Project Summary
Connections to the Internet
The NSF High Performance Connections proposal outlines the University of
Wyoming’s need and plans to establish a high performance network connection to
the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) and other emerging high speed
research networks. This enhanced connectivity will be used to support several
current meritorious applications at UW with special network requirements that
cannot be realized with the current commodity Internet. Furthermore, we anticipate
that a high performance connection will facilitate additional new research
directions and applications heretofore unavailable to UW scientists and engineers.
This connection will enable meritorious applications in computer science,
astrophysics, and electrical engineering to realize their full development and
utilization. These projects can initially be enhanced by T3 connectivity although
we plan to incorporate OC3 connection within the three-year time frame of this
project. The UW campus network with its 155 Mbps backbone and dedicated fiber
network using the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switched communication protocol
coupled with OC3 connectivity will enhance the national communication
infrastructure.
UW has carefully examined the network engineering aspects of a high performance
connection and our ability to serve as many buildings on campus as feasible.
Although we have several cost factors related to our competitively disadvantaged
location, we have configured a system design, which, through ATM, reduces the
costs of our network. Use of ATM to connect UW to a network ISP and a regional
gigapop at NCAR will provide us an excellent gateway to high performance national
research networks. Our protocols for Quality of Service (QoS) will rely on a
Permanent Virtual Circuit (PVC) for ATM equipped machines and users. We will
utilize RSVP or IP for cases where 10-100 Mbps end-to-end connectivity is required
and ATM virtual circuits cannot be realized. UW specifically requests funds to
cover partial costs of this high performance connection and associated hardware.
Costs will be matched in the first two years by UW and born completely by UW
thereafter.
