Through a dedicated Level 2 Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) circuit, two organizations can connect its networks as if they were in the same geographical location, which allows the use of the same targeting spaces, having a higher performance and speed of transmission. Through collaboration between National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) from different parts of the world, VLANs can establish these channels at national (between different institutions associated to the same NREN), Latin American and global levels. Establishing a dedicated VLAN between different NRENs usually has no costs. A similar service provided by a commercial provider has very high costs.
One example of the use of VLANs is the access to CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHCONE), which uses this type of connections to provide access to experimental data to academic institutions connected to NRENs in any part of the world. Projects such as FIBER (Future Internet Brazilian Environment for Experimentation) also use VLANs to establish direct connections that allow a distributed experimentation environment with other countries in the region.
To establish a dedicated virtual connection, simply contact the institutions you wish to connect to; if both are connected to academic networks, you should only contact your country national network which, in turn, will contact RedCLARA or its partner anywhere in the world to establish the VLAN.