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News Archive: November–December 1999

UMnet ADSL is now available to Faculty & Staff

Posted December 21, 1999

ITCom recently performed a beta trial of ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ) service with 63 people from across campus. We tested the installation and overall service provision processes. Here's what we have learned to date:

  • ADSL is a new high-speed network access technology that still has some start up pains
  • The installation takes about six weeks
  • Some of the ADSL circuits go down within eight weeks of installation and need additional cabling work done
  • A couple of the circuits have performance slow-downs which we have yet to fully understand
  • Once the circuit stabilizes, people are very happy with the service

We continue to move forward with this service since it is excellent once the DSL line stabilizes. However, due to the unexpected level of involvement on each circuit and the amount of time it takes to stabilize each circuit, we are limiting the number of people using the service to those who generally move less frequently. Therefore, we are providing this service just to staff and faculty at this time. Through the trial, it became clear that the service is not yet able to meet student expectations for rapid installation and stability. We will continue to look for services that do.

UMnet ADSL has many benefits over other remote access services. For the latest ADSL information at U-M, please check out our web site at http://www.itcom.itd.umich.edu/adsl/

U-M Gets New High-Speed Internet2 Connection

U-M now has a faster, more direct connection to Abilene, the high-speed backbone network supporting Internet2. All U-M network users have access to Abilene, and their Internet traffic is automatically routed over the upgraded connection when they are communicating with other institutions that are connected to Abilene.

This means that Internet traffic going between U-M and these institutions can now travel 10 to 20 times faster than before. It also means that because some of U-M's Internet traffic is being diverted to the new connection, the lines between U-M and the regular Internet are less congested.

Abilene is a new, advanced, national backbone network created and operated by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) to support the Internet2 project. The Internet2 project is a collaborative effort to develop advanced Internet technology and applications vital to the research and education missions of higher education.

Possible Internet2 applications envisioned for the future include remote medical diagnosis and monitoring, collaborative use of remote tools, collaborative creation of music or other performance, sound and video archives, three-dimensional models, and more. Applications like these require high performance networks, and U-M is continually improving its access to such networks.

U-M has had high performance network access over another national research network, the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS), since August 1997. U-M first gained access to Abilene in February 1999, but access to both the vBNS and Abilene was limited to 45 million bits per second (bps). The direct connection to the vBNS was dropped in June of 1999, but because vBNS is connected to Abilene, U-M continues to have access to it.

U-M's upgraded connection to Abilene was completed this August when Merit Network installed an OC12c data network attachment between Ann Arbor and Cleveland. This new attachment operates at a speed of 622 million bps. The new OC12c attachment is shared by U-M, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, Merit, and the UCAID office in Ann Arbor. The high-performance network attachment was made possible in part with financial support from the National Science Foundation and with assistance provided by Ameritech Advanced Data Services.

Just as you must slow down when you exit an expressway and enter local roads, data traffic slows down when it leaves Abilene and enters slower local networks. Therefore, the Information Technology Division is currently working to upgrade and reconfigure elements of the U-M campus backbone network to allow departments to take greater advantage of the new high-performance access. Work is also underway within the College of Engineering and the Medical Center to upgrade the connections between the portions of the U-M campus network backbone that they operate and U-M's Abilene connection.

"Our new Abilene connection represents a huge improvement in our Internet capabilities," said Alan McCord, ITD's director of Operations Management. "Today, U-M researchers can take advantage of this very high-speed connection without competition from other campus Internet traffic."

Said Jeff Ogden, U-M's new Internet2 coordinator, "High performance networking, such as that which is now available over Abilene, will support U-M's research activities by providing the highest quality network access to other national and international research organizations."

Ogden noted that Internet2 is not just about faster networking. "Just as important is allowing the creation of new network applications that are simply not possible on today's commodity Internet," he explained. "Much work remains to be done on and off campus before we completely realize these goals."

For example new protocols and procedures that implement "differentiated quality of service"—the ability to give some network traffic a guaranteed priority—are required. "Operating systems and, in many cases, applications will need to be modified," said Ogden. "Computers and local area networks may also need to be upgraded so we can take full advantage of the new capabilities."

For more information about Internet2, Abilene, UCAID and U-M's high performance network connections, see the Internet2 at U-M" Web page. You can also subscribe to the internet2-interest@umich.edu e-mail list if you would like to receive occasional updates on Internet2 at U-M. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to internet2-interest-request@umich.edu with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject field of the message.