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Voice and Data Services

Access to UCI-Only Web Sites From Commercial ISPs

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Note: The Web Proxy Gateway was replaced with the WebVPN. 

NACS is pleased to announce the UCI Web Proxy Gateway. The Gateway allows UCI faculty, students and staff with active UCInetIDs to access UCI-restricted Internet WWW resources from non-UCI network locations. This means UCI community members who use commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Pacific Bell Internet or America OnLine (AOL) can now access key Web resources from off-campus.

In partnership with NACS, the UCI Libraries are providing UCI Web Proxy Gateway access from the UCI Libraries Homepage to key, previously restricted, research resources. These include: MELVYL‘s Medline, Current Contents, and INSPEC databases;Britannica Online; as well as many electronic, full-text journals available from publishers such as Johns Hopkins’ Project Museand the Institute of Physics. Additional resources will be added as they are acquired by the Libraries.

The UCI Libraries Homepage, including the complete list of electronic resources currently available, may be found at:http://www.lib.uci.edu/ The UCI Web Proxy Gateway, including detailed documentation, may be found at: http://gateway.uci.edu/

Please send questions and comments about the gateway to NACS@UCI.EDU.

Questions about Library resources may be sent to LIBRARIES@UCI.EDU.

UCI Network Plans

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In previous issues of this newsletter we presented an overview of UCInet and discussed performance considerations (see http://www.nacs.uci.edu/news/97.9.html and 97.10.html). Continuing in the UCInet series, we examine current network plans below. These plans take into account the many conversations NACS has had with UCI faculty, outside networking professionals, and network managers from UC campuses and other universities.

NETWORK EDGES – Departmental Local Area Networks (LANs):
Departmental LANs are UCI’s highest network priority over the next two years. In addition to the shared 10 Mbps (Megabits per second) Ethernet already in widespread use on campus, switched 10 Mbps and shared or switched 100 Mbps will be provided as needed. TCP/IP will continue to be the protocol of choice for UCI networks. User requirements, cost and network management issues will be the determining factors in the deployment of various Ethernet technologies. Higher speeds will be provided in special cases.

THE CAMPUS BACKBONE:
OAC believes that modest upgrades to the backbone will suffice for the next two years as the edges of the network continue to be upgraded. A major campus investment in the backbone will then be required, in order to support the deployment of higher speeds in the network edges, increased use of multimedia and WWW applications, and increased collaborative activities between groups of researchers having large data sets. Various alternatives are being considered at this time.

WIDE AREA NETWORK (WAN) CONNECTIONS:
To achieve better connectivity to other universities, UCI is participating in the “NSF Connections” program. The “CENIC” consortium has been formed to manage California’s participation in the program. The program will allow the creation of “CalREN-2”, a regional California network that will operate at at least OC12 speeds (622 Mbps). CalREN-2 will in turn be connected to the national “vBNS” OC12 network. This will give UCI high-speed network connectivity to 100 Universities nation-wide, all of the UC system, USC, Cal-Tech and Stanford. UCI initially plans to connect to CalREN-2 via IP routing at least at the speed of the UCInet backbone (100 Mbps).

INTERNET CONNECTION:
Unfortunately, we still have to contend with commercial service to the rest of the Internet. However, universities connected to vBNS or CalREN-2 will be accessible directly, and will no longer be reached via the Internet.

NETWORK SERVICES:
OAC plans to invest in the tools, systems and personnel to manage a more complex network as the changes discussed here are implemented. Additionally, plans are underway for increased reliability of network services such as: DNS (Domain Name System — host name resolution) servers; Mail Transport Agents (MTAs, or mail handling systems); security and authentication.

REMOTE ACCESS (modems):
The long-term future of UCI’s “free” modem pool is uncertain, and vendor hardware support for the terminal servers that run the modem pool will cease as of October 1998. No campus decision has been made to either phase out the modem pool or improve it. However, the preferred remote access option is via commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Work is being done to resolve various issues related to ISP-based remote-access.

CONCLUSION
The network is clearly an essential part of the campus, and rapidly changing technologies and applications have created a climate requiring network issues to be re-evaluated every three to four years. Someday technology will allow voice and data networks to be combined as a single network; a long-term goal is to be prepared for this. We must also ensure universal connectivity, consistent availability, and reliability, while supporting increasing collaboration among UCI faculty. Groups collaborate both on and off campus, and see the network as an important aspect of achieving their goals.

If you have questions or concerns about UCI’s network plans, please contact Garrett Hildebrand, NACS’ lead network planner. Garrett may be reached via e-mail at GDH@UCI.EDU, or via telephone at 824-8913.

UCI Network Overview

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With the growing utilization of electronic communication in all aspects of University affairs, the campus network (UCInet) has become a critical campus asset. As communication needs continue to grow and change, the network must be maintained and enhanced to keep up. This requires a substantial campus investment. To facilitate discussions, NACS seeks to broaden campus understanding of network issues and options. Toward that goal, this article summarizes the layout and important components of UCInet. Subsequent articles will address current performance issues and planned improvements to UCInet.

UCInet may be logically grouped into six fundamental components, as follows:

1. Departmental and organizational LANs (Local Area Networks);
2. The campus backbone;
3. Network services;
4. WAN (Wide Area Network) connections;
5. Internet connectivity;
6. Remote access (e.g., modems and related equipment)

Departmental LANs, which connect to the backbone via devices known as routers, may be viewed as the “edges” of the network. UCI has a diverse collection of LANs. Most operate as “shared Ethernet”, meaning that connected computers “take turns” utilizing the network’s 10 Mbps (Megabits Per Second). LANs provide communication between computers within departments, and the routers they connect to provide links to the campus backbone and the services UCInet supports.

The UCInet backbone is the binding tie that connects LANs, the Internet, and other networks, such as the UCI Medical Center. It may be viewed as the “core” of the network. UCInet’s backbone has about fifty routers, each with multiple interfaces, for a total of about 350 LAN interfaces on campus.

“Network services” are computer-based services required by all users of the network. One example is the campus Domain Name System (DNS) servers, which provide translation of network names to network addresses. Applications such as Netscape cannot connect to a Web site until a DNS server answers a query for translation of a domain name to an Internet address.

Network services operate behind the scenes and are transparent to users. When a Web server fails to connect to a Web site, a user cannot distinguish between a network outage and a bad DNS lookup. In fact, one may cause the other!

UCInet has several WAN links to support outlying campus facilities. These links allow network users at sites like the Medical Center to appear as if they are on campus, albeit at slower speeds. “T1” (1.5 Mbps) WAN links are six times slower than the standard 10 Mbps Ethernet now widely in use.

Internet connectivity is provided throughout UCInet from another network called UCnet, which connects all UC campuses together. UCnet currently operates at a speed of 10 Mbps. However, UCI and UC Berkeley connect to UCnet and the Internet at “T3” (45 Mbps) speeds, as they are the UCnet network access points for the Internet.

Remote access to UCInet is accomplished via the campus modem pool and the Internet. Users may dial-in to UCInet through the modem pool or access UCI systems through their own Internet Service Provider.

UCInet is a diverse collection of networking and computing technologies which supports over 14,000 computers, printers, hubs, routers and other network devices, plus several hundred dial-in connections and countless visits from the Internet. In our next NACS-News network article, we will discuss UCInet’s most significant performance issues.

UCI CONNECTION TO VERY HIGH SPEED NETWORK (vBNS)

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Vice President Al Gore

Vice President Al Gore

Vice President Gore announced on May 20 that the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) will receive a grant of nearly $4 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant will allow UCI and other California research universities (UC campuses, Cal Tech, Stanford and USC) to connect to the very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS). UCI will gain an “OC-12” (622 mega-bits/second) network connection to participating research institutions; this connection is expected to be in place during the summer of 1998. The award is part of the Federal Government’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative — a total of $12.3 million in grants to 35 research institutions across the United States was included in the May 20 announcement.

This grant will facilitate CENIC’s “CalREN-2” high-speed California network project, and will allow UCI to eventually take advantage of developments that result from “Internet-2”, NGI and other national initiatives. You may be interested in browsing some of the Web material cited below:

Network Initiative URLs:

May 20 Press release:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/news/press-release-vbns.html

Federal Government NGI (Next Generation Internet):
http:://www.ngi.gov

CENIC (Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California):
http://www.ucop.edu/irc/projects/CENIC.html

Very high speed backbone service:
http://www.vbns.net

NON-REGISTERED HOST ACCESS CURTAILED

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UCI, like other organizations, is experiencing an increase in illegitimate use of the network, particularly with the intent of gaining unauthorized access to campus computer systems. Some of these attempts to gain unauthorized access have come from systems that do not have hostnames registered in the Domain Name System (DNS). It has always been campus policy that systems connected to the campus network have registered hostnames.

On June 16, 1997, NACS systems and services will no longer accept connections from computers that are not registered in DNS. Effected NACS services include the EA systems, Orion, E4E, the HP Exemplar SPP2000, the campus FTP server (ftp.uci.edu), the UCI home page server, and Usenet News. These systems will not accept incoming telnet, ftp, pop (for Eudora) or Usenet news connections from hosts that are not registered.

Most users of NACS systems and services should not be affected by this change. If you receive a message stating that your system is not registered, please contact your Computing Support Coordinator (CSC) for help. If you do not know who your CSC is, or need further help, please call NACS Electronic Communications Services at x2222.

You may also register your system by filling out the form at: http://www.nacs.uci.edu/communication/ip_address_app.html

If you are connecting to NACS systems from an outside ISP, you will need to talk to the ISP help/trouble staff to resolve the problem.