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NACS to Host CENIC Emergency Backup Center at UCI

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The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) administers and supports the CalREN network, which UCI depends on for our connection to the commodity Internet and Project Abilene, the nation-wide Internet2 network. CENIC has selected NACS to host their disaster/recovery backup network operations center (NOC). NACS will provide space for CENIC staff and equipment, and will provide network connectivity and voice over IP (VOIP) phone service.

In the event of an incident at their primary NOC, the backup NOC will be activated at UCI and will stay in operation for up to 90 days. Users of the CalREN network include the California K-12 system, the California Community College system, the University of California system, the California State University system, the University of Southern California, Stanford University and the Information Sciences Institute to name a few. To get more information about CENIC or CalREN you can go to www.cenic.org

Internet2 at UCI

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Faculty sometimes ask “When will I get access to Internet2?” or “How can I use Internet2?”

UCI has been benefiting from connection to Internet2 since last spring when UCI connected to CENIC’s new backbone network. You access Internet2 automatically, whenever it makes sense.

UCI’s Internet Service Provider, CENIC, manages the California Research and Education Network, CalREN. CalREN now comprises several networks to allow the right combination of reliability and performance, depending on the application. You can review CalREN’s tiered network services at http://www.cenic.com/calren/index.htm

CalREN DC is the basic, robust network. Through CalREN DC, UCI reaches California educational institutions, as well as the commercial Internet. (From UCI, there are separate pipelines to these two destinations, so that research traffic to Stanford doesn’t compete with, say, staff purchasing office supplies from staples.com).

CalREN HPR is a parallel, high-performance network which is, in a sense, a sub-component of the Internet2 network. This is because all traffic destined to or coming from Internet2 sites will traverse HPR to get to UCI and other UC campuses. CalREN uses HPR to prove new network services and protocols which, once they have become commodities, migrate to CalREN DC. For example, QOS (quality of service), a protocol for guaranteed sustained bandwidth, is being deployed and tested on the Internet2 network and on CalREN HPR.

UCI’s border router is responsible for distributing network traffic among the possible networks: the two pipes to CalREN DC, the one to CalREN HPR, as well as duplicates of those three channels to a backup network node in the event our primary connection fails. When a network application requires or will benefit from routing to Internet2, it just happens!

NACS is presently involved in a backbone upgrade project which will improve the primary campus pathways to CalREN HPR and thus to Internet2. (refer to the Fall 2004 NACS newsletter, online at http://www.nacs.uci.edu/moreinfo/ ) This upgrade will also benefit routine network activities for most users on the campus.

Higher Speed Internet

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The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) has been building a new regional network which will assume the name of the earlier California Research and Education Network (CalREN). CalREN will provide gigabit connectivity to all UC campuses, the Cal State system, and some private universities. Ultimately, CENIC will include (at more mainstream data rates) all educational institutions in California. At present, the entire UC system has been connected.

The new CalREN network is the first multi-tiered, statewide optical network of this type in the nation, and it provides advanced services to major research entities in California, including CAL(IT)2 which is based at UCSD and UCI.

For more information about CENIC, go to http://www.cenic.org/ . For more information about CalREN, visit http://www.cenic.org/CalREN/index.html . Finally, for information on CAL(IT)2 research programs, go to http://www.calit2.net/

Network Initiative Alphabet Soup

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There are several key regional and national network initiatives that are of concern and interest to UCI. The UC campuses are connected by UCnet, but are working with CENIC (the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California) to create CalREN-2, a new high speed California network.

vBNS (very high performance Backbone Network Service) is a backbone network already in production that connects research organizations awarded high-performance connections by the NSF. CalREN-2 is connected to vBNS.

UCAID (University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development) is a national collaboration of Universities and other institutions working to advance networking in higher Education via two projects, Internet2 and Abilene.

Internet2 focuses on developing a new family of advanced network applications to meet emerging academic needs. Abilene is a UCAID project to develop an advanced backbone network to connect regional networks.

Find it hard to keep all of these organizations, projects and networks straight? We have created a Web page that should help:

http://www.nacs.uci.edu/network/plans/network-initiatives.html

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