Realizing the Information Future The Internet and Beyond (1994) / Chapter Skim
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A Federal Networking: The Path to the Internet
A Federal Networking: The Path to the Internet
Pages 237-253
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From page 237... ...
funded the high-risk, high-payoff development of the ARPANET, a 56-kbps backbone network.1 The first ARPANET node was installed at the University of California at Los Angeles in September 1969, thus launching the first packet switching network; by 1971 approximately 20 nodes had been installed, and ARPA was funding 30 different university sites as part of the ARPANET program. In the mid-1970s, the TCP/IP protocols were developed to link together different packet networks.
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From page 238... ...
NSF instituted the NSF Connections program in 1986 to broaden the base of network users with their own computer facilities and eventually to help universities achieve access to supercomputers (by supplying supporting hardware and/or telecommunications lines for direct, point-to-point connections) ; also in 1986, it launched the NSFNET network backbone pro
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From page 239... ...
, regional, and backbone networks serving the research community (see Figure 1.2 in Chapter 1~.5 This conceptualization is complemented by commercial networks, international networks, and other interconnections that have resulted in a globally interconnected mesh of networks known as the Internet.6 NSFNET The Research and Education Communities' Link to the Internet The late 1980s witnessed what might be called a rationalization of federal networking activities of the previous two decades. Initial hardware, software, and reliability problems among regional networks helped to motivate the development of network operations centers; such a center became an element of the 1987 NSFNET backbone solicitation.
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From page 240... ...
NSF also nurtured the broadening of the community served by the NSFNET through its requirements that the supercomputer centers and regional networks it supported develop their markets and move toward self-sufficiency; the phased withdrawal of financial support for regional networks, now linked to the termination of support for the NSFNET backbone, is the latest manifestation of NSF's promotion of self-sufficiency in the dispersed network-based activity it has fostered. Continuing Evolution of Provisions for Research and Education Networking As discussed in Chapter 5, the shift from direct provision of broadbased backbone network service through the NSFNET backbone to an expectation that commodity backbone and interregional networking services will be procured directly by users or their institutions is another part of a pattern of emphasis on eventual self-sufficiency.
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From page 241... ...
Some agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and within it the National Library of Medicine (NLM) , have launched network-based information services that depend on additional commercial networks for access.l2 The four principal HPCC agencies also support the development of new and enhanced networking and related technologies under the NREN umbrella.
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From page 242... ...
In the 1990s, growth in commercial activity has been most evident for communications and information services, growth for which NSFNET has been a catalyst. For example, PSI was spun off from NSYERNet; ANS was an outgrowth of the Merit regional networking activities; CERFnet was launched by General Atomics, which also runs the NSF-funded San Diego Supercomputer Center.~4 Around 1990 a conscious effort was made to link commercial and nonprofit information service providers such as Dow Jones, Dialog, NLM, and CARL to the Internet.
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From page 243... ...
In addition, audio, video, and shared work-space tools are now emerging from the research community, and content is coming from a variety of multimedia information providers. The coming availability of such services and the expected wide deployment of the next generation of very powerful workstations will have considerable impact on the required capacity and resultant costs of the Internet.
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From page 245... ...
, permits the local computer direct access to a fuller range of services, for example file transfer. It is also possible to use a dial-up connection to pass packets into the Internet; two of the common protocols for this purpose are SLIP and PPP, which are often mentioned in software packages offered for personal computers.
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From page 246... ...
Some of these networks are collections of LANs at campus locations, for example, Ethernets and Token Rings; some are long-distance networks, such as the NSFNET backbone network; and some are regional or state-level networks. Each network has a unique network number that is part of the address of the end nodes, or computers, attached to each net.
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From page 247... ...
Routing tables are maintained through a combination of on-line automatic message exchange and manual control. In early 1994 NSF announced an award for an Internet routing arbiter project intended to facilitate the logical interconnection of the networks attached to the Internet.~8 The design of the telecommunications technology out of which the Internet is built has matured over the last decade.
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248 lo a_ _ _ In In O S O O O O U
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The Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) added a third, similar exchange point for commercial Internet access providers, and the network access points outlined in the new NSF network program solicitation (see Box 1.3 in Chapter 1)
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Its specific goals and purposes include the following: · Development, maintenance, evolution, and dissemination of standards for the Internet and its internetworking technologies and applications. Internet standards are formulated by the Internet Engineering Task Force, an open-membership body that currently operates under the auspices of the Internet Society; · Growth and evolution of the Internet architecture.
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From page 251... ...
In addition coordination among federal agency networking activities is provided through the Federal Networking Council (FNC; which was established In 1990 with links to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) overall, the High Performance Computing and Communications Information Technology effort under OSTP, and the Office of Management and Budget)
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From page 252... ...
role will be to promote Internet routing and stability, establish network topology and policy databases, develop procedures to resolve problems between network entities, develop advanced routing technologies, provide simplified routing strategies, and promote distributed operation and management of the Internet." Part of the challenge is to develop new technologies, including high-performance, workstation-based route servers. See University of Southern California.
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From page 253... ...
24. Aiken et al., 1992, "NSF Implementation Plan for the Interim NREN."
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