

IXI Topology, April ‘92

James Hutton is appointed Secretary General of RARE.

The third RARE Networkshop is held in Valencia, Spain in May.

In June, a separate RARE Secretariat is created, which takes over from the interim Secretariat provided by James Martin Associates. The Secretariat is officially opened in September. The opening ceremony involves sending data between London and Amsterdam using the new FTAM standard.

The COSINE Specification Phase starts on 1 July.

In September, Alain Auroux is seconded by IBM to EARN as EARN Manager.

Following the annual Landweber Seminar in Princeton, a kick-off meeting of the CCIRN (Co-ordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networking) is held in Washington DC in November. The detailed terms of reference for the CCIRN are agreed in a meeting in Geneva in May 1988.

By the end of the year, the RARE membership counts national members from 18 of the 20 eligible European countries. RARE has seven working groups.

The concept of ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is developed at Bellcore

“EARN was confronted with the major problem of tariffs. The German PTT has introduced volume-dependent tariffs on the international EARN links, EARN has reacted to this problem with a strategy to avoid pass-through traffic by relocating most of the international lines away from Germany.” EARN Annual Report 1987-1988

1988

On 1 January, the period of IBM’s financial support for EARN comes to an end.

In April, Marieke Dekker joins the RARE Secretariat as Executive Officer.

The second EARN conference is held in Izmir, Turkey in April.

The RARE Networkshop is organised in Les Diablerets, Switzerland in May. A new Executive Committee takes office, with Klaus Ullmann succeeding Peter Linington as President.

RARE completes the COSINE Specification Phase.

In October, a new EARN Executive Commitee is elected. Frode Greisen succeeds Dennis Jennings as President.

New RARE President

The Morris worm causes the first large-scale denial-of-service attack on the Internet

RARE Executive Committee and staff 1987-1988

In May, the TERENA Networking Conference takes place in Lisbon, combined with the 5th International Web Caching and Content Delivery Workshop.

A trial version of the first TERENA Compendium of National Research and Education Networks in Europe is presented to the General Assembly in May. The initiative will

lead to a highly successful series of annual publications.

In June, TERENA organises the First European Middleware Workshop in Leiden, Netherlands. Middleware becomes a focus of attention, with much work undertaken in task forces and projects during the next years.

The Trusted Introducer service starts as a pilot on 1 September. Later it is continued as a permanent service.

2000 2001Millennium Bug paranoia reaches

fever pitch1999199819971996

The reform of the TERENA Technical Programme is completed. The working groups are abolished and new task forces take their place. The concept of Special Interest Areas is introduced.

In June, the TERENA Networking Conference is combined with the NORDUnet conference which takes place in Lund, Sweden.

A new TERENA Executive Committee is elected with David Williams as President.

The SIRCE pilot ends in September, as the participating organisations cannot reach consensus on the continuation of the service. TERENA organises meetings of Computer Security Incident Response Teams, which eventually lead to the establishment of the task force TF-CSIRT.

The SIRCE pilot to co-ordinate computer security incident response in Europe starts in May.

JENC8 in Edinburgh attracts more than 400 participants. LATNET (Latvia) is admitted as a national member of TERENA.

TEN-34 is launched. It is the successor network to EuropaNET and offers speeds of 34Mb/s using both IP and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode).

The GUM NCC is discontinued at the end of the year.

By the end of 1997, the RIPE NCC has 31 members of staff. The RIPE NCC is set up as an independent association under Dutch law. The RIPE NCC assets and liabilities are transferred by TERENA to the new association on 1 January 1998.

In March, Karel Vietsch joins TERENA as Secretary General.

In May, JENC7 takes place in Budapest.

In July, TERENA discontinues its role as the secretariat and clearinghouse for Ebone. The Ebone administration is transferred to UNI•C in Denmark. On 23 September, the Ebone consortium becomes an association and sets up a wholly owned limited-liability company.

In October, at the General Assembly meeting in Bled, Slovenia, knowledge transfer to less advanced regions is added to TERENA’s

priorities.

EENet (Estonia) becomes a national member of TERENA.

The RIPE NCC grows from 12 members of staff at the end of 1995 to 18 at the end of 1996. It is agreed to set up the RIPE NCC as an independent legal entity starting on 1 January 1998.

In October, TERENA organises its annual conference, now called the TERENA Networking Conference, in Dresden, Germany.

A reorganisation of the TERENA Technical Programme begins. As a first step, an informal Technical Advisory Council meeting takes place in Dresden on 5 October.

During the year, TERENA funds seven small pilot projects.

Towards the end of the year, TERENA and Internet2 agree on a Memorandum of Understanding. TERENA becomes an International Partner of Internet2.

In December, TEN-155 succeeds TEN-34, offering speeds between 155 and 622 Mb/s, and using both IP and ATM.

1994 1995

“It would be nice if there were all sorts of open standards, but how do you achieve them? Not by first developing them theoretically and then say that everyone must comply with them. In practice, it turns out to be better to have standards and products developed simultaneously. Only those solutions that have proved themselves in real life may become standards.”Kees Neggers (President of RARE), Source: SURF Magazine, June 1994

In May, JENC6 is held in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Disagreements on policy result in the resignation of all TERENA Executive Committee members. A new Executive Committee is elected with Stefano Trumpy as President.

TERENA produces a CD-ROM with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software.

On 25 March, RARE transfers its 100% share holding in DANTE to 11 national research network organisations.

The EARN Board of Directors decides to create the GUM NCC (Global Updating and Monitoring Network Coordination Centre) to co-ordinate NJE (Network Job Entry) activities.

JENC5 is combined with the INET conference in Prague, attracting more than 1,100 participants.

On 20 October, RARE and EARN merge to become TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association). All members of RARE and EARN decide to become members of TERENA. A new Executive Committee is elected with Frode Greisen as President.

In November, the third Networking Services Conference takes place in London.

“World Wide Web is a network killer application. It is basically interactive and it devours bandwidth. The growth rate is currently 300% per month, which would mean, if you extrapolate, that by the end of 1996 the whole world population would be using WWW. That is unlikely of course.”Erik Huizer (Former Chair of the RARE WG3 Directory Services and User Information

Services), Source: SURF Magazine, November 1994

“In general, the people who built the first networks are still involved in the development of the Internet or other networks. Those first contacts still exist. We still meet each other. We still need each other.”Rob Blokzijl (Chairman of RIPE)

Source: SURFnet Magazine, June 1997

“In networking, as in so many other fields, we Europeans cannot do everything alone in our countries – we do not have the resources for that. We are condemned to collaborate, and to make our collaborations successful. We need to work with our neighbours, even if they speak different languages, or the same language with different accents, and drink different beer, wine, spirits and mineral water, but the same Coca-Cola.”David Williams (President of TERENA), Source: TERENA Annual Report 1999

The TERENA Networking Conference 2001 is held in May in Antalya, Turkey.

The TERENA Executive Committee and General Assembly have extensive discussions about TERENA’s mission. The discussion leads to a new Mission and Objectives Statement, which is officially adopted by the General Assembly in June 2002.

On 12-13 September, TERENA organises an International Lambda Workshop in Amsterdam, in collaboration with CANARIE, Internet2, SURFnet and StarLight. The day before, there is a closed meeting of organisations actively involved with lambda networking. Similar events are held in subsequent years, leading to the establishment of GLIF (Global Lambda Integrated Facility).

The GÉANT network succeeds TEN-155. Connections are at speeds between 2.5 and 10 Gb/s; GÉANT uses DWDM technology and offers IPv4 and IPv6 in dual-stack mode.

TERENA stand

at the third

Global Research

Village

conferenceEbone

brochure

George Soros

speaking

at JENC5 /

INET’94 in

Prague

The dot.com bubble bursts and stock values drop dramatically

Editions of the Guide to Network

Resource Tools have been

published under different titles by

EARN and TERENA since 1993

Vint Cerf, ‘the

father of the

Internet’, at JENC7

in Budapest

Viewing the eclipse from the roof of the TERENA Secretariat

Deep Blue, the IBM computer, defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov

First large-scale commercial email spam on the Internet

Former Secretary General Tomaz Kalin and

his successor Karel Vietsch join a toast with

TERENA’s Executive Officer, Marieke Dekker

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is created to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the United States government by other organisations

Apple launches the first-generation iPod

Netscape Communications Corporation enters the stock market, setting nearly a record for a stock’s first-day gain

From kilobits to Gigabits… What will the next 20 years bring?

2004

TERENA publishes an IP Telephony Cookbook.

TERENA joins the large-scale European Grid project EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-sciencE).

In June, the TERENA Networking Conference 2004 takes place in Rhodes, Greece.

TERENA becomes a partner in the GN2 project, which will not only fund the new GÉANT2 network but also a number of other activities, including TERENA activities. TERENA representatives take an active role in the management of the project.

AMREJ (Serbia and Montenegro) is admitted as a national member of TERENA.

The statutes of TERENA are changed in order to extend the terms of office of Executive Committee members to three years, and to allow a larger range of organisations to become international members.

2005

TERENA takes on the tasks of the GLIF Secretariat.

Funding from the GN2 project allows TERENA to intensify its network

development support activities.

The TERENA Networking Conference 2005 takes place in Poznan , Poland in June.

TERENA organises two EuroCAMPs, two NREN-Grids workshops, two workshops about connecting schools and a number of other events.

The rollout of the GÉANT2 network starts; it will be largely based on ‘dark fibre’.

TERENA leads the SEEFIRE study into the opportunities for using ‘dark fibre’ in research networks in southeast Europe.

2006

“There are similarities between Ebone and GLIF. The European IP backbone Ebone was established in the early 1990s because it was realised that OSI and X.25 would not be a solution. GLIF was established in the early 2000s because routed IP was no longer enough to serve the needs of the research and education community. Direct lambda or light path connections may be a better way forward to serve the most demanding users.”Kees Neggers (founding father of GLIF)

Source: Kaarina Lehtisalo, the History of NORDUnet, 2005

This booklet testifies to the fact that the history of European collaboration in research and education networking has been an eventful one. There have been periods of rapid progress and periods of stagnation. There have been times of wide consensus and there have been wars over protocols and policies. There have been years when ample resources were available and there have been lean years. But leafing through a history of 20 years, the overall impression is that of a series of great successes.

In these 20 years, research and education networking in Europe has come a long way. From kilobit networks to Gigabit networks. From outrageously expensive to affordable. From a handful of researchers served by an even smaller group of networking pioneers to a large community receiving a wide range of services from professional organisations. From a continent lagging years behind the developments on the other side of the Atlantic to world leadership in important aspects of research and education networking.

One of the success factors has been the way in which Europe has been able to organise itself. The organisational model of a single national research networking organisation per country with co-ordination and collaboration at the continental level has been key to success. It is a model that is now being copied in all other continents. Through the years, the European association of the national research networking

organisations, nowadays called TERENA, has played a crucial role by facilitating the co-ordination of policies and activities, the planning and execution of joint initiatives, and the collaboration between experts from the member organisations and the wider research networking community.

The European association of national research networking organisations has spun off a number of successful initiatives and organisations. Its Operational Unit has become its sister organisation DANTE, a highly successful not-for-profit company planning, building and operating the interconnection of national research networks. The RIPE NCC performs an indispensable role for Europe and surrounding regions to keep the Internet running. Also as a founder of the Internet Society, for example, TERENA has helped to shape the global Internet landscape.

When in the 1980s research networking organisations at national and European level were being created, many of us believed that these would be very temporary constructs. Twenty years later, these organisations are more needed and more successful than ever. Only time can tell what the next 20 years will bring.

Karel Vietsch,TERENA Secretary General

TERENA establishes a task force on lifecycle and portfolio management (TF-LCPM).

TERENA starts a Server Certificate Service.

In May, the TERENA Networking Conference 2006 is held in Catania, Sicily.

On 22 June, TERENA celebrates its 20th Anniversary with a seminar and gala evening.

TNC 2005 (Poland)

TNC 2006 in Catania

TERENA’s Executive Committee

in December 2005

On 1 May, ten new member states join the European Union: Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia

Successful electronic transfer to the Netherlands of data collected by Australian telescopes from the Huygens space probe as it plunges through the clouds of Titan

In a referendum, a majority of voters in Montenegro choose to terminate its union with Serbia

2002

In June, the TERENA Networking Conference 2002 is held in Limerick, Ireland.

The first informal meeting of PR officers of research networking organisations takes place. This leads to the creation of a TERENA task force TF-PR in 2003.

SERENATE, a large-scale study into the expected development of research and education networking in Europe, starts in July and is completed by the end of 2003.

TERENA organises workshops on Optical Networking, Mobility, IP Telephony and Authentication & Authorisation.

TERENA becomes a partner in a large number of EU-funded projects that start during the year, including: 6NET, 6LINK, SCAMPI, TRANSITS and SEEREN.

2003From 1 January, euro banknotes and coins are in circulation in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain

The TERENA Networking Conference is combined with the CARNet Users Conference 2003 in Zagreb, Croatia and attracts more than 460 participants.

Dorte Olesen succeeds David Williams as President of TERENA.

In September, TERENA organises a workshop on policy issues for national research networks in southeast Europe which takes place in Varna, Bulgaria.

The TACAR repository is set up.

The University of Malta is admitted as a national member of TERENA.

The pilot eduroam service for roaming network access starts as an activity of TERENA task force TF-Mobility. At the end of the year, six countries are connected.

“Research network organisations, and the National Research and Education Network in particular, are an important asset for a country, driving innovation and the dissemination and wide adoption of new technologies and services, thereby eventually contributing to the development of industry and commerce and to economic prosperity.”SERENATE Summary Report, 2003

Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis found Skype, the Global Internet Telephone Company based on peer-to-peer technology

design: Eva de Lange