graphic header NRN home page Development team members Grants Awarded Internet 2 Development partners NRN use policies Grant Proposals Status Reports Nevada Research Network technical schematics

NSF CISE Project Summary

SECTION A. Project Summary

SECTION C. Project Description

C.1 Introduction

C.2 Background

C.3 Project Specifics

SECTION D. References Cited

Figures

Table 1.
NRN and NSF CISE Project Timeline

SECTION A. Project Summary

High-Performance National Network Connection
For the Nevada Research Network

The University and Community College System of Nevada (UCCSN), in conjunction with its three major research institutions, proposes to connect the Nevada Research Network (NRN) to the National Science Foundation's vBNS backbone. This connection is required to support a number of distinguished scientific research applications that require high bandwidth and quality of service (QoS) features. Specifically, a single vBNS connection will serve the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), and the Las Vegas and Reno campuses of the Desert Research Institute (DRI). Five facilities and 15 departments of these three institutions will be connected initially to the NRN, which is an in-state research-only network providing ATM over OC3. The vBNS connection proposed here provides a cost-effective connection for these NRN participants to national research resources.

Nevada researchers are currently faced with increasingly severe bandwidth restrictions and QoS limitations. NSF vBNS connectivity is essential to resolving these problems by providing dependable access to supercomputers, data, and collaborators in other states and countries, as well as allowing researchers outside Nevada to take advantage of the research resources and expertise within the state. The connectivity will also provide the researchers at these three institutions with the opportunity to take full advantage of the NCSA alliance with EPSCoR states and of their Internet2 memberships.

The NRN is currently being constructed with support from the three campuses, System Computing Services (SCS) of the UCCSN, Nevada state funding, and a $500,000 EPSCoR award. Corporate partner Brooks WorldCom is providing rate reductions and engineering expertise. The NRN consists of star topology network OC3 connections originating at the Reno and Las Vegas offices of SCS. New network infrastructures and IP distribution systems of the three institutions and UCCSN supply service to designated departments. An OC3 channel between the two SCS offices provides a north-south state backbone. The vBNS connection proposed here will connect the Las Vegas office of SCS to a gigaPOP at Rialto, California. UCCSN will continue to provide access via Sprint for existing commodity Internet traffic.

Purchase, installation, and maintenance costs for an ATM switch and border router are budgeted at $74,250. One-time vBNS termination costs are $9,750. Monthly line charges to either MCI or Brooks WorldCom will be $42,000. Funds requested total $1,050,000 and will cover 23 months of line charges for the vBNS connection. Cost share of $2.5 million is provided by means of extensive system and campus upgrades in progress, engineering and support staff time for installation and maintenance, and the donation by SCS of an OC3 line between the Reno and Las Vegas SCS offices. If this proposal is funded, an additional $42,000 will be sought from the EPSCoR program to cover line charges for the 24th month.

SCS is responsible for installing, configuring, and maintaining the NRN. SCS will contract vBNS services and maintain the connection equipment on behalf of the three research campuses. The NRN Advisory Committee (NRNAC), with representatives from UCCSN, SCS, UNR, UNLV, and DRI, determines NRN access and use policies. Status and results of the vBNS project will be fully documented on the existing NRN Web site (www.dri.edu/NRN) for in-state reference and outside review.

SECTION C. Project Description
C.1 Introduction

A high-speed in-state research network is being developed to support research activities by the three major research campuses in Nevada: University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) in the north; University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) in the south; and Desert Research Institute (DRI), with facilities in both Reno and Las Vegas. This Nevada Research Network (NRN) will be dedicated to research data transfers and collaborative, multi-site computing among 15 departments at these three institutions at five physical locations. The infrastructure of the NRN is based on ATM technology over OC3 fiber optic connections. The NRN is designed to address serious bandwidth, latency, and general Quality of Service (QoS) constraints plaguing the existing educational network (NevadaNet) which is based on T1 lines and which provides commodity network services to 10 campuses, 2500 faculty, and 45,000 students.

Competitive and effective research at Reno and Las Vegas facilities is currently seriously hampered, as all three of the research campuses are involved heavily with other national and global laboratories. DRI in particular, given its world-renowned expertise in many areas of environmental modeling, needs the capability for timely, high-volume data transfers. In addition, all three campuses frequently collaborate with each other, and the large geographical distance (400 miles) between Reno and Las Vegas poses a major obstacle to physical collaborations within the University and Community College System of Nevada (UCCSN). The NRN is intended to provide the infrastructure to remedy these concerns.

The project proposed here would serve to connect the members of this high-speed research-oriented network to the national high-performance network grid by means of a vBNS connection to a gigaPOP in California. Funding is sought under Category C of the "Connections to the Internet" program (NSF 98-102) which connects institutions with meritorious applications to the vBNS to accommodate high bandwidth and/or bounded latency requirements. The details of this connection, including costs, engineering issues, Quality of Service (QoS), and administrative issues are discussed in this proposal.

Because of Nevada's large geographical area, such network connectivity is critical to existing high-quality research, as well as maximizing future investments of research dollars by such funding agencies as DOE, DOD, NSF, and EPSCoR. Connection of the NRN to vBNS will enable Nevada to play a role in the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative's development of "network-based science, health, education, and environmental applications" (NGI Mission Statement, July, 1997), areas in which Nevada researchers enjoy national and international prestige. In addition, UNR, UNLV, and DRI already work closely with many of the agencies specified in the NGI initiative (e.g., DOE, NASA, NSF, NIST, and NIH).

C.2 Background

C.2.1 Participants

Of the seven campuses that comprise the UCCSN, UNR, UNLV, and DRI are the three that are heavily involved in research activities which drive the need for high-performance computing and networking resources.

Founded in 1874 as Nevada's land-grant university, UNR is the state's oldest institution. UNR offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs, including doctoral and professional studies, to a student body of 12,400. An accredited medical school offers M.D. and M.D./Ph.D. programs as well. The University is home to 500 full-time and 200 part-time instructors. Faculty research has gained national acclaim in many areas of endeavor. The American Association of University Professors ranked UNR as a "Class 1" research institution. This recognition is supported by the dramatic growth in sponsored project support, which has increased by nearly 76% since 1990. Total project awards for FY 1997 reached nearly $67 million. The increasing number of Ph.D.s granted, along with increased federal government awards to UNR, has placed the University in a position to be classified as a Research University I under the Carnegie classification.

UNLV is the state's largest comprehensive, doctoral degree granting institution with 20,000 students and more than 700 full-time faculty. UNLV has 46 academic departments and schools and currently offers 148 undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degree programs. The university also has 14 research centers and in 1996 had 115 federal awards amounting to $13.6 million, 70 federal pass-through awards totaling $2.5 million, 31 state awards of $1.1 million, and a number of other awards totaling $1.4 million for a total of $20 million in research activities.

DRI is a self-funded division of UCCSN that conducts full-time basic and applied environmental research for the state, the nation, and the world. In the last 10 years, DRI has conducted research in all but three of the 50 states and on every continent. The Institute's 400 scientists, technicians, and staff conduct over 100 research projects every year from science facilities at Reno, Las Vegas, Stead, Laughlin, and Boulder City. DRI is the world's largest multidisciplinary organization conducting environmental research in arid lands. It is organized into five research centers which focus on atmospheric physics, air quality, plants and animals in arid environments, past climates, human adjustments to environmental changes, and water quality and quantity. DRI has a yearly research budget of $19 million, representing a 70% increase in research funding since 1990.

System Computing Services (SCS) provides intercampus WAN network services for the UCCSN campuses, as well as to participating state and federal agencies and K-12 schools in Nevada. SCS has been awarded a number of network development grants in developing NevadaNet and has extensive experience in engineering and expanding network capabilities. Previous funding includes:

  • NSF Grant NCR-8822241, 1989: three year program for connection of senior and research institutions to NSFNet via San Diego

  • NSF Grant NCR-9021052, 1990: "Northern Nevada Community College Connection to NevadaNet" to extend NevadaNet connectivity to Elko.

  • NSF Grant NCR-9118427, 1992: "NevadaNet Phase II" for continued support of NevadaNet and user outreach program.

  • NSF Cooperative Agreement NCR-9321083: SCS to operate as regional network provider during transition period while NSFNet was retired in favor of commercial Internet.

  • NSF Grant NCR-9503532, 1995: "NevadaNet Phase III" to extend NevadaNet to six remote community college instructional sites.

The PI for this proposal, Dr. Jane Nichols, is Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs within UCCSN. Dr. Nichols' responsibilities include high-level oversight of UCCSN networking and research capabilities. Mr. Davan Weddle is the Executive Director of SCS. The Telecommunications Division of SCS is headed by Richard Belaustegui, a networking veteran with 26 years of experience as director of that group. Network design, operations, and support functions are provided by Allan Webber and Tim Hunt, each with 16 years of network design and development experience, and by Bill Albee, with 5 years experience in network design and 30 years in the telephone industry. Technical support personnel include Randy Miller with 9 years of daily support experience and Jana Dunn with 11 years of systems administration and software support. All of these individuals are already heavily involved in engineering and purchasing components for the NRN, as well as supporting the existing NevadaNet which provides networking services to 80 university, K-12, and state sites. They work closely with local and regional network service providers, including Nevada Bell and Sprint. They also work closely with campus network support personnel, holding meetings of the Connectivity Group across the state by means of video conferencing on a monthly basis.

SCS is taking the lead on a Request for Bid to long-distance carriers to complete a fiber optic cable directly between Reno and Las Vegas (currently, network traffic between Reno and Las Vegas is routed through California). In exchange for right-of-way access from the Nevada Department of Transportation, Nevada will obtain at reduced or no cost the use of an OC48 pipe between the two cities. SCS will obtain an OC12 pipe from this project, of which an OC3 channel will be dedicated to upgrading the NevadaNet backbone, an OC3 channel will be dedicated to the NRN, and two OC3 channels will be reserved for backup and expansion purposes. The routers and associated equipment at the terminations of the OC12 pipe are being funded by SCS's operating budget, EPSCoR funds for the NRN project, state funds for K-12 Internet access, and distance education funds. This project is typical of SCS's capabilities to blend its many engineering projects and available funds into cost-effective, integrated networking solutions.

The remaining co-PIs are network and computing representatives from the three institutions: Dr. Steve Zink is Associate Vice-President for Information Resources and Technologies for UNR, Dr. Lori Temple is Director for Academic Computing Services for UNLV, and Lyle Pritchett is Network Manager for DRI. UCCSN is taking the responsibility of applying for vBNS connectivity funding on behalf of the three campuses, and SCS will ultimately take responsibility for physically installing and maintaining the necessary equipment and services. Because all three campuses have current and expected needs for high-performance networking via the vBNS, the planning group consisting of the PI and co-PIs on this proposal decided to use the NRN infrastructure to minimize initial and ongoing costs of vBNS connectivity. Therefore, NSF funding for only a single vBNS connection is sought to provide service to all three campuses. For more details on responsibilities and administration of this project, please refer to Section C.3.9.

Brooks WorldCom, a Reno area preferred service provider for MCI, is working with SCS as a utility/business partner in this project. Brooks is committed to provide engineering services for the proposed network, to provide SONET fiber technology to DRI's Reno facility without construction charges, and to develop special discounted rates for the bandwidth specified for higher education within Nevada.

Bechtel Nevada and UCCSN (primarily faculty at UNR, UNLV, and DRI) are developing a variety of technical collaboration teams in areas ranging from earthquake engineering studies to high energy physics. Bechtel is keenly interested in connecting its network to NevadaNet and NRN to increase opportunities for professional collaboration with UCCSN personnel. It is supportive as an industry partner of the proposed high-speed networking connectivity project.

C.2.2 Research Network Needs

The following describe a few research projects and facilities that either currently require or would benefit from a high-speed state network infrastructure and a subsequent vBNS connection. Table 1 summarizes these projects and their participants.

  • The National Supercomputing Center for Energy and Environment (NSCEE) is located on the UNLV campus. Application areas include meteorology, astronomy, computational chemistry and physics, virology, remote sensing, nonlinear optics and laser-material interaction, virtual environments, molecular dynamics, and telemedicine. Transferring data between NSCEE and other National Laboratories (LANL, LBNL, LLNL, Sandia, NASA, DOE, EPA, NIH, and DoD), as well as universities around the world, is critical to the continuing success of this Center.

  • Theoretical research in the UNR Department of Physics focuses on atomic and molecular physics, dense plasma physics, and modeling of x-ray spectra. All of these areas are computationally intensive and require vectorization and use of vector machines, such as the supercomputer at UNLV. Massively parallel computers through the use of Parallel Virtual Machine software in a distributed computing environment is required for continued research in these areas. Access to such computing facilities will allow the development of new parallel algorithms for the computational implementation of physics models and will make possible calculations which are presently too lengthy.

  • UNLV physicists, along with graduate students, undergraduate students, postdoctoral research associates, and other US collaborators, are performing simulations of new materials, structures, and nanostructures such as quantum dots, small clusters, interfaces, and polymer systems. Research goals include studying the electronic and spectral properties to understand the roles of electron-electron correlation effects in nanomaterials. This work is currently being conducted on an in-house 10 gigaflop parallel/distributed facility funded by the W. M. Keck Foundation. Access to the vBNS will allow the project teams to combine their local resources with those at the San Diego Supercomputing Center, the Cornell Theory Center, and the Maui Supercomputing Center. Full-scale simulations will be performed at the national supercomputing sites, and local resources will be used to analyze the resultant data. Expected project results include new numerical techniques for simulating and modeling new electronic materials. Simultaneous use of these resources over a high-speed network will allow simulations not currently possible at any individual site.

  • A major research focus in the UNR Computer Science Department is in the area of Distributed Adaptive Systems. Real-time visualization and interactive steering of large computations running in parallel on scores of machines is the norm. A number of projects currently in the prototype stage would benefit from very high speed network connections. For example, the Fast Accurate Seismic InversION (FASION) project, part of an NSF CAREER grant, seeks to use parallel genetic algorithms and simulated annealing to rapidly and accurately predict below-ground structure from seismic travel time data. The application routinely generates gigabytes of raw data that is transferred to a remote user to be visualized and controlled in real-time through a Java interface. This interactive interface allows researchers to submit data for inversion and underground structure prediction and would enormously benefit users at other universities and in industry across the country. Current bandwidth and computing limitations severely restrict the size of the models that can currently be computed and visualized. Researchers would like to expand the modeling to three dimensions, but such enhancements depend on adequate bandwidth to transfer the end results to multiple users simultaneously.

  • The Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC), located in DRI's Reno facility, manages and operates a Unidata LDM feed, which is the primary source of weather and climate information for Oregon State University, New Mexico State, University of Wyoming, California State University at Chico, and the Naval Postgraduate School. In addition, WRCC is a secondary feed for the University of Utah, the University of Colorado, CIRES, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Saskatchewan. Upstream sites are the University of Washington and Unidata in Boulder, Colorado. High-speed, reliable networking is necessary to ensure timely flow of satellite maps, forecasts, observational data, climate data, lightning data, and radar data through WRCC to many other research programs.

  • WRCC is also a partner with the five other U.S. Regional Climate Centers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Unified Climate Access Network (UCAN). This network will enable climatic data to be shared seamlessly among DRI; the University of Nebraska at Lincoln; the University of Illinois at Champaign; Louisiana State University; the Department of Natural Resources in Columbia, South Carolina; Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; and NWCC in Portland, Oregon. Since most of the Regional Climate Centers are already collocated at universities with vBNS connections, the benefits of a connection to the WRCC is clear, particularly given the large volumes of data which are involved.

  • The Subsurface Flow and Contaminant Transport Group at DRI is working on advanced modeling techniques for contaminant transport in groundwater, with applications to DOE underground nuclear test areas in Nevada. Because computations are conducted by researchers located at north and south DRI facilities, high-speed connectivity is necessary for large simulations that may involve as much as 12.5 GB of data. In addition, supercomputing resources at the San Diego Supercomputing Center for computation and visualization efforts are necessary for projected increases in modeling efforts. Collaborative investigations of nuclear testing effects with Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Laboratories would benefit from vBNS connectivity.

  • UNR conducts extensive research in areas related to ground water hydrology, particularly solute transport. The research is currently limited in terms of the scale of problems that can be solved due to the lack of scalability of the models on even the most sophisticated on-campus scientific workstations. For example, the UNR Hydrology Laboratory has constructed a porous medium model which requires 10 million nodes or elements to simulate solute transport. Specialized supercomputer access, available via the vBNS, is required to resolve these problems. The UNR Hydrology Solute Transport group is in active collaboration with colleagues at the Los Alamos, Sandia, Livermore, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. A real-time high-bandwidth network connection is necessary to run the models on the National Laboratories' supercomputers, as model output data must be examined at multiple sites which the model is running. Specific examples of collaborative projects which require high quality of service include: Lattice- Gas/Lattice-Boltzman models of pore scale fluid and chemical transport; large scale models of transport through strongly heterogeneous geological formations; and saturated and unsaturated flow and chemical transport in fractured media.

  • The UNR Physics Department recently acquired a Z-Pinch apparatus from Los Alamos that is being installed at UNR's Stead Facility and will be operational by the fourth quarter of 1998. This device is the cornerstone of the Nevada Terawatt Facility (NTF) and will be used in research concerning long-term stability of nuclear weapons without the need for underground testing. The resulting data are to be shared with UNR's Physics Department on its main campus, the UNLV Physics Department, DOE, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, as well as other National Labs. A number of private companies that worked with the Z-Pinch at Los Alamos are being encouraged to continue their work with UNR. In addition, DRI researchers have plans to use the Z-Pinch device's ability to generate artificial lightning for atmospheric physics work. High-speed network connections are necessary to disseminate large amounts of data resulting from Z-Pinch experiments to the research community.

  • The Center for High Energy Density Science and Technology, a statewide entity involving faculty at UNLV, UNR, possibly DRI, and several national laboratories (e.g., Livermore, Sandia, Los Alamos) coordinates research using laser technology. Current projects include Laser Spectroscopy of Molecular Ions, Lasers for Ultra-sensitive Environmental Analysis, Laser Diagnostics of Z-Pinch Plasmas, Lasers for Down-Hole Monitoring at the Nevada Test Site, and Laser Diagnostics of Highly Charged Ions at Livermore. High-speed network connections are essential to these collaborative efforts. Remote collaboration tools allowing researchers physically remote from the experimental apparatus to participate in the research projects ("col-laboratories" or "virtual laboratories") are being developed for this work. A high-speed network connection is essential to real-time access to these experiments for researchers within Nevada as well as those at the cooperating national laboratories. High-speed network capabilities are also critical to effective use of high-resolution data visualization graphics in support of this work.

  • DRI conducts research in high-resolution mesoscale and regional scale atmospheric and dispersion modeling. This research includes assimilating large numbers of observations from meteorological networks, satellite data, remote sensing measurements, and data from special field projects. In addition, model output visualization allows real-time weather forecasting given a specific terrain and atmospheric conditions. Currently this research group depends on access to a supercomputer at NCAR, but such access has been plagued with frequent Internet outages and slow connections. An offer of free computing time at NCSA has been made to all EPSCoR researchers, but without a reliable, high-speed connection, the offer cannot be realized.

  • Using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), investigators in the UNLV Physics Department and their colleagues across the country are studying star formation in galaxies, the nature of galaxies in voids, and the nature of active galactic nuclei. Work with the HST requires investigators to run remote programs at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore and the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. Large image files must also be downloaded from both STScI and GSFC. Both of these activities require reliable, high-speed network access not currently available in Nevada. Funding for these projects extends until October, 2001, with funding for future associated projects expected. Connection to a high-speed network will greatly enhance the success of the current projects and help ensure the success of future funding efforts.

  • The International Bridge Information Center is being developed currently by the UNR Civil Engineering Department with funding from the National Science Foundation. This Center is designed to catalog and store structural specifications, designs, test data, and earthquake data on wood, concrete, and steel bridges. The Center will provide the design engineer with the most complete source of information on bridge structures design through a locally developed Web site, and it is intended to provide this information to any research group or engineering design company in the nation or the world. As the datastore grows to include detailed design specifications for structures and high-resolution high-speed photography of bridge tests during earthquakes, a high bandwidth link to the user becomes essential.

  • The National Science Foundation has expressed interest in linking the three major Earthquake Engineering Laboratories in the U.S. together for live video, transmission of more than 100 channels of sensor data, and sharing of high-resolution photographic images. These laboratories are located in New York, Illinois, and California. The UNR College of Engineering's earthquake test facility is associated with the laboratory in Buffalo, New York. Earthquake tests on bridge and housing structures on UNR's motion tables and platform would be transmitted as numerous sensor and video images to other interested sites in real time for analysis of on-going tests and other collaborations.

  • The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) and the UNLV Transportation Research Center are collaborating with the city of Las Vegas and Clark County officials to develop effective strategies to reduce traffic congestion and resulting collisions and air pollution. An Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) initiative that builds on the existing infrastructure in the valley and current enhancements to the Las Vegas Area Computerized Traffic Control System (LVACTS) is already being developed. ITS components include Traveler Demand Management Systems (TDMS) and Traveler Information Systems (TIS) to allow effective use of existing transportation capacity. ITS also includes the Incident Detection and Management System, the Public Transportation Management System, and the Commercial Vehicles Operations System to provide spatial and temporal data for long-range planning. High-speed connections to federal repositories of traffic flow, crash data, and weather information will allow the investigative teams to collect, store, and analyze the large data sets used in the traffic flow simulations.

  • The Nevada GAP Analysis Program, a joint cooperative remote sensing mapping project between the Biological Resources Center at UNR and DRI, is part of the National GAP Analysis Program designed to map and identify vegetation types from satellite images. Coordinated by the National Biological Service, this national program involves all 50 states and over 200 collaborating agencies, private businesses, special interest groups, universities, and state, local, and federal governments. To reach the goal of a seamless tiled database of land cover classifications for the entire nation, Nevada researchers must match its image database with those of California, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and Idaho. Given individual scenes that are 400- 600 MB in size, coupled with ancillary data such as elevations, soil databases, hydrography, and Digital Line Graph data, a vBNS connection is essential to transmit and receive the large volumes of data to complete the National GAP Program in a timely manner.

Table 1 also summarizes these projects' bandwidth and QoS requirements. Note that the accumulated bandwidth needs for just these projects total 47 MB/s sustained transfers and 350 MB/s bursty (intermittent) transfers, with 14 MB/s sustained traffic and 182 MB/s bursty traffic requiring low latency or low jitter. These figures represent best estimate values. However, the requirements will also undoubtedly increase as these projects develop and mature and new meritorious projects are approved and added to NRN traffic. Because of large bandwidth needs generally and the large number of packets which need QoS guarantees specifically, ATM over OC3 appears to be the minimal network engineering solution to support these projects. In fact, this is the reason why the NRN is based on this technology. Also note that all institutions are well-represented here. A third of the projects involve two or all three of the state research institutions in collaboration with each as well as with out-of-state National Laboratories or supercomputing centers.

This is not an exhaustive list; many other ongoing and planned projects would benefit from vBNS bandwidth and QoS capabilities. All three institutions have vigorous research programs, and new projects are constantly sought and awarded. An example of a prospective project is a four-way distributed computing initiative (Distributed Numerical Weather Prediction Laboratory) between the University of Utah, the University of Arizona at Tucson, NCAR in Colorado, and the DRI Reno facility for mesoscale atmospheric modeling. Of the four participants, DRI is the only institution without vBNS access, a situation which affects the success of this proposed collaboration. Collaboration among modeling groups at UNR, UNLV, and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, is also anticipated.

The NRN Advisory Committee is also mindful that future high-speed networking needs are not driven solely by research needs. Expansion of other existing in-state projects is also anticipated to require a national high-speed connection in the future (not necessarily the vBNS). These projects include the Nevada Telemedicine Project, which supplies remote medical specialists to rural areas and distance education to students and health practitioners. The Nevada Distance Education Program, which currently provides continuing education to K-12 teachers, plans to develop Web-based courses using Multi-User Dimension/Multi-Object Oriented (MUD/MOO) applications when sufficient bandwidth becomes available.

C.2.3 NevadaNet Infrastructure

UCCSN campuses are currently networked together via connections to SCS offices located in Reno and Las Vegas (Figure 1). This network, known as NevadaNet, carries general purpose ("commodity") network and Internet traffic such as e-mail and Web information. UNR's Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) backbone is directly connected to the Reno SCS office, which resides on the UNR campus. UNLV is connected via fiber to the SCS office on its campus. The DRI facility in Reno and the UNR Physics facility in Stead (12 miles north of Reno) are connected to SCS via T1 lines leased from the local phone company. The DRI facility in Las Vegas, which is located adjacent to the UNLV campus, transfers 10BaseFX data across fiber extended across the intervening street. NevadaNet's data connection between Reno and Las Vegas is a T1 (1.5 Mbps). Internet connections are two multiplexed T1 lines from each of the two SCS offices. This network also includes connections to the four UCCSN community colleges and a number of K-12 schools. NevadaNet also encompasses an extensive in-state video conferencing network used for collaboration among researchers at all three campuses and for distance education purposes.

Not unexpectedly, NevadaNet is proving to be inadequate for intensive research activities. The situation is particularly acute for DRI, which maintains in-house modeling teams split between Reno and Las Vegas facilities. In addition to DRI's five research centers, the Western Regional Climate Center, UNR's engineering, chemistry, and physics departments, UNLV's physics, engineering, and chemistry departments, and the National Supercomputing Center for Energy and Environment have immediate and long-term needs for high-speed, dependable networking capabilities.

Realizing these deficiencies, SCS and the campuses are continuing to improve their existing infrastructure. UNR is completing a campus backbone upgrade from FDDI to Fast Ethernet, with a completion date of August, 1998. DRI is currently upgrading its Reno and Las Vegas infrastructures to an ATM-over-OC3 backbone with switched 10BaseT and 100BaseT service to individual computers and servers, with a scheduled completion date of December, 1998. UNLV, with its extensive fiber optic infrastructure, is taking advantage of that flexibility to provide high speed network connections throughout its campus. SCS is heavily engaged in upgrading its main north-south backbone from 10BaseT services over a single T1 leased line to ATM over OC3. All four entities work closely together in analyzing and planning computer and networking needs and have several standing committees and a long-range state-wide plan (Campus and Statewide Network Plan, 1995).

C.2.4 Nevada Research Network Infrastructure

The NRN, funded in June, 1998, by an EPSCoR grant and currently under construction, provides the in-state infrastructure necessary to handle high-speed and high-bandwidth research applications. NRN is a separate, parallel network to NevadaNet. The NRN design is depicted in Figures 2 through 8; these figures also depict the relationship between the NRN and NevadaNet connections (after enhancements implemented by December, 1998) to each research facility. SCS offices in Reno and Las Vegas will be joined by a channelized OC12 backbone running ATM, with an OC3 channel dedicated to the NRN. Sites in Reno (DRI's Northern Nevada Science Center, UNR, and UNR's Stead facility) and in Las Vegas (DRI's Southern Nevada Science Center and UNLV) will be connected to SCS offices in a star topology. The OC12 state backbone is terminated at each SCS office at a Cisco GSR. NRN traffic is routed through a Cisco IGX to dedicated interfaces to each of the campus sites. Each campus is connected slightly differently to accommodate fiber capacity and existing campus networking equipment.

[Figure 2]

[Figure 3]

UNR in Reno is connected to the NRN via on-campus single mode fiber to a Cisco 7505 router, connected in turn to a mesh of five Cisco 5500 switches interconnected by Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) over multi-mode fiber (Figure 4). This mesh allows distribution of dedicated research traffic to the five departments initially slated for service (Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Civil Engineering, and Computer Science). The same mesh also provides commodity network service to the same departments, but over different virtual circuits to ensure guaranteed bandwidth and QoS for NRN traffic. Connections to departmental servers are via switched full-duplex 100 Mbps IP-based networks cards.

UNR's Stead facility is located 12 miles north of Reno and houses the Physics Department's Z-Pinch project. Fiber optic capacity will be leased from a local provider to connect the SCS Cisco IGX to Stead (Figure 5). This will provide ATM over single-mode fiber to the Stead facility, at which a Cisco 7507 router will convert ATM to IP. Individual servers will be connected directly to the router by full duplex Fast Ethernet over multi-mode fiber.

DRI's Reno facility is located 3 miles north of the SCS office. Fiber optic capacity will also be leased from a local provide to connect DRI to the SCS Cisco IGX (Figure 6). This single-mode fiber will connect to a Cisco 7204 router with a multi-mode ATM interface. DRI's backbone is native ATM running on a mesh of six Bay Networks Centillion switches on multi-mode fiber. The Cisco 7204 router will connect to this mesh and feed NRN traffic over a dedicated virtual circuit on the ATM backbone. Service to individual workstations and servers is provided as IP over switched 100 Mbps copper lines directly from the Centillion switches.

DRI's Las Vegas facility is located adjacent to UNLV's campus and is serviced by on-campus multi-mode fiber (Figure 7). As with the Reno facility, a Cisco 7204 router connects SCS's Cisco IGX to DRI's Bay Networks Centillion-based backbone. Dedicated virtual circuits separate research from commodity network traffic.

SCS's Las Vegas office is located on UNLV's campus (Figure 8). UNLV is connected to the Cisco IGX via multi-mode fiber to a Cisco 5505 switch located at the National Supercomputing Center for Energy and Engineering (NSCEE) facility. UNLV's Engineering Department is located in the same building as NSCEE and will be serviced by 100 Mbps service over copper. The other two UNLV departments (Chemistry and Physics) initially slated for connection to the NRN will be serviced by 100BaseFX service over multi-mode fiber between those two buildings and the NSCEE facility. Fast Ethernet switches will be located at each building to provide 100 Mbps service over copper to the departmental servers.

Each departmental site is responsible for maintaining network service from their border routers to appropriate departmental servers or workstations. SCS will manage the Cisco WAN equipment using HP OpenView and Cisco Works software.

Funding for the equipment and installation portions of the NRN project was obtained in June, 1998, through the EPSCoR program. Connectivity to UNR at Stead and DRI at Reno is included in SCS's biennium budget request. The NRN project is scheduled for installation on a two-year timeframe starting in July, 1998, with SCS, UNLV, and DRI in Las Vegas coming on-line in January, 1999, with the other sites to be added by summer, 1999.

Existing problems with bandwidth and dependability, within the state and in existing Internet connections, will be alleviated. Research network traffic will move from the existing NevadaNet backbone (1.5 Mbps) to the NRN ATM backbone (155 Mbps), a hundred-fold increase in capacity and speed. An indirect benefit is that NevadaNet will effectively gain more capacity to handle routine network traffic such as e-mail without additional investment in equipment or expensive T1 lines.

C.3 Project Specifics
C.3.1 Expected Benefits

The NRN initiative is designed to build a high-speed research network with QoS capabilities within Nevada. This will greatly aid in-state research data transfer and collaboration needs throughout the state, but NRN does not address the more critical needs of Nevada researchers to reach specialized supercomputers, distributed computing pools, large archived databases, and other network-accessible tools required for competitive research. A connection to the vBNS network effectively eliminates the effects of Nevada's geographical remoteness from other centers of research. This vBNS proposal is prepared by the same PI and co-PIs who wrote the NRN EPSCoR proposal as part of an aggressive, integrated program to improve research computing in Nevada.

For example, vBNS will allow Nevada to take advantage of the recently announced NCSA/EPSCoR partnership. Projects based on virtual reality-based real-time modeling and visualization would no longer eliminate UNR, UNLV, and DRI as participants due to connectivity issues. Real-time planning, on-line experimental control, remote data collection, and access to large databases are other activities which would become possible. Distributed computing paradigms such as Condor and Symbio will allow more efficient use of existing Nevada computing power, as well as providing opportunities for UNR and UNLV's Computer Science Departments to pursue projects in high-speed network and distributed computing. DRI's expertise in mesoscale modeling and ground water transport modeling can be more easily incorporated into collaborative multi-site visualization projects, with potential benefits to all researchers in those fields. An important benefit that must be emphasized that not only would Nevada researchers benefit from access to other databases and computing tools, but researchers across the country would also have ready access to the databases and research expertise within Nevada.

Finally, UNR, UNLV, and DRI have applied to become members of the Internet2 consortium, and a high-speed backbone is necessary to make full use of Internet2 services.

C.3.2 Network Engineering Plan

SCS, in its role as an intercampus service provider, will supply the network design and implementation expertise for the vBNS connections and equipment (Section C.2.1). SCS personnel, under the leadership of Davan Weddle, currently maintain NevadaNet. Networking personnel at each of the campuses bring expertise and knowledge of their respective facilities and campus infrastructures. The local networking personnel also interact with their researchers to ensure that implementation of the NRN and vBNS connection are meeting research needs. Brooks WorldCom, a service provider related to MCI operating in the Reno area, is providing information on available fiber service and equipment for this project and has offered additional engineering support as well.

The proposed vBNS connection would originate from the SCS office in either Reno or Las Vegas. Potential gigaPOP sites include Rialto, California; Hayward, California; and San Diego, California. Present quotes by MCI and Sprint indicate that a slight cost advantage would be recognized in originating the connection at Las Vegas and terminating in Rialto. Brooks WorldCom, a strategic partner in the NRN project, is also interested in providing vBNS service between Reno and California. However, the selection of the route and the carrier would be made after a formal bid process establishes which carrier provides both the best cost and the most acceptable QoS guarantees, both important issues due to limited fiber capacity within Nevada currently.

A Cisco Lightstream 1010 ATM switch and a Cisco 7505 router are tentatively specified to provide the necessary interfaces between the ATM NRN backbone and the vBNS line. A technical evaluation will be made at the time of the purchase to assess state-of-the-art technology and cost effectiveness, and the most appropriate equipment will be purchased. The use of Cisco equipment is the de facto standard for vBNS sites, but the specific models may change from those specified above.

Despite the higher initial cost, OC3 communications lines and equipment interfaces are preferred over other alternatives such as DS3. Given that NSF is pushing existing vBNS sites to upgrade to OC3 (NSF FAQ, WWW 1997), initially specifying OC3 equipment is the most cost-effective plan in the long term. In addition, scalability and QoS features are more easily achievable with ATM over OC3, and the bandwidth and QoS requirements of the research projects cited in this proposal force consideration of ATM over at least OC3 speeds (Section C.2.2, Table 1).

C.3.3 Quality of Service Issues

Analysis of QoS needs and implementation can be resolved into two requirements. The first deals with large amounts of data that need to be moved in a reliable, timely manner. While some degradation in data transfer speeds can usually be tolerated, consistent slowness, particularly with frequently moved large data files such as satellite images (sustained traffic), can adversely affect research efforts. The second requirement encompasses time-critical data. While this is most often associated with voice or video information, it can also be an issue with remotely controlled experiments and real-time data streams from a remote experiment. Acceptable levels of both measures are somewhat arbitrary and depend on a number of network attributes (redundant links, self-healing meshes, raw bandwidth, competing traffic, et al.). QoS requirements of the projects identified as immediate beneficiaries of both NRN and vBNS capabilities are listed in Table 1.

By selecting ATM technology as the basis for the NRN infrastructure, provisions for QoS scheduling are possible through cell prioritization and switched virtual circuits. For both bandwidth and QoS reasons, DRI is already converting both of its facilities to an ATM-based backbone, a process that is scheduled to be completed by December, 1998. In addition to providing a fully meshed network for reliability, DRI's equipment has the ability to quickly add OC3 pairs to its backbone for more capacity. The NRN WAN backbone is also based on ATM for the same reasons.

One method for providing QoS is to restrict use of the high-speed in-state infrastructure and the vBNS connection to only approved research projects and activities. Routers in the individual departments which have NRN connections will maintain separation between commodity network traffic and research traffic by routing policies and filters. Because the vBNS has strict use policies, the NRN Advisory Committee (Section C.3.9) and SCS will monitor and control usage of the NRN to insure only known and approved traffic is reaching both the NRN and the vBNS network.

Physical and logical separation between the commodity and research traffic is already incorporated into NRN plans (Section C.2.4) from the backbone to the server/workstation level. SCS offices are connected by an OC3 virtual channel within a larger OC12 pipe. Research traffic is sent to the Cisco IGX via an OC3 fiber separate from the NevadaNet feed. At the IGX, direct fiber links to campus-level routers maintain separate physical paths from commodity Internet traffic. At the campuses, one of three arrangements are implemented. At UNLV, copper and fiber connect to departmental Fast Ethernet switches, with full duplex 100 MB/s service to each server or workstation. At UNR, research traffic is routed over a mesh of Cisco 5500 switches. Although these switches also carry commodity traffic, virtual LANs (VLANs) and dedicated fiber interfaces keep the two traffic flows separate. Two Fast Ethernet (100 MB/s) pipes are logically joined to eliminate a bottleneck for OC3-based traffic (155 MB/s) for each leg in the mesh and for each departmental feed. Finally, at DRI research traffic is separated from commodity traffic within a mesh of Bay Centillion ATM switches using VLANs. Traffic congestion at any given Centillion is relieved by automatic rerouting through alternate OC3-speed paths. Full duplex Fast Ethernet (100 MB/s) ports on the Centillions directly connect to selected servers or workstations.

Alternative QoS protocols which are not yet fully developed include RSVP (Zhang, et al., 1995; Berson and Berger, 1997). Cisco is also developing a number of IP-level packet prioritization schemes and will work with SCS to test and implement these new policies and filters. When such protocols are finalized and available from vendors as software or firmware updates, SCS will obtain and install such features. Other QoS standards which rely on layer 3 techniques will also be monitored as they develop in the industry. In the meantime, applications which are known to be time-sensitive will be identified by NRN personnel and high-priority virtual paths will be established to provide traffic management and meet QoS requirements. Careful scheduling will also be necessary, as examination of the summary in Table 1 reveals that even a full duplex OC3 line cannot handle the expected load if all projects were to commence transmitting bursty traffic simultaneously. Such scheduling will be coordinated between the NRNAC, SCS, and the researchers involved.

Management of the NRN and vBNS routers and switches will be performed by SCS personnel using HP OpenView and Cisco Works. Monitoring will include detection of congestion, alarms, and failures for immediate response to avoid QoS problems, as well as performance and traffic studies to ensure that adequate reserve is available for scheduled projects. These activities not only monitor the health and reliability of the network itself but also allow management personnel to proactively plan for continued development of bandwidth and latency capacities.

C.3.4 Service Accessibility

Initially, 15 departments are scheduled for connection to the NRN and therefore would have access to the vBNS. Those include the five research centers at DRI (Water Resources, Biological Sciences, Quaternary Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences, and Energy and Environmental Engineering), the Western Regional Climate Center housed at DRI, the Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry departments at both UNR and UNLV, the Computer Science and Civil Engineering departments at UNR, and the National Supercomputing Center for Energy and Environment (NSCEE) located at UNLV. Those connections are OC3 carrying ATM cells to routers at the UNR Reno campus, UNR Stead Facility, UNLV campus, and DRI facilities in Reno and Las Vegas. Service to individual servers or workstations will be provided by direct connection to a dedicated Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) switch connected to the routers or directly to Fast Ethernet ports on the routers themselves. Physical or logical separation between the facilities' normal network infrastructure and the high-speed connections will be maintained.

Addition of users or computers can be easily accomplished by adding access to currently connected computers or by connecting new computers. However, such access would need to be cleared by the NRN Advisory Committee (Section C.3.9) and the appropriate campus network management. The NRNAC is responsible for setting policies and procedures for adding interested and qualified researchers within UCCSN, including publicizing the available capacity and ensuring that service is eventually available to all departments at the three institutions. Collaborative research within Nevada and with federal agencies will be given first priority if time and resources are limited, with the argument that such projects are most likely to result in additional research dollars flowing to the state.

Similarly, the star topology from each SCS office allows additional sites to be added easily. Three likely such candidates are the DRI's Dandini Research Park in Reno, the Las Vegas Technology Center in Las Vegas, and the Desert Rock Sky Park in Mercury, Nevada. Bechtel Nevada has expressed an interest in the Desert Rock Sky Park, as much of its current collaboration with UNR, UNLV, and DRI is conducted at Mercury. DRI in Reno already has a direct T1 line to the local National Weather Service office for transmitting doppler radar images; this T1 may be upgraded to higher bandwidth if the modeling project expands in scope. If bandwidth needs justify the expense, a second vBNS connection can be added in Reno to Hayward to reduce cross-state traffic load across the NRN backbone.

C.3.5 Budget

The equipment proposed for the vBNS project includes one Cisco 1010 LightStream ATM switch and one Cisco 7505 router to be installed at the SCS office deemed best for vBNS connectivity. Equipment and installation costs total $85,394. However, purchased equipment will be based on best available technology at the time of purchase using the funds available. First year maintenance will be included in the manufacturer's standard warranty. Subsequent maintenance on the equipment totals $8,856 annually. Costs of equipment in the attached budget already include educational discounts from Cisco.

Three of the five facilities planned for initial connection to the vBNS are connected to SCS offices via on-campus fiber optic cables. The two facilities physically removed from SCS offices are DRI Northern Nevada Science Center (NNSC) in Reno and the UNR Physics Department in Stead (12 miles north of Reno). These two sites face additional costs associated with OC3 service to the Reno SCS office. OC3 fiber connections will be leased from a local service provider starting in July, 1999, by SCS. That local service would likely be provided by Brooks WorldCom, which has committed to providing service at discounted prices and without construction costs to the DRI NNSC.

One-time vBNS termination costs at the SCS Las Vegas office total $9,750. Monthly charges for that connection are estimated by MCI to be $42,000/month ($504,000/year), although best price and service at the time of the installation will determine which carrier is actually used. UCCSN purchasing rules require that such service be submitted to a bid process, and the carrier selected will be the most cost-efficient possible. Funds requested total $1,050,000 and will cover 23 months of the vBNS connection, which is the maximum allowed under this program for three institutions ($350,000 each).

If this proposal is funded, UCCSN intends to apply for an additional $42,000 available to EPSCoR states to offset higher connection costs for those states. This money, if awarded, will be used to cover line charges for an additional month to fully cover the two-year vBNS project.

C.3.6 Cost Share

Cost sharing on the behalf of the connected sites include SCS's investment in the NRN project. This includes $1,058,000 in the OC3 NRN backbone between Reno and Las Vegas, $293,250 in OC3 line lease for the SCS-DRI link in Reno, and $603,750 in OC3 line lease for the SCS-UNR connection to Stead. This is considered to be cost share in that the NRN allows a single vBNS connection to service all three institutions, a more cost-efficient solution by far than trying to provide three separate vBNS connections. SCS will also provide the server for the WAN management software. Fifteen percent of the salaries of four designated SCS personnel who will plan, implement, and maintain the vBNS equipment and connection (Allan Webber, Randy Miller, Jana Dunn, and Garrett Mead) total $82,950 for the two-year period.

UNR's cost share includes planned and budgeted infrastructure upgrades specifically to support vBNS connectivity through the NRN. Equipment investments total $100,000 and include the NRN portion of 10 new Cisco Catalyst 2924-XL switches, UPS equipment, and additional on-campus fiber capacity. At the departmental level, facilities that are slated to use the NRN (Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, and Mines) are being upgraded to Category 5 wiring to support Fast Ethernet (100 MB/s). Finally, 10% of the Network Services Manager's time to install and maintain that equipment for two years is $18,733 (Jeff Wolff).

UNLV's cost share includes $100,000 earmarked for equipment to extend the NRN from the NSCEE computer center to Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry departments on campus. Planning, installation, and maintenance activities encompass 10% of the NSCEE Director (Joe Lombardo) and one UNLV computing staff member (Robert Thorso) and total $47,360 for two years.

DRI's contribution to the NRN includes $250,000 in backbone and equipment upgrades currently underway. These include 6 Bay Centillion ATM switches, 14 24-port 10BaseT switches, and a 16-port 100BaseT switch in Reno and 2 Centillion switches and 8 24-port 10BaseT switches in Las Vegas. Fiber optic cables are being replaced in conjunction with construction of a new science building, scheduled to open in January, 1999. Although these investments will technically be completed before NSF funds are awarded, they indicate the level of planning and support that research networking has at DRI. The resulting ATM backbone will easily handle 10 virtual circuits running at full duplex OC3 speeds and will easily connect to the NRN/vBNS infrastructure. Projects scheduled during the expected grant period include replacing existing end-station wiring with Level 6 cable to accommodate Fast Ethernet speeds (100 MB/s) or better. In addition, DRI plans to purchase a dedicated high-end research server with a dedicated NRN/vBNS network connection and additional switch equipment to accommodate additional research groups to connect to the vBNS; this cost share totals $100,000. For engineering, installation, and maintenance services, 20% of the Network Manager's time (Lyle Pritchett) totals $56,46 for two years.

Finally, cost share includes the apportionment of NRN switch and router maintenance, estimated at $40,455 annually after the first year (after manufacturer's installation and warranties expire). In total, cost share on thisproject among SCS and the three institutions is estimated at $2,501,344, more than a 2:1 match for the vBNS funding requested.

C.3.7 Long-term Funding and Support

On-going line and maintenance costs after the end of the second year will be covered by SCS. Line leases and subscription costs will be included in SCS's 2001-2003 biennium budget request (the Nevada legislature meets every two years). The UCCSN Chancellor's Office has designated research network development, including the NRN and vBNS connectivity, as a high priority item, and the Chancellor has lobbied Governor Bob Miller in support of these projects. Maintenance contracts and monitoring personnel are already allocated in SCS's budget and personnel allocations. The costs of equipment for additional NRN sites other than the departments specified in Section C.3.4 will be sought from other sources, including campus network budgets and project awards where appropriate.

A working group composed of the PI and co-PIs of this proposal is already working on a five-year vision plan for additional networking needs for the UCCSN campuses. The final recommendations will be forwarded to the Director of SCS for inclusion in his plans and future budgets. Doubling of the Reno-Las Vegas OC3 pipe and the addition of connections to Internet2 or Abilene backbones are possibilities if research traffic warrants the additional bandwidth and capabilities.

C.3.8 Cost-Effectiveness

As an EPSCoR state with a large geographical area to cover and only two major population centers, implementing a cost-effective vBNS connection is a challenge. However, every effort is taken to economize networking costs in the NRN and in this proposal. This is particularly true given that only by pooling the maximum request amounts for the three institutions under this proposal ($350,000 each) could line charges be paid for even a single vBNS connection for 23 months. Funds requested include very little in the way of equipment and is intended to mainly meet connectivity costs. In-state collaboration is resulting in the construction of the NRN to connect the research facilities with each other. A side benefit is that the NRN essentially functions as a local POP to pull traffic bound for other states into a single collection point which can then be connected to the vBNS infrastructure. This function is far more cost-effective than trying to supply each institution with its own dedicated vBNS connection.

To deal with accumulated research traffic needs, SCS combined and leveraged funding from a number of sources (EPSCoR, state funding, distance education, K-12, and their own budget) to make NRN a reality while upgrading portions of the NevadaNet structure. SCS is also taking the lead in trying to obtain fiber capacity for itself and state agencies in exchange for right-of-way access. This will not only allow SCS to provide a high-speed backbone for NevadaNet and NRN, but also provides SCS with some spare capacity for backup and expansion purposes. The vBNS connection solution proposed here is a continuation of SCS's careful planning to maximize resulting capacity for the least amount of money.

Engineering alternatives other than OC3 are possible but not practical. For example, DS3 lines could be multiplexed to provide fatter pipes than currently possible in NevadaNet. However, the added complexity of multiplexing equipment and load sharing algorithms and the costs of capacity equivalent to OC3 make this alternative unworkable. The summary at the bottom of Table 1 clearly indicate that OC3 is a minimum pipe necessary to support those projects. The corporate partnership with Brooks WorldCom also serves to make OC3 more attractive from a pure price viewpoint.

Other national networks are also available, most notably Abilene. However, Abilene is a relatively new project with much basic research in high-speed handling of native IP packets to be done. The PIs feel it is not yet an effective alternative to the vBNS, which is an established research network already well-distributed across the country. This may change in the next few years, and alternatives will be considered again at the end of the two-year vBNS funding cycle.

C.3.9 Implementation and Oversight

The timetable for vBNS connectivity closely parallels the NRN project timetable. Both tasks will be completed within a two-year period, commencing from an anticipated start date of July, 1998. Activities include purchasing, installation, configuration, and testing of the switches and routers. An overall schedule is presented in the following table.

Table 1. NRN and vBNS Project Timeline

Deadline vBNS Activity Project Activity
Winter 1998   EPSCoR equipment proposal submitted
Spring 1998   Establish NRN Web site and oversight committee
Summer 1998 NSF Connectivity Proposal submitted Receive funds
Prepare final equipment specifications
Commence negotiations with local service providers
Fall 1998 Receive funds
Prepare final equipment specifications
Purchase switches and routers		 Commence bids process and negotiations with service providers
Winter 1999 Purchase switch and router
Finalize service provider contract
Activate vBNS connection		 Activate SCS-LV, UNLV, and DRI-LV sites
Spring 1999   Finalize service provider contracts
Install & test NRN north/south backbone
Activate UNR-Reno site
Summer 1999   Connect UNR-Stead and DRI-Reno sites
Fall 1999   Install and test applications
Spring 2000   Conclude project
Analyze results, final report
Fall 2000 Conclude project
Analyze results, final report		  

SCS is responsible for purchasing, installing, and maintaining the NRN and vBNS equipment. The existing NRN Advisory Committee (NRNAC), a technical planning and advisory committee consisting of the PI and co-PIs specified in this proposal, oversees implementation of the NRN project and works directly and closely with the Executive Director of SCS and his Director of Telecommunications. The NRNAC includes one representative each from UCCSN, UNR, UNLV, DRI, and SCS. In addition, Ken Bishop, a researcher with the University of Kansas and a participant in the Great Plains Network, has agreed to serve on the NRNAC. This committee is developing policies for identifying qualified research projects and users for access to the NRN. Its role will be expanded to oversee access to the vBNS as well, enforcing access policies consistent with existing vBNS use policies (Acceptable Use Policies as revised January 10, 1997). Particular efforts will be made to publicize and expand NRN and vBNS accessibility to all departments within the three research institutions. These efforts will include developing specific vision plans and implementation schedules with SCS and assistance in obtaining additional networking funds as needed. New NRN connections will be reviewed for immediate and ongoing meritorious research needs, and participants will be required to agree to research-only use of the NRN.

C.3.10 Reporting

Annual and final reports will be provided to NSF using Forms 1328 and 98A, respectively. Project status and NRNAC activities, project status, and policies are already available as Web documents at www.dri.edu/NRN. This Web site will be expanded to include similar information for the vBNS connection. Documentation of network equipment, network topology, usage data, QoS and performance measures, and contact information will be provided on the Web site for access by the Internet community. Tracking mechanisms necessary to gather the information necessary for the NSF reports will be adopted as part of the NRN project and extended to vBNS project.

SECTION D. References Cited

NSF "Acceptable Use Policies for NSFNet Program Backbone Network Services", Internet (www.cise.nsf.gov/anir/vbnsaup.html), Jan. 10, 1997.

NSF "Connections to the Internet", NSF 98-102 (www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf98102/nsf98102.htm), 1998.

"NSF vBNS Frequently Asked Questions", Internet (www.vbns.net/press/press_faqs.html), July, 1998.

Campus and Statewide Network Plan, University and Community College System of Nevada, ad hoc Networking Needs Assessment Committees, revised April 17, 1995.

Berson, S., and Berger, L. "IP Integrated Services with RSVP over ATM", Internet Draft (www.isi.edu/~berson/draft-ietf-issll-atm-support-03.txt), March, 1997.

Zhang, L., Deering, S., Estrin, D., Shenker, S., Zappala, D. "RSVP: A New Resource ReSerVation Protocol", IEEE Network, September, 1993.

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