Over the last years, the connectivity needs of academic and research institutions in Morocco have increased significantly, and so have their needs to collaborate with peers in Europe and other parts of the world to enable them to access resources, services and applications worldwide.
Early 2021, a physical circuit with 1Gbps capacity was successfully tendered and contracted for Morocco, through its participation in the EU-funded AfricaConnect3 project; this replaces the 1Gbps GRE tunnel which since 2018 had been virtually linking the Moroccan National Research and Education Network (MARWAN), operated by the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (CNRST), to the European GÉANT network via the Arab States Research and Education (ASREN) PoP in London.
The dedicated connectivity, which entered service in September 2021, will facilitate cooperation opportunities for the Moroccan R&E community and benefit particularly Moroccan scientists collaborating with European colleagues on large-scale research programs, such as the high-energy physics ATLAS experiment and the undersea ANTARES neutrino telescope. Each of these projects involves researchers at several sites across Morocco, all connected to MARWAN and onwards to GÉANT. The new link will also boost collaborative research into issues facing the Mediterranean – on both shores – such as climate change, desertification and sustainable agriculture.
Read the full story on AfricaConnect3.
