SUNET – Swedish university data network

Communication networks are important types of e-infrastructure. SUNET serves the higher education institutions (and organisations) by providing an infrastructure for national and international data communication, and a number of related services. Since SUNET was established in the 1980s, the organisation has enabled Swedish researchers to access other national and international e-infrastructures and their associated resources and services.

SUNET also provides services for various types of electronic cooperation, for example video conferences. The current implementation of SUNET is called SUNET-C and is based on redundant and varied connections of 10–100 Ge to the country’s higher education institutions and many state-owned museums and other cultural organisations. SUNET-C is also connected to international networks, and in this way provides access for Swedish researchers to international collaboration. In addition to ordinary network access with routers, SUNET can provide point-to-point connections for transferring large data amounts straight between two points using a wavelength service. This service is becoming increasingly important for large e-science projects and infrastructures.

Organisationally, SUNET has been part of the Swedish Research Council since 2001, and has a funding model that differs from all other infrastructures. The Swedish Research Council receives earmarked funding for SUNET’s activities, and SUNET also has its own directive from the Ministry of Education and Research. SUNET represents Sweden in NORDUnet, which is a cooperation between the Nordic National Research and Education Networks (NREN), in Norway (UNINETT), Denmark (DeiC), Finland (Funet), Iceland (RHnet) and Sweden (SUNET).

NORDUnet operates a Nordic and international network and e-infrastructure service of high quality, serving the Nordic research and education sector. NORDUnet is the result of a Nordic cooperation funded by the Nordic Council in the 1980s. The cooperation was formalised in 1989, and NORDUnet was established as a limited company in 1995.