Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!julian!julian.uwo.ca!peter From: peter@hadrian.uwo.ca (Peter Marshall) Newsgroups: ont.general Subject: Re: Connecting to the Internet Message-ID: Date: 31 Mar 89 05:23:47 GMT References: <221@moegate.UUCP> Sender: news@julian.uwo.ca Distribution: ont Organization: CCS, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. Lines: 208 In-reply-to: soley@moegate.UUCP's message of 27 Mar 89 06:41:27 GMT Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.47.7 of Tue Mar 1 1988 on myst.uwo.ca (berkeley-unix) I don't often get down this far in my news list, but someone pointed out the query to me and I thought that it would be a good time to post a general blurb on ONet that I wrote up for the Ottawa group that was about to join. I have added some parenthetical notes to update it in a couple of places, but I might have missed a couple of dated pieces of information. In addition to this note I can supply a copy of the (still) draft ONet charter and list of seminal decisions to anyone interested. ------------ This is a collection of notes for potential new members of ONet. It is in addition to the basic map of the current system and any more formal documents. Some ONet History (from a summary by Andy Bjerring) ONet evolved out of some initial efforts last spring involving two of the Centres of excellence recently funded by the Ontario government and several of the computing service organisations at the universities associated with those Centres. Although we have not yet completely defined our charter, the current draft states that ONet is a network established for the benefit of individual member institutions in support of their research and educational activities. The membership currently includes U of T, Western, Queen's, York, McMaster, Waterloo, and two of the Centres of Excellence (ITRC and ISTS). Special mention should be made of the membership of the Ontario Centre for Large Scale Computation, since they have agreed to provide special financing of part of the cost of the leased lines linking the current member institutions. For the original members at least, OCLSC will contribute funding to bring the line speeds up to 19.2kbps, up from the 9.6kbps the institutions felt they could afford on their own. Discussions are continuing about the longer term role the OCLSC wants to play in ONet. There are several prospects for expansion of the network during 1989. The University of Guelph is expected to join the network soon, and interest has been expressed by Carleton and a number of Ottawa based government and research companies. We expect to have a linkage into the emerging Quebec network in place by mid-1989. Sun Canada of Toronto is expected to join the network within the next few months. This, we hope, will be the first of many corporate members of the network. The main protocol being supported will be TCP/IP, although some of the links will also support DECnet. All institutions have purchased cisco routers. Currently maintenance is being supported by a spare router stored in Toronto, but other arrangements are being discussed. The capital cost of the router for each institution has been around $15,000. Annual costs associated with the leased lines and the maintenance arrangements will be about $15,000 for the current complement of members, although that will change as new members are added. The OCLSC contribution is on top of these amounts. The network has been operational (with the exception of the links to McMaster and York) since the end of September. We had some problems getting the DECnet part of the network working. This has meant delays for York and McMaster since we are converting existing DECnet links to carry their traffic. (McMaster has been up since December.) ONet is also supporting part of the cost of the University of Toronto's 56Kbps link to Cornell, NSFNET and so to the rest of the US and world-wide Internet. This vital link has been in operation since early October. Other projects that we will be looking at include the possibility of using the ONEt links to carry NetNorth traffic between institutions. We will be contacting BITNET to see if we could become part of the second phase of their BITNET II program that currently involves Princeton, CUNY, Cornell and Penn State. If so, we might be experimenting with their software over one or more of the ONet links sometime in 1989. We also will be looking for other applications and other sources of funding to help take the line speed to 56Kbps. If something positive develops in this area, we might be in a good position to begin talks with other groups and combine the data service with shared voice facilities using something like Bell's megastream service. The consensus, however, is that we should learn to walk before we attempt the more ambitious venture, and the 19.2Kbps facility will keep us all busy for a while. One final point that I might have mentioned earlier is that the private sector partners and associates in the provincial Centres of Excellence will be tied into the network as well, although it is unlikely that any will have more than slow speed or dial-up access through the host institution's network. The Physical Network The ONet network consists of lines leased from Bell connecting IP routers manufactured by cisco systems. We also help pay for a link into the US NSF network through the University of Toronto. Each node on the network (typically a campus) has an IP router attached to ONet on one side and to the campus network on the other. Using only cisco routers for this makes for few compatibility problems and generally makes the network easier to manage. The network is almost completely unmanaged. Well, that's not quite true. There is currently no central management entity. Management is performed cooperatively by a responsible technical contact at each site. The network is small and we are still exploring how to run it. For now we rely on an "expert" at each site to keep the system running. There are some acknowledged "super-experts" at the larger sites that are willing to help with problems beyond the local "expert". It should be remembered here that we are all very new to the game and that those quotes around "expert" really mean "take this with a grain of salt". Routing Basically when you connect your site to ONet, routing from your site into the Internet will be done by designating the ONet router to be the default router on your network. You should set up each of your machines that is to have access to the network in such a way that if they don't know how to get to a destination, then they should punt the packet to the ONet router on your site. The ONet routers at each site keep in constant touch with each other and an even smarter router located at UofT so they have a pretty good idea about how to get packets to their destination. Names We encourage all members to implement the domain naming system and a name server (BIND) for their campus. This will allow your users to address other sites by name rather than by number. It will also allow other sites to find out the names of the systems behind your ONet router. We still have some work to do to document how your campus name server integrates into the other name servers for ONet. For now join and then consult the people on the "" list. You might also consider contacting one of the following people: "Reg Quinton " or "Lee Oattes ". Topology The topology of the network is decided by the management committee. They are open to variations on the basic setup of the network. The fees payed by members are meant to cover the costs of renting data-lines to connect the various members and for maintenance on the routers. If the membership fee does not cover this cost we will probably have to make some exceptions to our universal membership fee. This might mean charging remote sites slightly more than the current membership fees. There is not a lot of money to play with. What we need from you 1. You must purchase a cisco router with at least one ethernet and one serial connection. This item is available through Granville Technologies, Toronto for about US$11000 - 5% discount. (It is considerably cheaper to buy in US dollars if you are buying from Granville.) The discount is probably only available to educational sites. As further links are added to the network you may be required to purchase boards for your router so that these connections can be made. (The minimum and maximum requirements are currently under review.) There is currently no restriction on what else you use your router for. At Western for example, it also routes between 3 campus ethernets. This sharing might have to change as ONet becomes a more formal and more managed organization. 2. Annual membership is currently $15,000. This is pro-rated on a monthly basis if you start your membership in the middle of the year. The year is May 1st to April 30th. 3. You might want to negotiate with OCSLC for funding to upgrade the basic line speed from 9600 to 19.2. OCSLC has been able to do this for the initial 7 members. There are no guarantees for the rest. Money after the first year (1988/89) may also be scarce! 4. Other connection arrangements can be arranged. We have worked out a mechanism for connecting without using cisco router, for end-node sites. (Members using this option would make an arrangement with a backbone site to install appropriate hardware and lease a the line to the new site. The membership fee would still be payable.) What you get 1. Membership in ONet. A vote on the Management Committee (which is invested with all power!). 2. The right to use all the facilities of ONet and its connections to other networks. 3. Your router will be covered under the consortium's maintenance agreement with Granville Technologies. (This starts (we hope) in May 1989.) You will have access to the ONet spare router until we get the maintenance agreement in place. 4. A connection to the network, paid for by ONet at 9600 bps (Or perhaps 19.2k bps if you are considered to be an important place for OCLSC to upgrade the connection speed.) -- -- Peter Marshall, Data Comm. Manager CCS, U. of Western Ontario, London, Canada N6A 5B7 (519)661-2151x6032 peter.marshall@uwo.ca pm@uwovax (BITNET); peter@julian.uucp