PERN2

Pakistan  Education  and  Research  Network  (PERN)  is  a  part  of  the  overall  vision  and amongst the objectives of IT Action Plan that was launched by Prof. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman as Minister  of  Science  and  Technology,  Government  of  Pakistan  in  August  2002.  The  project was   financed   by   the   Government   of   Pakistan   in   cooperation   with   PTCLs   (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) Research and Development funds. The network was designed,   operated,   and   maintained   by   NTC   earlier   and   now   by   PTCL   (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) and it is managed by Higher Education Commission. The project was aimed towards establishing an integral part of the overall education system of    the    country    and    was    designed    to    interlink    all    public/private    sector    chartered universities/degree  awarding  institutes  registered  with  Higher  Education  Commission.  The interconnectivity of all these universities/institutes was aimed to provide integration of data banks,  collaboration  for  research  and  development  activities  and  up-gradation  of  teaching and learning skills among these universities/institutes.  The  Higher  Education  Commission  Pakistan  now  aims  to  redesign  Pakistan  Education  & Research  Network  (PERN)  and  establish  a  high  speed  dedicated  National  Research  & research  Education  Network  (NREN)  as  PERN2  for  the  universities/institutes  and  other academic sectors of Pakistan. This will provide students, faculty members and researchers a fully  integrated  and  dedicated  communication  infrastructure  using  advanced  Information  & Communication Technologies. This NREN is being established to achieve true collaborative research, knowledge & resource sharing and distance learning. The PERN2 is also aimed to have connectivity to other NREN(s) of the world including APAN (Asia), Internet2 (USA), GEANT2 (Europe) etc. and initiate collaborative research with the consortiums of NREN(s). PERN2  will  fulfill  the  requirements  of  advance  technologies  and  applications  with  proper security  and  management.  The  advance  features  will  include,  but  not  limited  to  QoS,  IPv6, MPLS routing/switching, Gigabit Networks, Adaptive Applications and Multicasting. PERN2  will  interlink  all  public/private  sectors  academic  and  research  institutes  of  the country  over  an  IP  based  infrastructure  through  metro  fiber  ring  (Gigabit  Ethernet)  in  the cities  where  facilities  are  available.  The  remaining  universities/institutes  will  be  interlinked via leased dark fiber or legacy TDM communication system.