NSFNET Transition Towards the Public Internet

Presented by

Peter S. Ford
Los Alamos National Laboratory
On loan to the National Science Foundation

peter@goshawk.lanl.gov

IETF
26 July 1994
Toronto, Ontario, CA


An Old Slogan

"One policy, one system, and universal service"

Theodore Vail, AT&T Annual Report, 1910

"...comprehensive, universal, interdependent, intercommunicating like the highway system..."

How we got started...


NSF award to Merit in 1987 (partnered with IBM, MCI, ANS)


Figure 1 (GIF - 50228 bytes)

New NSFNET "architecture"


Features of NSFNET recompetition


NSFNET as part of the Public Internet

Figure 2 (GIF - 14641 bytes)

New architecture


Figure 3 (GIF - 8317 bytes)

Transition is Underway


What does this mean


NAPs - Network Access Points

NAPs are for NSP to NSP Interconnectivity and Interoperability (NNI).

US R&E community that is covered by RNP funding will be made available at the NAPs to all others.

Good place for working on interconnectivity and interoperability.

Located in:

Routing Arbiter will locate Route Servers at the NAPs.

Routing Arbiter

Awards to ISI+IBM and Merit.

Is both a technology and an operational project. (Learn by doing)

Register and disseminate Internet routing and addressing information.

Parallel/cooperative efforts by Europeans (RIPE), CANet, and Asian Pacific (APEPG).

Development/evolution of routing system for the Internet. (provider selection, navigation of Internet mesh, IP to ATM mapping, resource management, multicast, routing configuration and stability, etc.)

Route servers at NAPs

Recognize distributed nature of the Internet (RA is not a "central control" function).