ULTRA LARGE BAND NETWORK AND NEW SERVICES FOR SHARING AND INNOVATION

The Italian Research and Education Network, known as GARR, has a long tradition of supporting institutions for the protection and promotion of cultural heritage. GARR provides the community of its users with an advanced network infrastructure and innovative tools for international collaboration with universities and research institutes, for transmitting and sharing large amounts of data, and for the use of web applications such as virtual museums, virtual archaeology, and geographic information systems. In recent years, the use of the network in the cultural heritage sector has grown significantly. Besides connectivity, GARR has created a cloud infrastructure for computing and storage of great amounts of data. This infrastructure has been designed with a federated approach in order to encourage the sharing of resources within the academic and research sectors. The availability of optic fiber connections in several cultural heritage sites has given GARR the opportunity to extend the benefits of network technology also to performing arts professionals. An example of this collaboration is the theatre play "Innovating Colosseum", a geographically distributed performance to celebrate the inauguration of the new GARR connection of several sites of the Superintendence for the Colosseum and the archeological area of central Rome.