CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Eugene Hastings/Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Minutes of the Joint Sessions of the NJM and NETSTAT Working Groups
Presentation slides from the NSI and ANSnet status reports can be found
in Section 3 of the proceedings.
SESQUINET - Bill Manning
Sesquinet has a staff of three, and recently installed and moved to an
FDDI DMZ for their ANS connection. Usage is growing by 15% per month.
Defense Simulation Internet - Mike Patton
The Defense Simulation Internet (DSI) is used to connect the defense
industry and perform mission-specific experiments (like encrypted
video). It has a T1 cross-country backbone.
NASA Science Internet - Jeff Burgan
It is the 10th Anniversary of the DNS RFC! A T3 has been installed from
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to SURAnet, and another T3 from GSFC
to Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) (using cisco). Routed traffic is
both IP and Phase IV DECnet, with some CLNP. NSI provides mail and
protocol interoperability services. Maps are available via anonymous
FTP from nsipo:nsi/maps/*. Recent accomplishments include:
o The United Kingdom fat pipe has been transitioned to ICM/Sprint.
o NASA now has a 256kb dedicated link to ULCC (London).
o Australia (AARnet) link has been upgraded to T1.
o Japanese links have been reterminated to FIX-West (from Hawaii).
- WIDE - 192kb
- TISN - upgraded 128kb to 512kb
o Korea was upgraded to 256kb.
o Hong Kong link has been upgraded to 128kb.
o FIX-West transitioned to FDDI (but ESnet still Ethernet) Mbone
router and DNS servers live on the Ethernet.
o NASA/NSF support for Antarctic connectivity: Upgrade to T1 (IP
512k, balance is video) to McMurdo Station.
Future plans include:
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o NSI Backbone upgrades using inverse multiplexers.
- NASA internal telecomm does multiplexed T3, but cannot offer
channel breakout at greater than E1, so NSI is using inverse
multiplexers to recombine lower speed channels to HSSI.
- Digital Link is smart about failed links, even about error per
second threshold, and deduces composite clocks.
o General purpose Internet connectivity to Russia via IKI (Russian
Space Research Institute) at 256kb is scheduled for circa January
1994. There will be about ten additional sites added, using analog
point-to-point links. The connectivity is basically confined to
the Moscow area. NASA went through COCOM to approve equipment and
Internet service. NASA must retain physical and configuration
control, but routes will be exported outside of NSI.
o NSI expects to install a link to Argentina Space Institute at 64Kb
BGP deployment! They are looking at multicast routing using MOSPF.
Proteon supports MOSPF/DVMRP coupling. You can open a tunnel to a
Proteon router and have it do multicast.
o ATM: The DoE/NASA procurement has been re-cycled. Proposals are
being evaluated. NASA has gotten their own permission to procure
ATM service and hopes to have ATM, at the latest by mid 1994.
ANS - Jordan Becker
The busiest ANS link is Chicago to Cleveland (in PPS). There was a spike
in the external route flap last week. Andrew Partan reported that an
ignorant or unfriendly site sent UDP packets to every sequential host in
the address space. Since this forces a new router cache entry with each
successive packet, it can make a router (empirically determined to
include cisco) overflow routing cache. The source, albeit unconfirmed,
is believed to be an address in Taiwan. Alternet routers got full
caches, memory leaks caused dropped BGP sessions. As the source started
with low class A networks, the flaps moved from provider to provider,
hitting Alternet at network 7.
Alternet - Mike O'Dell
Alternet is now running on an ATM Backbone, sourced by MFS DataNet. The
physical topology is a large ring, with cut-through paths,
interconnecting Newbridge ATM switches. All switches are interconnected
with path diverse dual T3 links. The lines are for redundancy, with a
box that does hot fallback between T3s (the ATM switch only sees one at
a time).
Alternet now has ATM in seven major hubs, plus San Jose. Alternet's
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access to this ATM fabric is via a 10Mb AUI connector, behind a learning
half-bridge. MFS DataNet takes care of the internals. (It will be some
time before Alternet considers a native ATM connection---the cisco ATM
Applique is said to cost $30k!) Since one can in principal do FDDI to
NewBridge switch, it will be a while before other connections are
needed.
MFS DataNet provides a virtual private network on fabric with multiple
customers. (Alternet is the largest customer willing to be
publicized---there are other, private users of MFS DataNet in the
banking and insurance industries.) DataNet owns the switches, but buys
the circuits from the regular suspects: WilTel, etc.
Concerning management, there is a list of criteria (bandwidth, delay,
etc.) for MFS operations. Alternet's Demark is the AUI. MFS has just
announced DataNet service to London. An overall map is available
online: ftp.uu.net:uunet-info. Alternet staff reports satisfaction
with the caliber of MFS Telco people and DataNet data communications
people.
COREN - Scott Bradner
Carrier negotiations are still underway, anticipated to close within a
couple of weeks. When a carrier is selected, substantial workouts will
be performed. There is an (unspecified) fallback plan if a selected
carrier is unsuitable. COREN's view of the carrier network is still
under discussion.
COREN's interface to the LD carrier is SMDS initially, and is planned to
migrate to ATM. Its DMZ is parallel Ethernet and FDDI.
COREN has also put out an RFI on NOC services, and put out an invitation
to participate in equipment evaluation. cisco and Wellfleet and two
vendors of CSU/DSU equipment have signed on so far. COREN has set up a
testbed, with BGP4.
COREN has eight regionals as its founders, plus a number of undisclosed
committed or potential subscribers.
COREN is working in parallel to the RIPE routing database effort, and is
starting to work with Merit on transition issues.
EBONE - Bernhard Stockman
In the last year, there has been rapid expansion into eastern Europe.
Countries near Austria are now connected to Vienna hub. Warsaw
(currently connected to Vienna and Stockholm) may become another BB
site, feeding Baltic.
Within the last year, all of the transatlantic lines have been connected
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to a single point, the Global Internet Exchange (GIX) in Washington, DC.
(Andrew Partan observed that the GIX Ethernet is close to saturation.)
The EBONE is now running BGP4 on all EBONE Border Systems (EBS), and
will not do proxy aggregation for stability reasons.
EBONE route policy filters are performed by means of comparing an
administrative database with a live routing table.
Connections to other providers include:
o EUNET
o EPNET
o SPAN
o Unisource Business Systems (UBS)
This is a joint venture of Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss PTTs,
stimulated by a call for tender for Pan-European X.25.
o European MultiProtocol Backbone (EMPB)
DANTE, Inc., formed by the European research and education
community is reselling EMPB as Europanet, in a bundle with X.400
and X.500 services. There is a 1Mb connection between EBONE and
EMPB in Amsterdam. Because of the overlap between communities,
there are expected to be organizations leaving EBONE for EMPB.
Trying to extend the logical boundary of the GIX to Stockholm and
Paris to support interconnections. (MAC layer extensions, etc.)
Attendees
Vikas Aggarwal vikas@jvnc.net
Jordan Becker becker@ans.net
Bart Berger bart_berger@3com.com
Rebecca Bostwick bostwick@es.net
Scott Bradner sob@harvard.edu
Henry Clark henryc@oar.net
Alan Clegg abc@concert.net
David Conrad davidc@iij.ad.jp
Christopher Dorsey dorsey@es.net
Tom Easterday tom@cic.net
Roger Fajman raf@cu.nih.gov
Stefan Fassbender stf@easi.net
Dale Finkelson dmf@westie.mid.net
Catherine Foulston cathyf@rice.edu
Vince Fuller vaf@barrnet.net
Steve Garritano steveg@kalpana.com
Farrell Gerbode farrell@rice.edu
Herluf Hansen hha@tbit.dk
Eugene Hastings hastings@psc.edu
Dale Johnson dsj@merit.edu
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Jeanine Kamerdze kamerdze@nsipo.nasa.gov
Walter Lazear lazear@gateway.mitre.org
Jian Li jian@rice.edu
Kim Long klong@sura.net
Glenn Mansfield glenn@aic.co.jp
Stephen Miller smiller@bbn.com
Pushpendra Mohta pushp@cerf.net
Michael O'Dell mo@uunet.uu.net
Andrew Partan asp@uunet.uu.net
Michael Patton map@bbn.com
Marsha Perrott perrott@prep.net
Martin Schulman schulman@smtp.sprint.com
Erik Sherk sherk@sura.net
Louis Steinberg louiss@vnet.ibm.com
Bernhard Stockman boss@ebone.net
Claudio Topolcic topolcic@cnri.reston.va.us
Evan Wetstone evanw@vnet.ibm.com
Chris Wheeler cwheeler@cac.washington.edu
Cathy Wittbrodt cjw@barrnet.net
Richard Woundy rwoundy@vnet.ibm.com
Jessica Yu jyy@merit.edu
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