G-WiN - the Gbit/s infrastructure for the German scientific community
Abstract Within the German scientific community, there were growing quantitative and qualitative demands on the network infrastructure caused by increasing traffic and by new innovative applications. Forecasts for a new network were made based on traffic measurements. The new G-WiN backbone platform is based on SDH/DWDM technology. G-WiN will offer the following services: • IP (PoS); • Point-to-Point connections; • ATM services. 
This paper describes the reasons for a new Gbit/s network. The G-WiN architecture will be discussed including the IP topology on top of SDH/DWDM, which is switchable in a flexible way according to changing traffic flows. The characteristics of G-WiN will also be considered. G-WiN commenced operation in June 2000 and its status will be presented.