GRNET | Networking Research, Education and Government

Advanced Digital Technologies for Public Administration, Education, Research, Health and Culture sectors

GRNET’s Mission

GRNET’s mission is to offer an integrated environment of cutting-edge technologies, model digital solutions, infrastructures and specialized expertise which contributes to the modernization and digital advancement of the overall citizen experience in the fields of Public Administration, Education, Research, Health and Culture.

GRNET is a public company, operating following the principles of a private one, without any profit-making, industrial, or commercial character.

The role of GRNET

GRNET S.A. – National Infrastructures for Research and Technology, operating since 1998, is one of the largest public sector technology companies in Greece, and since August 2019 operates under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence.

GRNET provides networking and cloud computing e-Infrastructures and services to academic and research institutions, to educational bodies at all levels, and to all agencies of the public, broader public and private sectors, serving hundreds of thousands of users on a daily basis in the strategic fields of Public Administration, Education, Research, Health and Culture.

GRNET serves as a technology advisor to the Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence on the design and upgrade of advanced information systems and e-Infrastructures. It contributes to the promotion and implementation of the Ministry’s strategic objectives through the provision of in-depth analysis, technological studies, model solutions, and specialized expertise. It designs and develops advanced information systems and infrastructures to support the Digital Transformation of the country, as well as the planning and provision of education, training, upskilling, and certification services aimed at enhancing digital skills across the country being responsible for the development and operation of the National Academy of Digital Skills.

GRNET contributes to the digital transformation of the country through in-depth analysis, technological studies, standard solutions and specialized know-how. It implements, executes, manages, and provides services for the implementation of projects, initiatives and other activities of the government in the fields of information technology, digital technology, communication, e-Government, and new and open technologies, including emerging technologies such as quantum communication infrastructure, open science, big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Moreover, it promotes, disseminates, and transfers know-how regarding network and computing technologies and their applications to research and development, education and to citizen support services supporting the national digital transformation.

More specifically, it advises and supports the government in the design of advanced information systems and infrastructures; the design, development, and maintenance of advanced computing and networking infrastructures and services; the nationwide fiber-optic network; data centers; high-performance computing systems (HPC-ARIS, HPC-DAEDALUS). It is responsible for the operation of the National Competence Center for HPC (EuroCC@Greece), participates in the formulation of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy and coordinates and implements the PHAROS AI Factory project. It also oversees the operation, development, and promotion of the National Academy of Digital Skills; coordinates the GR digiGOV – innoHUB European Digital Innovation Hub for Digital Governance and the design and implementation of the National and European Digital Identity Wallet for European citizens; is involved in shaping National and EU strategies for Open Science projects, participates into the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure Initiative (EuroQCI) and coordinates the deployment of the National Quantum Communication Infrastructure of Greece (HellasQCI)

GRNET undertakes research and development projects on telecommunications networks and computing services, implements and manages National, European, and International Projects. It develops and fosters synergies with other agencies and all key stakeholders which provide digital services in the Greek public sector, promoting the exchange of best practices and know-how in advanced information systems and it represents the national research and technological community within the European Union’s Research Infrastructures. GRNET holds a key role as the coordinator of all National e-Infrastructures in Education and Research and is the National Research and Education Network – (NREN), providing international interconnection through the pan-European GÉANT network.

GRNET also manages the Greek Internet Exchange (GR-IX), a national infrastructure that interconnects the most significant internet-related companies operating in Greece (e.g., internet service providers, cloud services, hosting, VoIP providers, etc.).

GRNET Aims

GRNET offers an integrated environment of cutting-edge technologies, model solutions and specialized know-how contributing to the:

• Digital Transformation of the Public Administration and the enhancement of the citizen’s overall service experience provided by the Greek government.
• shaping of new models of cooperation amongst public agencies, research and education communities, citizens and businesses;
• enhancement of the educational processes and improvement of the educational experience;
• empowerment of the research community and the growth of research activity in the country;
• extroversion of the Greek R&E community by ensuring equal participation in all ICT global initiatives;
• optimization in the use of Greek State resources within Public Administration, Education, Research, Health and Culture sectors.

GRNET Offers

Connectivity and Operations, Infrastructures and Services

GRNET covers the computer systems interface, operation and services needs of all Organisations it supports.  It offers:

List of GRNET Digital Services: https://grnet.gr/en/services-az-2/

List of European & National Projects GRNET coordinates or participates: https://grnet.gr/en/scope-2/

GRNET interconnects:

The GRNET network connects and offers services to Institutions and Government bodies:

• Universities
• Educational Institutions of all levels
• The Pan-Hellenic School Network
• Major Research Infrastructures
• Research Institutions and Centers
• Content Provider Agencies
• Museums, Libraries and other Cultural Institutions
• Public Hospitals and Healthcare units
• Public AdministrationBodies, Ministries, Authorities, Organizations, Legal Entities under Public Law and Private Law of the wider public sector
• Enterprises

GRNET’s end Users

GRNET’s infrastructures and services as well the GRNET network are used daily by hundreds of thousands of users:

• Members of the Academic and Research Community (professors, researchers, administrative and technical personnel – NOC Network Management Centers)
• Students
• Public Hospital Personnel
• Public Administration Personnel (Ministries, Authorities, Public Law Legal Entities, and Private Law Legal Entities within the broader public sector)
• Business Executives
• Citizens

GRNET’s Vertical Sectors

Advanced Digital Technologies for Public Administration, Education, Research, Health and Culture

Digital Transformation of the Public Administration

GRNET, holds a key role in designing advanced information systems and e-Infrastructures, and acts as an advisor to the Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence in design and implementation of Digital Transformation Strategy for the Greek Public Sector.  It adopts, specifies and supports the implementation of the objectives set within the National Digital Transformation Strategy known as the “Bible’’ for the Public Sector.  The digital transformation is of high importance and it is implemented following a people-centric approach, for the first time on such a scale, in Greece.

GRNET utilises its experience and know-how, further conducts thorough analyses and studies, provides standard solutions achieving the interoperability amongst all Public Administration sector’s information systems, and contributes to the improvement of existing as well as the creation of new digital public services, for the benefit of citizens. In parallel, GRNET invests in collaboration with teams of executives offering different scientific and professional expertise, while it is active in the production and application of flexible methodology analysis tools, organizes workshops and hackathons, develops specifications and implements medium-term and short-term activities on behalf of the Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence. Thus, it produces added value, contributing this way to the strengthening of the role of the Public Sector, aiming to improve service provision for citizens and businesses. It holds an active role in the design and operation of the Single Digital Portal, gov.gr, which serves as a central access point and digital service platform for citizens and businesses. The portal aggregates all digital public services and essential information for anyone interacting digitally with the state. Gov.gr integrates already existing digital services provided by ministries, agencies, organizations, and independent authorities, while also continually expanding with new services. A key principle in Greece’s digital transformation is the delivery of every digital service through a single access point, with easy-to-use interfaces organized around life events, ensuring fast, seamless service delivery to citizens.

In the context of the country’s Digital Transformation, the National Academy of Digital Skills (NADS) was created, an online portal that aims to provide access to knowledge necessary for the development of digital skills of citizens, both at personal and professional level. The National Academy of Digital Skills, developed by the Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence, and maintained and expanded by GRNET, is filled with training courses, from a variety of professional training providers in a wide range of subjects and topics of interest, and is offered free of charge for all users. GRNET is responsible for all content enrichment, development and promotion of NADS to all citizens.

GRNET produces added value in strengthening the role of the Public Sector, aiming to improve service provision for citizens and businesses.

More about GRNET’s contribution to Digital Transformation: https://grnet.gr/en/business-directory/wpbdp_category/digital-governance-actions-en/

Digital Innovation in Education

GRNET introduces new, advanced methods in the educational process that enhance the experience of students, faculty members and administrative personnel of Universities, Ecclesiastical Academies (EA) and other schools. Through constant development of e-services, GRNET offers modern solutions in areas such as education, students’ internship, student care, as well as in the organization and support of internal processes deployed by the educational institutions.

GRNET seamlessly provides a variety of key computing and networking services. Indicatively, some of the services developed and provided to the academic and research community include the:

• availability of academic books (EUDOXUS),
• election and development of University and EA professors of the country (APELLA),
• support of a single academic identity card in a plastic or a smart card form (ACADEMIC IDENTITY),
• support of Student Internship (ATLAS),
• payment of the housing allowance (Student housing allowance),
• creation of a wireless internet access roaming network (eduroam),
• conducting election processes by e-voting for elections of Rectors, single-member bodies and Directors of Clinics, Laboratories and Museums through ZEUS Digital Voting-Elections.
• implementation and operation of a system for direct, live and interactive access to audiovisual material of high cultural and scientific value (DIAVLOS) and
• high quality and interactive web conferencing system (e:Presence).

It provides support at all levels –from Network Operation Centers (NOCs) to end users – responding and resolving promptly to all needs thus providing better service to all users (https://grnet.gr/contact-us/support).

GRNET infrastructures and services in the field of Education: https://grnet.gr/en/education/

Advanced Technologies for Research

GRNET offers an integrated technological environment for the development of scientific research. It combines advanced networking and computing infrastructures and services that provide researchers with innovative techniques and new research capabilities. Secure high-speed networking, cloud computing and storage resources, cloud computing infrastructures, IaaS public cloud, Virtual Machines, Networks and Storage (~okeanos) and high-performance computing system to support extremely demanding scientific applications (HPC-ARIS, HPC-DAEDALUS) , and big data management services are indicatively some of the systems and services developed and provided by GRNET in the field of research in multiple scientific fields.

GRNET infrastructures and services in the field of Research: https://grnet.gr/en/research/

Digital capability for Health

GRNET provides innovative e-services and e-Infrastructures to hospitals, blood centers and blood donor services. It offers high speed internet connection to public hospitals (1Gbps to 10 Gbps), ensuring fast and secure storage, access and data exchange and high-speed secured network connection with the world’s leading research centers. GRNET infrastructures and services in this field indicatively include:

• the creation of a new advanced data center for Health sector based within the University of Crete ensuring fast and secure storage and retrieval of medical imaging data, the development of a wireless wi-fi access service and roaming network (eduroam),
• a directory of hospital users for secure service access (AAI-DELOS, Directory Service),
• central e-services for the management of national blood donors registrations and the issue of a blood donor ID (EMA) through modern, reliable and user-friendly procedures for the blood donors, the blood donor services and the blood centers of the country,
• the development and availability of a medical online inter-library loan service for medical articles (DIADOSIS),
• a backup storage service and remote access to imaging data (Harmoni),
• the development of an Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning system for rapid and reliable diagnosis of Covid-19 through medical imaging.

The above GRNET actions empower the scientific hospital staff in conducting their research and medical work. At the same time, the overall citizen experience is significantly improved whereas valuable resources are saved for the Greek State.

GRNET infrastructures and services in the field of Health: https://grnet.gr/en/health/

Accessing Culture via modern technologies

GRNET collaborates with major cultural, educational and research institutions and provides access to live and recorded digital webcasts of lectures, seminars, artistic and other events, via DIAVLOS GRNET’s live webstreaming service. Thus, it contributes to the development and dissemination of high-quality, added-value educational, research and cultural audiovisual content, regardless of geographical distance, free of charge, for thousands of end users.

Furthermore, GRNET offers to selected historic and cultural venues wireless infrastructure for accessing “eduroam”, the world-wide roaming access service. Thus, it facilitates access to information about the visited venues using modern mobile devices, for visiting students, researchers and professors from universities across the world.

GRNET infrastructures and services in the field of Culture: https://grnet.gr/en/culture/

Green Policy in Data Centers

Energy efficient infrastructures and best practices for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

GRNET adopts and implements “green” technologies in its networking and computing infrastructures, with the main goal of reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, it selects energy-efficient equipment and develops tools for real-time energy consumption monitoring. GRNET’s “green” data center at Louros River in Epirus achieves unprecedented energy efficiency for Greek standards, as it operates entirely on renewable energy sources. For the cooling and air-conditioning of its IT systems, river water is used, a solution implemented for the first time in Greece.

GRNET has installed a large data center serving the needs of hospitals throughout the country (DC1), hosted in a building at the University of Crete in Knossos, Heraklion, and is expanding into a New Data Center (DC2). It is also developing new Data Centers in Attica (Lavrio) to host the Daedalus supercomputer, and in Western Macedonia (Kozani) to support cloud services.

These data centers operate with energy-saving systems and renewable energy production, integrated into a broader strategy for energy efficiency and environmental awareness within the academic community and the wider public sector.

For more information: https://grnet.gr/en/environmental-policy/

GR-IX

The Greek Internet Exchange

Greek Internet Exchange – GR-IX is a neutral and independent Internet Exchange which facilitates internet traffic exchange and accelerates the growth of the Greek Internet. It operates two independent exchange platforms, located in Athens (GR-IX::Athens) and Thessaloniki (GR-IX::Thessaloniki), interconnecting all major Internet players in Greece, namely Internet service providers, content providers, cloud providers etc.
GR-IX is owned and operated by GRNET which, being a non-profit, state-owned company, guarantees the neutrality and independence of the Internet Exchange.

More: https://www.gr-ix.gr/

International Partnerships, Collaborations and e-Infrastructures

GRNET activity expands beyond borders.. Through international partnerships and the coordination of EC co-funded projects, it creates opportunities for know-how development and exploitation, and contributes, in a decisive manner, to the development of Research and Science in Greece and abroad. GRNET‘s extroversion ensures access to international research and educational eInfrastructures and services, for users worldwide to benefit from Information and Communication Technologies. Thereby, mutually beneficial synergies among research and educational communities may be established.

Administration – Financing

GRNET has been operating since 1998.  GRNET’s dynamic development is primarily due to the valuable funding received from the Greek State and the European Union.

GRNET’s quality of work stems from the dedication and professionalism of its specialized staff and collaborators, who share the same values and goals—such as innovation in the infrastructures and services provided—while embracing a human-centered approach.

GRNET operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence.

GRNET – National Infrastructures for Research and Technology

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