Helping to improve public service in France

In a unique collaboration, French research and education network RENATER will provide infrastructure connecting public administration sites from 15 ministries.

In helping to improve public service in France, RENATER is collaborating with the RIE, a new state network spearheading the modernization of public IT infrastructure.

RIE stands for Réseau Interministériel de l’Etat, and by 2017 RIE will provide connectivity to 900.000 users and 17.000 sites, each of which had its own independent network until now.

Saving money and improving public service

As a result of the collaboration, relying on RENATER’s existing dark fiber footprint led to savings of about 30%, compared to a clean slate approach where the RIE would have had to acquire or build its own backbone.

Technically, the RIE backbone is an overlay of a set of lambda on top of a subset of the RENATER Dark Fiber infrastructure.

In this way RENATER contributes to the improvement of French public service, facilitating inter-ministry data exchanges between IT systems, improving IT system security, and enabling shared services at government level.

RENATER is one of the first NRENs to open its network to a wider panel of communities such as public and government administration. This innovation transfer between research and education and public organization communities could serve as a reference experience that other countries might consider.