Building a national testbed for next‑generation telecoms research

JOINER (Joint Open Infrastructure for Networks Research) is led by the University of Bristol and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

JOINER brings together 15 plus UK and international labs into a federated, programmable infrastructure for system-level telecoms research. By combining advanced network fabric, hybrid cloud and edge computing, national-scale spectrum facilities and non-terrestrial links and research facilities, JOINER supports experimentation across next-generation (6G) networks, space and NTN communications, and AI-driven, distributed network management.

The foundation of JOINER is our Janet network, the UKs NREN (National Research and Education Network), which provides networking infrastructure and other digital services for academic institutions across the UK. Crucially, JOINER provides a highly resilient testbed environment in which experimental technologies can be safely deployed.

Neil Shewry, our director of networks, explains:

“One of the reasons we’re here is to enable research, and the JOINER project is a great example of that, a national academia-industry collaboration experimenting with groundbreaking new technologies. In helping enable this research, it was essential that we separated the JOINER network from our production network so that the project partners could carry out their research without the risk of it affecting service to the other customers and sectors we serve.”

Connectivity, hardware and a “brain”

In our role as the NREN and network across which UK research and innovation operates, we have experience of supporting a range of advanced, scalable network research projects, including our work with the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) and the Government's AI for Science strategy. This experience was valuable in supporting JOINER.

Described as ‘a scientific instrument in its own right’, JOINER is made up of three elements. The foundation is the connectivity provided by Jisc, referred to by the project team as the JOINER Fabric. JOINER Terminals are installed at each location, and contain hardware including networking kits, computational resources and GPUs.

Overseeing it all is the JOINER Brain, the system used for measurement, analytics, orchestration and management, user management, and policy.

Amin Emami, chief technology officer for JOINER at the University of Bristol, says:

“The starting point of JOINER was this: why shouldn’t we have a testbed at a wide national scale or international scale, which can support a variety of different use cases or demonstrations, and can be used to validate different types of solutions in the areas of telecommunications, networking, cloud, optics, quantum, and these kinds of high-tech projects? And then, why shouldn’t we have that facility in the UK, especially as the UK wants to play a big role in the next generation of telecommunications, which is 6G?

“In any project there is the research, and there is the need to validate the potential solution that you have developed, or demonstrate it – especially for those projects which are practical rather than pure research.

“You need a testbed, which means you need infrastructure. Especially in projects which require infrastructure in multiple geographical locations, with a wide range of facilities and features, this can become a nightmare – so you need people with hands-on experience, who can look at the problem from a technical point of view rather than just the scientific point of view.”

Preparing for the unknown

For Amin and his team, one thing was certain – there would be unknowns. As an experimental environment, it was impossible to predict what the platform would need to cope with in the future.

“When you have concrete requirements, then you can easily shape the architecture. But for JOINER, one of the challenges we had was that there was no concrete list of requirements. We had to design it to be as flexible as we could. It’s a testbed for future technologies, and you don't know what those future technologies might be.

“We had multiple meetings with Jisc from the beginning about how Jisc could provide this connectivity in different locations, and what type of connectivity is needed for this project.”

To meet the requirements of JOINER, our team drew on deep expertise in designing high-capacity, low-latency, secure networks. By leveraging existing regional and core network infrastructure – already optimised for this type of research – procurement and implementation was streamlined, ensuring an efficient and resilient solution.

Neil Shewry says:

“Janet is designed and built for research and for national and even international collaboration, so we had the capability to deliver the services required by the JOINER project already. Our network is high capacity, high availability, low latency, and secure; exactly what the JOINER project required. University of Bristol and other project partners already benefit from Janet services so they know the value of what Jisc offers. We ticked all the boxes and were ready to deliver precisely what was needed.”

Better together - collaboration and cost savings

The JOINER system has powerful benefits for members alongside the ability to share data and collaborate.

Predefined catalogues are available to all participating institutions. These software solutions and configurations are ready to deploy, and save on duplicate solutions being developed by each institution.

Another benefit is cost saving. JOINER provides often expensive software as a shared resource, so if an institution wants to use it, they can deploy it and when they finish their experiment or research, they release it so another can use it. This approach avoids them wasting money investing in something that they don’t need to keep or use after a project is finished.

An evolving solution

For Neil and Amin alike, one of the most exciting aspects of the project is not just what has been achieved already – it’s the potential for the future.

Neil says:

“JOINER was built to serve a specific need on day one, and it’s been evolving constantly since. It’s an ongoing partnership, and the solution provided is meeting the complex needs of institutions from all four countries of the UK, even outside of the UK now, proving the concept that the service can be delivered to institutions for collaboration anywhere around the world. The possibilities are endless.”

Amin is looking forward to JOINER becoming a self-sustaining solution that can be deployed across many areas of research, beyond telecoms and without geographic boundaries. The collaboration with Jisc has proved to be invaluable in bringing the project to this stage.

“Jisc is always supportive and they rarely say no to anything – they find a way. It’s not just a customer-and-solution-provider relationship – it’s a truly collaborative partnership.”

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