ESnet is proud to welcome Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), the national research and education network of Brazil, as an official collaboration partner on the perfSONAR project. The official announcement on the perfSONAR website is here. RNP joins five other organizations (ESnet, GEANT, Indiana University, Internet2, and the University of Michigan) committed to providing dedicated resources that develop and maintain the perfSONAR software.

Even though RNP is now becoming an official project member, they have been part of the perfSONAR community for the past 15 years. RNP has used their own perfSONAR fork for eight years and recently moved to the baseline version of perfSONAR across RNP’s 27 points of presence. The use of the perfSONAR branch code will provide network engineers and customers with improved abilities to maintain their network and validate on-demand circuit use.

Going forward, RNP will be a key contributor in several areas. Iara Machado will be working in conjunction with perfSONAR’s existing steering committee members to provide executive level guidance for the project. Additionally, Marcos Schwarz will join the perfSONAR leadership team to not only spearhead the RNP development team, but also help manage the day-to-day development of the project with existing partner institutions. Initial interests include containerization, perfSONAR as microservices, standard display and analysis packages, and possibly making their circuit validation tool available to the broader community. RNP’s experience and insight will be invaluable to the perfSONAR project going forward.

ESnet and the entire perfSONAR collaboration are excited to officially have them on the team. Having partners like RNP strengthens the perfSONAR initiative and helps ensure a bright future in its continued role as a critical piece of infrastructure for high-performance scientific networks.