Final connectivity WG minutes
- Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 10:51:25 +0100
Here is the final version of the minutes. Thanks to Mike Newell for
his excellent scribe work and to Dima Avdyev and Chris Broomfield
for comments.
Best regards
Milan Sterba
Connectivity working group minutes
==================================
o Agenda
1. Scribe: Mike Newell/NASA
2. CEENet update
3. DANTE-Europanet CEE extension
4. Regional updates
5. CDS update
6. Stagnation in CEE networking
7. Mission fo the future of the working group
o Chairman's introduction (Milan Sterba)
o Introduction of the participants.
o This working group is not a traditional working group in the sense that
it serves as a forum for exchainging information rather than driving
standards.
o CEENet update by Jan Gruntorad (CEENet treasurer)
o Connectivity
o Not much news from the Febrary '94 meeting
o Next meeting is in October in Budapest
o Goal of the CEENet is better coordination in the region
o First phase (PHARE 91) included 2.5M ECU, funded connectivity in the
Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. Work was
managed by a contractor for the EC and has been found unsatisfactory.
The funding expired in June of 1994.
o Next goal is 4M ECU to extend connectivity to all countries in the
region.
o October meeting PHARE is to decide how to allocate funds. Technical
groups are now forming. CEENet wants to be more actively implicated
in the management of the project. Four groups have been approached
(DFN, DANTE, INRIA and EUnet) No technical stuff is expected to
be discussed in the the October meeting.
o Question: What is the relationship between the and CEENet and PHARE?
It's different in each country. The PHARE representitive is from some
ministry, while the CEENet representative is from the network
organization; in some cases this can be the same person.
o Question: How are the funds allocated ? They are 2 year funds
distributed specifically to networking.
o Question: Does the PHARE extend to Russia? No, it only extends to
Ukraine and the Baltic States.
o DANTE-Europanet extension to Central and Eastern Europe
o Tim Streater from DANTE was present but felt he was not knowlegable
enough to be 100% accurate. Referred to Chris Broomfield for
information about this topic.
Later during minutes preparation Chris Broomfield sent the following
update :
1. The 1994 PHARE R&D Networking Programme has a total budget of
4MECU of which 3MECU is for International Networking Infrastructure, 0.4
MECU for in-country projects (primarily for the Baltic States and
Albania), 0.6MECU for Managagement, Audit and a reserve. The programme
which has been agreed by the PHARE countries requires the PHARE
countries to contribute funds. The Programme is for two years October 94
to September 96. DANTE has been appointed as the Mangement Contractor by
the EC. The first Meeting of the Programme Avisory Committee in
Budapest 13/14 October. One representative from the Networking body in
each country plus CEENet Association have been invited.
2. The countries are: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Czech Rep., Slovak Rep., Hungary, Slovenia, Romania,
Bulgaria and Albania. (11 in all).
o For funds allocated in 1991 equipment to support X.500 spreading in
CEE was sent out in June 94. These delays between money allocation,
project design and implementation phase cause serious problems and
and are CEENet's main concern.
o Question: Several meetings ago the push for IXI extension to
CEE without topological and technological coordination with other
(namely local) networking initiatives was felt as a serious problem.
Has the problem with IXI coordination improved ?
In the meantime IXI became Europanet, which presents considerably
better performance and connectivity characteristics than IXI.
Some CEE countries use Europanet as their principal international
link (Czechia. Slovenia). Link to Hungary is also installed. Other
planned connections are still pending.
o Regional updates
o RIPE now has a uniform way to publish connectivity info via the RIPE
Connectivity Document Store. Please use this way to get information.
o Bulgaria: Nobody present. The chair noticed a large growth in number
of connected hosts recently.
o Czech Republic:
o The link established for INET (0.5Mb) is still in place
connecting to EuropaNET The network beyond
that point is provided by Unisource. Up to the mid August funded
from the 1991 PHARE/COSINE programme and will be funded from
the 1994 PHARE programme at least for the time being.
o There is a 128Kbs EBONE circuit between Prague and Vienna.
o There is a 64Kbs SANET circuit from Banska Bystrica to Prague.
o Question: How does CZ split traffic between EBONE and Europanet ?
The Czech academic network CESNET is artificially split into
two AS's one nearer to Ebone and the other to Europanet.
Routes are announced both sides except for sites which
don't fit the Europanet AUP.
o Hungary:
o About 10 major cities are now or soon to be interconnected.
o There are 4 64Kbs links out - 2 to EBONE in Vienna and 2 to
Europanet.
o They are asking for both links to be upgraded to 256Kbs.
o Baltic States:
o Estonia has a 128Kbs link to Helsinki and a 64Kbs satellite link
to St. Petersburg.
o Latvia has a 64Kbs circuit to Oslo
o Latvia is connecting a direct link to Stockholm.
o The BaltNet program expects to receive 4.5M Danish Kroner
and support from ISF and plans to double connectivity.
o Poland: Nobody present.
o Romania: Nobody present.
o Slovenia: Nobody present.
o Slovakia:
o Currently has 2 international lines to Prague and Vienna
(19.2Kbs upgraded to 64Kbs). Both lines are currently
overloaded.
o They had hoped that for one link from PHARE project.
o They plan to upgrade these lines but first they need to upgrade
their internal backbone.
o The service on the present lines is good.
o They want to remain connected to EBONE rather than
Europanet (due to AUP)
o Russia (and other xSU)
o The "Radio-MSU" network (reported by Dmitry Avdeyev)
o Currently has a 256Kbps satellite link from DESY (Hamburg)
NPI MSU (Moscow).
o There is also a 64Kbps satellite link to the Yerevan Physics
Institute (YerPhI) in Armenia. Currently a single IP network
is routed via this link. This line will be used to carry general
purpose scientific traffic for Armenia.
o There is a plan to change over the satellite link from YerPhI
directly to DESY to avoid two satellite hops.
o Question: Are there plans to connect other sites? Yes.
o Question: Who is funding this? Armenia via the
Armenian Foundation in the US.
o Dubna
o A 64 kbit link from Italy (Gran Sasso) to Dubna is operational
since June 1994. Another 64 kbit linak by DFN links Pottsdam
to Dubna.
o ISF (reported by Rob Blokzijl)
o The Moscow Metropolitan Fibre is coming back on
track, Phase 1 will be a 2Mb backbone and Phase 2 will
be FDDI.
o Question: Will DESY carry traffic over ESNet? No.
Transit traffic will use Europanet since ESNet won't
carry transit traffic. ESNet will carry transit traffic to
NSI.
o ISF approved the project. They also approved a project
in Ukraine (Kiev). Money has been allocated.
o ISF has approved the St. Petersburg project. They are
constructing a local network using fibre in conjunction
with the local power company (Lenenergo).
o Question: Has the Moscow fibre project progressed?
Not since the last meeting. (Extensive discussion of
wether or not the fibre is actually in the pipes; there was
signifigant disagreement on this point.)
o CDS update
o CDS = Connectivity Document Store, a place to store information
about your network, its functions, and its connectivity.
o You should send CDS entries to "cds-editor@localhost". The format was
described in the last minutes. The documents are visible via WWW
via the RIPE NOC (and other links), via ftp, gopher and even e-mail.
o Participation is limited to organizations which support the NCC. Of
the over 100 networks in RIPE, this comprises about 40 networks. So
far only a few networks are participating: Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, France, Poland, and Slovakia.
o If you don't contribute to the RIPE NCC you don't get to list yourself.
o (Much discussion about networks not participating because they feel
they've already done this at least once (for the RIPE NOC) and in
many cases more than once with their own local documentation. )
o Conclusion: network providers can supply Hypertext links to include
existing documentation.
o (Action for the chair.) Send e-mail to the prospective participants
directly. Establish HTTP links as needed.
o Stagnation in CEE networking
o Looking at absolute increases in service there was some concern
expressed by the chair that CEE networking is stagnating. The chair
ran some statistics, with (1) being contries with stable growth, (2)
rapid growth, and (3) plateau (little or no growth.) Studies indicate
group 1 contains Ukriane, the ex-Soviet Union, Slovenia, Romania,
Latvia, and Hungary. Group 2 includes Bulgaria, Lithuania. Group 3
includes the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia.
o After further reflection the group felt that this was probably
reasonable; Group 1 countries are just funding new circuits and getting
new connectivity; Group 3 (the concern) have probably finished major
projects and are now consolidating and using services.
o Mission and future of the working group
o Does this forum make sense? General consensus is that it does. Many
participants feel that it provides an excellent forum for discussing
connectivity between countries and "catching up" on what everyone is
doing.
o Mailing list: "connectivity-wg@localhost" (send mail to
"majordomo@localhost" to subscribe.)
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