About Us

The Global Network Advancement Group (GNA-G) consists of a leadership team with a number of active working groups and participants from R&E networks worldwide. Our goal is to work together to better align our resources and make the country-to-country interconnections more efficient for global science collaborations and transnational education.

What & Why: Our Vision

The Global Network Advancement Group (GNA-G) embodies a vision for the international collaboration of national research and education (R&E) networks. The set of networks that comprise the Global R&E infrastructure is large and diverse. There are differences in speed, accessibility and capacity. Building on the work of groups like the GNA and GLIF the GNA-G was started to continue the work of making the interconnection of these networks more effective for science and providing a model for the more effective use of resources in building these networks. By working together the NREN’s of the world can both provide better services and agree to a blueprint which will enable R&E networks to align their spending for intercontinental bandwidth.

Our Mission

The primary mission of the Global Network Advancement Group (GNA-G) is to support global research and education using the technology, infrastructures and investments of its participants.

Research and Education within the academic community encompasses a wide range of disciplines and activities, from intellectual thought experiments to highly data driven projects. While all of these global activities use networks, these needs are the focus of the GNA-G.

In order for these data intensive collaborations to flourish, on a global scale, they require an effective means of moving, accessing and sharing, ever increasing amounts of data.

The GNA-G exists to bring together researchers, National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), Global eXchange Point (GXP) operators, regionals and other R&E providers, in developing a common global infrastructure for support of these needs.

This worldwide collaboration is built on Dependency, Democracy and Diversity. The global NREN community all depend upon one another, they all need to share in the decision processes related to network structure and use, and they all need to recognize the diverse nature of these organizations and not try to fit one model to everyone, while we ensure to always maximize results instead of looking for lowest common denominators.

To achieve these goals, the GNA-G:

Works closely together with R&E groups to advance worldwide data movement capabilities.
Develops architectures for highly advanced intelligent networks.
Provides strategies and best current practices for NRENs to collaboratively work on procurements of capacity for global interconnections, helping to add to the Global Research and Education Network (GREN) infrastructure.
Works with national and global groups dedicated to making the end-to-end experience better.
Works to promote the general understanding of the reach and connectedness of the Global NREN community.