RCTS increases capacity due to COVID-19 pandemic

RCTS - Rede Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade (Science, Technology and Society Network), which supports the internet connections of the education and research community, is reinforcing its response capacity to cope with the substantial increase in traffic recently, as a result of the pandemic crisis we are going through. The connection to some institutions has also been strengthened.

On March 11, RCTS upgraded its connection to GigaPIX, a centralizing node that allows for a more efficient exchange of Internet traffic with various commercial operators and the world. Now it's time to strengthen RCTS' connection to some institutions, such as the University of the Algarve and the two universities on the islands, Madeira and the Azores.

The RCTS100 project is also underway, which will further strengthen the national academic network. This is RCTS's biggest funding in the last 10 years: it represents an investment of around 11.5 million euros, is scheduled for completion in September next year and aims to provide RCTS with the capacity to process large volumes of data. In addition to capacity, the network "mesh" will also be "spread out" in areas such as the interior north and south of the country, to eliminate the digital divide: the asymmetry between data transmission capacities between the interior and the coast.

Also within the scope of the RCTS100 project, there are plans to improve network redundancy, multiple 100 Gbps connections for accessing entities and upgrading computer equipment.

About RTCS

RCTS - Rede Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade (Science, Technology and Society Network) is the national research and education network, also known internationally as NREN (National Research and Education Network). In Portugal, it is run by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through its National Scientific Computing Unit (FCCN), which is responsible for managing and operating the network. The RCTS offers researchers, teachers and students a high-performance digital infrastructure that supports the projects they develop at national and international level.