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By Joe St Sauver
joe@oregon.uoregon.edu
Internet2 (I2) is the United States' leading next-generation Internet for higher education and research. Over 170 Carnegie Research I and II universities connect to I2 via high speed DS3 (45Mbps), OC3 (155Mbps) or OC12 (622Mbps) circuits, and I2 also interconnects with a growing number of counterpart international networks (see http://www.internet2.edu/)
US sites connect to I2 via one of two physical networks: Abilene (which runs on top of Qwest facilities), or the legacy vBNS (which runs on top of MCI facilities). Sites can connect to Abilene or the vBNS directly, or they can share a circuit via an aggregation point known as a Gigapop.
The University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Eastern Oregon University, the Oregon Institute of Technology, Southern Oregon University, and Western Oregon University all connect via the Oregon Gigapop run by the UO, connecting from here to Abilene via an OC3 to Denver, Colorado, and an OC3 to Sacramento, California. (For more information about the Oregon Gigapop, see http://www.ogig.net/)
Just this summer, PSU, OGI, and OHSU brought up the Portland Research and Educational Network (PREN), which has OC12 connectivity via the University of Washington's Gigapop in Seattle. (For more information about PREN, see http://www.pren.net)
Normally, all traffic between I2 sites automatically flows via I2. This means that if you're working from the UO network, you need not do anything special to request access to I2--you have already been "preapproved" to use it. Nor do you need to specify that your traffic use I2--we automatically route it onto I2 whenever feasible. Since I2 performs better and costs less (under one-tenth the cost of commercial Internet access), it simply makes sense to use it. Note that while I2 will carry all traffic between Internet2 sites, it will not carry traffic between the UO and non-Internet2 sites such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo, or Google. Traffic the university exchanges with non-I2 sites must be handled by the university's commodity Internet connections. Thus Internet2 supplements, but does not supplant, the university's normal Internet connectivity.
If you'd like to learn more about Internet2 and the University of Oregon, you may wish to consult back issues of Computing News, available online at http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/backissues.html You can also plan to attend the UO's Internet2 Days this fall (see details below).
On November 13th and 14th, the University of Oregon is hosting an "Internet 2 Days" workshop that will include presentations by Internet 2 staff members Paul Love and Heather Boyles, as well as demonstrations of applications that make use of the Oregon Gigapop's high-performance connections to the Abilene network.
The workshop will provide a forum for researchers throughout Oregon to explore the enhanced opportunities that come with I2 connectivity via the OGIG (Oregon Gigapop), PREN (Portland Research and Education Network), and OWEN/NERO (Oregon Wide-Area Network/Network for Education and Research in Oregon).
Topics will include international collaborations, research funding and the network, shared instrumentation, and getting high-speed connections to the end user. If you're interested in attending, or if youÕd like additional information, please contact Lucy Lynch (llynch@darkwing.uoregon.edu; 346-1774).