012.42a ITALY by Stefano Trumpy GARR is the Harmonization Group for Research Networks operating under the Ministry of the University, Scientific and Technological Research (MURST). GARR is also the name of the Italian research network. The aim of GARR is to interconnect the Italian research and academic networks and to coordinate connections to international networks. The network is operated by three public research institutions and three consortia offering computing resources to Italian universities. The three public research institutions, the founding organizations, are the National Council for Research (CNR), the National Council for Research on Nuclear and Alternative Energies Sources (ENEA), and the National High Energy Physics Institute (INFN). The three consortia are CINECA, CILEA, and Tecnopolis-CSATA. The backbone of the network provides four TDM channels over 2 Mbps lines, carrying IP, DECnet, SNA and X.25 traffic. The X.25 protocol carries traffic destined for the European backbone IXI developed by the EUREKA-COSINE project. Mail traffic on the network uses IP/SMTP and X.400. The electronic-mail GARR task force has adopted the policy of having every Italian domain registered through the DNS to be directly reachable through the Internet or indirectly through an SMTP to other protocol mail gateway. Another mail path is through the COSINE X.400 WEPS. GARR has recently been recognized as a non-forwarding Italian ADMD by the public X.400 administrators. GARR includes a Network Information Service (NIS) whose most important responsibility is information support for the Italian academic and research networks. It offers direct support to the managers of GARR network nodes or regional networks and indirect support to end-users via the circulation of information. The NIS is the reference point for the registration procedures (e.g., of organizations, networks, domains, and persons) required to access GARR and international networks. For information about the NIS please send e-mail to info@garr.it. The backbone is built up by the original seven primary sites located in Milano (CILEA), Bologna (CINECA and CNAF-INFN), Pisa(CNUCE-CNR), Roma (ENEA and NIC-INFN) and Bari (CSATA). Recently the University of Naples (CISED) joined the backbone. The MURST also funded a project to connect the over fifty universities in Italy; the major ones will be connected as extensions of the backbone, while the others will be attached with 64kbps lines to the primary sites. At present, besides Napoli the following cities plan to connect within 92 their metropolitan area networks at high speed: Torino, Padova, Trieste, Palermo, and Calgiari. Another thirty sites are planning to connect within a year or so at lower speed. GARR will continue to maintain connections to the major research networks, including RIPE, EASInet, Internet, BITNET/EARN, EUnet, HEPnet, IXI-COSINE, EBONE, EMPP and other networking initiatives.