Connection to the Advanced Networks

Among the main benefits of connecting to RedCLARA are the following:

• Access to large capacities in a 10 Gbps backbone network that connects 11 Latin American countries and 134 globally.

• Affiliates have a dedicated network, independent of the commercial Internet, connected to more than 18,700 academic and research institutions globally. 

• The network offers unlimited bandwidth communication to send or receive data to any academic institution worldwide.

• Advanced services are available that cannot be obtained in commercial networks without a high investment of money, such as dedicated circuits (layer 2) to interconnect institutions, laboratories, observatories and data centers, among others.

• Access to an active global community with large networking projects for research and education.

If you belong to an academic institution in one of the affiliated countries, you should contact the national network in your country. You can access the page of each national network from the About Us section, Members subsection, of this website.

If you belong to a national network that is not connected to RedCLARA, you can contact us here.

A National Research and Education Network (NREN) is a non-profit organization, created by governments or by the association of academic institutions of higher education, in order to generate networks and services to meet the needs of the scientific and academic community. NRENs can be public or private, depending on their financing model, they generally connect higher education institutions or research centers, but they can also connect other types of organizations such as schools, hospitals, governmental entities, laboratories, among others.

NRENs are formed and legally constituted in a country based on collaboration agreements between their founding members, and implement a subscription and affiliation model, through which they can grow their membership base in a democratic model, with contributions that can come from their affiliates or the support of their governments. NRENs are linked together through regional or continental networks, such as GÉANT (Europe) and TEIN*CC (Asia/Pacific). In addition to connecting their networks, NREN members are part of a global community focused on the needs of science and education, from which federated services have been created on a global scale, such as identity management or academic roaming (eduroam). Services such as these can only be created through the active collaboration of a strong global community with a shared vision.

If there is no NREN in your country and you wish to form one, do not hesitate to contact RedCLARA, we can advise and support your organization in the process.

In The Case for NRENs there is a large amount of documentation created to help the formation of an NREN in countries that lack them.