JANET is a private British government-funded computer network dedicated to education and research. All further- and higher-education organisations are connected to JANET, as are all the Research Councils; the majority of these sites are connected via 20 metropolitan area networks across the UK. The network also carries traffic between schools within the UK, although many of the schools' networks maintain their own general Internet connectivity. The name was originally a contraction of Joint Academic NETwork but it is now known as JANET in its own right. A computer network is an interconnection of a group of computers. ... The Research Councils of the UK are government agencies responsible for particular areas of science and technology. ... Metropolitan area networks, or MANs, are large computer networks usually spanning a city. ...

It is linked to other European and worldwide NRENs through GEANT, has a private connection to its equivalent CERNET in China and peers extensively with other ISPs at Internet Exchange Points in the UK. Any other networks are reached via transit services from commercial ISPs. A National Research and Education Network (NREN) is a specialised internet service provider dedicated to supporting the needs of the research and education communities within a country. ... For other uses, see GEANT (disambiguation). ... The China Education and Research Network (CERNET) is the first nationwide education and research computer network in China. ... Peering is voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the customers of each network. ... “ISP” redirects here. ... // An Internet exchange point (IX or IXP) is a physical infrastructure that allows different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to exchange Internet traffic between their networks (autonomous systems) by means of mutual peering agreements, which allow traffic to be exchanged without cost. ... An Internet transit is an arrangement when one Internet service provider carries packets for another provider to or from the wider Internet. ... “ISP” redirects here. ...

JANET is operated by JANET(UK), formerly known as UKERNA (the United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association), who are also responsible for the .ac.uk and .gov.uk domains. It is funded by JISC, the Joint Information Systems Committee. JANET(UK) is the trading name for the JNT Association, which since 1994 has had responsibility for the management of the United Kingdom’s Higher Education networking programme. ... On the Internet, the Domain Name Server (DNS) associates various sorts of information with so-called domain names; most importantly, it serves as the phone book for the Internet by translating human-readable computer hostnames, e. ... JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee) is a publicly-funded UK-wide body supporting the use of ICT and related technology for learning, teaching, research and administration in further and higher education. ...

Origins

JANET developed out of a number of local and research networks dating back to the 1970s. By 1980, a number of national computer facilities (ULCC London, UMRCC Manchester, Rutherford Laboratory serving the Science and Engineering Research Council community), each with their own star network had developed. There were also regional networks centered on Bath, Edinburgh and Newcastle, where groups of institutions had pooled resources to provide better computing facilities than could be afforded individually. These networks were each based on one manufacturer's standards, were mutually incompatible, and overlapping. In the early 1980s a standardisation and interconnect effort started, hosted on an expansion of the SERCnet X.25 research network. The system first went live in April 1983, hosting about 50 sites with line speeds of 9.6 kbit/s. In the mid-80s the backbone was upgraded to a 2 Mbit/s backbone with 64 kbit/s access links, and a further upgrade in the early 1990s sped the backbone to 8 Mbit/s and the access links to 2 Mbit/s, making JANET the fastest X.25 network in the world. X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for wide area networks using leased lines, the phone or ISDN system as the networking hardware. ... In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (sometimes written bitrate) is the frequency at which bits are passing a given (physical or metaphorical) point. It is quantified using the bit per second (bit/s) unit. ... A megabit per second (mbps or mbit/s) is a unit of data transmission equal to 1,000 kilobits per second or 1,000,000 bits per second. ...

The JANET effort resulted in the standardisation known as the Coloured Book protocols, which provided the first complete X.25 standard. (One effect of the adoption of Coloured Book was that JANET hostnames components were specified in the reverse order compared to the Internet standard, e.g. UK.AC.HATFIELD.INFSC1 instead of infsc1.hatfield.ac.uk.) There had been some talk of moving JANET to OSI protocols in the 1990s, but changes in the networking world meant this never happened. The Coloured Book protocols were a set of X.25 protocols used on JANET between the mid-1980s and 1992. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

History

In January 1991 the JANET IP Service (JIPS) was set up as a pilot project to host IP traffic on the existing network. Within ten months the IP traffic had exceeded the levels of X.25 traffic, and the IP support became official in November. Today JANET is primarily a high-speed IP network. The Internet Protocol (IP) is a data-oriented protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork. ...

In order to address speed concerns, several hardware upgrades have been incorporated into the JANET system. In 1989 SuperJANET was proposed, to re-host JANET on a fibre optic network. Work started in late 1992, and by late 1993 the first 14 sites had migrated to the new 34 Mbit/s ATM system. SuperJANET also moved solely to IP.^[1] Fiber Optic strands An optical fiber in American English or fibre in British English is a transparent thin fiber for transmitting light. ... Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a cell relay, packet switching network and data link layer protocol which encodes data traffic into small (53 bytes; 48 bytes of data and 5 bytes of header information) fixed-sized cells. ...

In 1995 SuperJANET2 started, adding 155 Mbit/s ATM backbones and a 10 Mbit/s SMDS network encompassing some of the original JANET nodes. JANET's mandate now included running metropolitan area networks centered on these sites.^[2] SMDS, which stands for Switched Multi-megabit Data Services, was a connectionless service used to connect LANs, MANs and WANs to exchange data. ...

SuperJANET3 created new 155 Mbit/s ATM nodes to fully connect all of the major sites at London, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds, with 34 Mbit/s links to smaller sites around the country. This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... This article is about the English city. ... This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... For other uses, see Leeds (disambiguation) and Leeds City (disambiguation). ...

In March 2001 SuperJANET4 was launched. The key challenges for SuperJANET4 were the need to increase network capacity and to strengthen the design and management of JANET to allow it to meet a similar increase in the size of its userbase.

SuperJANET4 saw the implementation of a 2.5 Gbit/s core backbone from which connections to regional network points of presence were made at speeds ranging between 155 Mbit/s to 2.5 Gbit/s depending upon the size of the regional network. In 2002 the core SuperJANET4 backbone was upgraded to 10 Gbit/s.

SuperJANET4 also saw an increase in the userbase of JANET with the inclusion of the Further Education Community and the use of the SuperJANET4 backbone to interconnect schools' networks. The core point of presence (Backbone) sites in SuperJANET4 were Edinburgh, Glasgow, Warrington, Reading, Bristol, Portsmouth, London and Leeds. For other uses, see Edinburgh (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Glasgow (disambiguation). ... This article is about the Borough in the north-west of England. ... , Reading is a town, unitary authority (the Borough of Reading) and urban area in the English county of Berkshire. ... This article is about the English city. ... For other places with the same name, see Portsmouth (disambiguation). ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see Leeds (disambiguation) and Leeds City (disambiguation). ...

In October 2006 SuperJANET5 was launched after £29 million of investment. It provides a 10Gbit/s backbone, with an upgrade path to 40GBit/s over the next few years. SuperJANET5 is a hybrid network offering, providing both a high speed IP transit service and private bandwidth channel services provisioned over a dedicated fibre network. It is designed not only to fully accommodate the requirements of the traditional JANET user base - all research institutes, universities and further education - but also to meet the needs of a new userbase in the UK’s primary and secondary schools.

What helped make JANET successful?

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (March 2008)

A number of factors contributed to the success of the JANET project..some technical, some political and some organisational. Some of the key factors were: Image File history File links Emblem-important. ...

1. An initial exploration and confirmation of the feasibility of national networking (known as The Wells Report, 1976).
2. A few senior, far-sighted, people who backed the project and its work for many years, and the dedication and hard work of the hundreds of people who worked collaboratively and constructively on the project for over 30 years (1975 - present).
3. A lead agency (the Science and Engineering Research Council) hosted a small central team (the Network Unit, then the Joint Network Team, JNT) and provided a strong technical environment. The team was from a technical, applied data communications background, with advanced administrative support. Subsequently a team was established to run the core national operational services (the Network Executive), and later on a customer services arm was added.
4. Establishment of a networking community of technical professionals from academic computing service centres and research groups, initially by annual networkshops but then more by use of e-mail and specialist subgroups.
5. A lead agency adopted a funding role - the Computer Board of the Department of Education, and the use of central funding.
6. Integrated wide area and local area network programmes using compatible non-proprietary networking standards. Plans for local area and wide area infrastructures were funded in line with the core standards. The plans were developed in discussion with members of the central JANET team, who had individual regional and technical responsibilities.
7. A political environment in the 1980's which allowed the implementation of a private, community-specific, national infrastructure.
8. Adoption and promotion of non-proprietary standards for data communications, both for networking components and applications. Where key products did not exist a development programme was used to fund the necessary work. This programme complemented an aggressive procurement policy for major IT procurements in the academic and research community, which used adherence to key data communications standards as a lever to promote the availability of networking products, and the associated interworking.
9. The emergence of a joint organisation spanning the higher education and research councils' communities (and subsequently other parts of the academic and research communities), with representation from major stakeholders, to have oversight of the national networking activities - currently part of the JISC.
10. A move to international standards, and active participation in the international equivalents of the JANET organisation.

Regional Networks

The JANET network is implemented through 20 regional network operators (RNOs) which connect universities, colleges and schools to the JANET network. Most RNOs are operated as independent entities working under contract to JANET(UK), though JANET(UK) operates a small number of RNOs directly.

Each RNO covers a specific geographical area, as of 2007 the following regional networks are connected to JANET:

• AbMAN The Aberdeen Metropolitan Area Network
• C&NLMAN The Cumbria And North Lancashire Metropolitan Area Network
• Clyde-net The Glasgow and Clydeside Network
• EaStMAN The Edinburgh and Stirling Metropolitan Area Network
• EastNet The Eastern Regional Area Network
• EMMAN The East Midlands Metropolitan Area Network
• FaTMAN The Fife and Tayside Metropolitan Area Network
• Kentish MAN The Kent Metropolitan Area Network
• LMN The London Metropolitan Network
• LenSE The Learning Network South East
• NNW Network North West
• MidMAN The Midlands Metropolitan Area Network
• NIRAN The Northern Ireland Regional Area Networking
• NorMAN The North East Metropolitan Area Network
• NWMAN The North Wales Metropolitan area Network
• SWERN The South West England Regional Network
• SWMAN The South Wales Metropolitan area Network
• TVN The Thames Valley Network
• UHIMI The University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute Network
• YHMAN The Yorkshire and Humberside Metropolitan Area Network

AbMAN (Aberdeen Metropolitan Area Network) is one of the regional networks that comprise JANET. AbMAN connects universities and colleges in and around Aberdeen in Scotland to one another and to the JANET backbone. ... C&NLMAN (Cumbria And North Lancashire Metropolitan Area Network) is one of the regional networks that comprise JANET. C&NLMAN connects universities and colleges in Cumbria and Lancashire in the north east of England to each other and to the JANET backbone. ... Clyde-net (The Glasgow and Clydeside Network) is one of the regional networks that comprise JANET. Clyde-net connects universities and colleges in the west and south-west of Scotland to one another and to the JANET backbone. ... Eastman is the name of the following places in the United States of America: Eastman, Georgia Eastman Township, North Dakota Eastman, Wisconsin Eastman (town), Wisconsin Eastman School of Music Eastman is also a surname: George Eastman, founder of Kodak P. D. Eastman, cartoonist and author of childrens books Zebina... EMMAN (The East Midlands Metropolitan Area Network) is one of the regional networks that comprise JANET. EMMAN connects universities and colleges to each other and to the JANET backbone in the east midlands of England. ... Fatman is a fictional character from the game Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. ... MidMAN is one of the regional networks that comprise JANET, providing connectivity to schools, colleges and universities in the West Midlands area of England. ... SWERN (The South West England Regional Network) is one of the regional networks that comprise JANET. SWERN connects universities and colleges in the south west of England to each other and to the JANET backbone. ...

See also

• GEANT
• Abilene Network
• JANET NRS
• TERENA
• JISC

For other uses, see GEANT (disambiguation). ... Abilene Network is the U.S. high-performance backbone network created by the Internet2 community. ... The JANET NRS (Name Registration Scheme) was a hierarchical naming scheme adopted for use on United Kingdom academic and research networks before the similar system used by the Internet DNS had been fully established. ... TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association) is a not-for-profit association of European NRENs (National Research and Education Networks). ... JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee) is a publicly-funded UK-wide body supporting the use of ICT and related technology for learning, teaching, research and administration in further and higher education. ...

References

1. ^ Cooper, Bob (1990). From JANET to SuperJANET: The Development of a High Performance Network to Support UK Higher Education and Research. The Computer Board for Universities and Research Councils. 
2. ^ SuperJANET5 project

External links

• SuperJANET 5
• JANET website
• JISC