The technology for the proposed community network project will consist of four
principal components:
- a physical metropolitan area TCP/IP network organized as a star centered
on the University of Oregon, with a central hub router and network management
located at that site, plus connections using a variety of physical media to the
other sites, with a router at each site providing access to the LANs at that
site and to the "access points" requested in this proposal.
- ten access points, each consisting of a cluster of multimedia
workstations, with additional access to be provided by connections to the
participants' existing local area networks.
- improvements to the network infrastructures of participant school
districts to allow high-speed access from workstations located elsewhere in
their districts.
- a central network server providing shared resources, with additional
resources to be provided by the participants on existing servers.
Network connections will be provided using a variety of media. Connections to
Lane Community College (2 locations), Eugene 4J School District, Springfield
School District, Bethel School District, Eugene Public Library, and Symantec
will initially utilize dedicated T1 circuits leased from US West. Connections
to University of Oregon locations will utilize the existing fiber optic
Ethernet campus network. Additional connections using Ethernet over fiber are
planned to Sacred Heart Hospital and Dynamix, both of which are located
adjacent to the University. Connections to other locations in Lane County are
also likely during or following the grant period as additional organizations
become active participants in the network.
At the central hub, router and network management hardware will be co-located
with the existing UO campus network hub. The same site also houses the
southern Oregon NorthWestNet hub site and connections to two state higher
education networks, OSSHEnet and NERO, the latter being a very high speed (OC3)
ATM-based network connecting 5 universities and managed by the University of
Oregon. Router hardware at the central site will likely consist of a Cisco
7000 with 6 Ethernet, one high speed network, and 9 T1 serial interfaces and
CSU/DSUs. The high speed network interface will connect to a "DMZ" border
network, and thence to the University's main campus network, and is likely to
utilize ATM technology; a second compatible interface card is requested for the
UO router that will also be connected to this border network. The equipment
will be physically sited in the University's telephone switch room in Oregon
Hall, the single point of presence for vendor telephone terminations, and a
controlled and secure environment. There is insufficient spare conditioned
power in that location for this hardware, so an additional UPS (uninteruptable
power supply) is required.
At each remote site, network hardware might typically consist of a Cisco 4000
router with 2 Ethernet and 1 to 2 T1 serial interfaces, plus T1 CSU/DSU and
small UPS. LAN connections at the sites would typically include a connection
to a specialized subnet devoted to providing connectivity for the access point
workstations, plus a second Ethernet connection to the participant's existing
LAN infrastructure. At Sacred Heart Hospital, a Cisco 4000 configured as an
Ethernet-Ethernet router will be installed to provide a firewall between the
Sacred Heart internal network and the metropolitan area network; in addition to
the router, the connection to Sacred Heart will require the installation of
several hundred feet of fiber optic cable between the nearest University of
Oregon fiber optic presence and the Sacred Heart internal network located in
the adjacent building. In addition to routers for each site, one router and
CSU/DSU pair are requested for spares; a Cisco maintenance contract will
provide repair or replacement of failed hardware, but local spares are needed
to provide an acceptable mean time to repair.
T1 private line technology was chosen for the metropolitan-area portion of the
project based on two primary design goals: the need to minimize operational
costs while maximizing bandwidth, and the need to provide a robust and
manageable network using proven technology. The T1 star design corresponds
well to expected traffic patterns; traffic from remote participants is expected
to be directed mostly at resources (the server included in this proposal,
health care databases at Sacred Heart Health Systems, existing resources on the
UO campus, and Internet connections) located at the University of Oregon where
the hub will be located. Several other solutions, including telco-provided
frame relay, were rejected. Although the University of Oregon is currently
engaged in a technology trial with US West to evaluate ATM (asynchronous
transfer mode) services, we do not yet know whether this will result in a
tariffed product or if tariffs for ATM services at DS3 and higher rates will be
affordable to the participants in this proposal.
The T1 and Ethernet network infrastructure is, however, seen as a short term
investment. We expect in the 1996-98 time frame to upgrade portions of this
network to a private metropolitan-area ATM network, using dark fiber to be
installed by the Eugene City government, or leased from US West, TCI Inc. (the
local cable television provider), and/or Eugene Water and Electric Board (the
local power company). We expect to see LAN infrastructures upgraded as needed
to next-generation (probably 100baseT Ethernet) network technology as well.
However, these technologies are not yet mature enough to be cost effective and
dark fiber is not yet available in the metropolitan area.
Access points will each consist of 6 midrange multimedia workstations for
general access, one higher-end workstation configured as a multimedia
development station, and a small file server providing shared file services to
the workstations, all connected by an Ethernet 10baseT local network. Precise
configurations will vary depending on the support capabilities of the site, but
a typical configuration at a site with existing PC, Macintosh, and Novell
NetWare expertise might typically (actual models are likely to be different due
to rapid technological change) be:
- 3 Dell 466NP (66 MHz 486 DX/2, 16MB RAM, 270MB hard disk, CD-ROM, stereo
audio I/O, 15" color monitor, Windows, Ethernet interface, additional software)
- 3 PowerMac 6100 (16/250, CD-ROM, 14" color monitor, keyboard, Ethernet,
MacTCP, QuickTime, HyperCard, additional software)
- 1 Dell 560SP server (32MB RAM, 1GB SCSI drive), DAT tape backup hardware
and software, 10 user NetWare 4 license
- 1 Sun SPARCstation 5 (70MHz, 48MB RAM, 1.5GB hard disk, CD-ROM, 17" color
monitor), color scanner
- manageable 10baseT hub (e.g. HP EtherTwist)
Standard access points are
planned at ten locations:
At Sacred Heart Hospital, a specialized access point will be provided
consisting of 10 PCs configured as CareGiver access stations, to provide local
access to the public health information being provided by Sacred Heart on the
network.
An additional specialized access location is planned at Lane Community College
Downtown campus. This location will provide connectivity for the LCC local
network at that site, and in addition will provide a connection for Lane
Online/Eugene Freenet, which will be located on the LCC campus.
As in the wide area network, it is expected that 10baseT Ethernet technology
will be a short-term technical solution. However, there is not yet a clear
market leader for high speed LAN technology, with ATM, 100baseVG, and 100baseT
all being contenders for the preferred technology. If available and
cost-effective in the grant time frame, one of these technologies will be
installed in place of the 10baseT Ethernet connections.
The participating educational institutions have existing internal network
infrastructures of various degrees of maturity. These infrastructures will
need expansion and hardening to handle the increased demands placed on them by
the expected increase in network traffic and by collaboration among the grant
participants. In particular, we plan:
- for Lane Community College, to extend the existing campus local networks
into a college-wide network with 10baseT wiring throughout the four LCC
campuses. This network expansion will provide access to this project for LCC
students from several hundred existing and to be acquired workstations. The
project budget includes funds for cable and for 10baseT hubs; installation will
be performed by College employees, and is not included in this proposal.
- for Eugene 4J School District, to upgrade existing connectivity from the
district office to the four district high schools from T1 to dual T1.
Additional router interfaces in existing routers will be required at each end
of the connections. In addition, 4J School District proposes to acquire 60
workstations to place in high school classrooms to serve those classes
participating in this project.
- for Springfield School District, to upgrade existing connectivity from the
district office to the two district high schools. Existing 56Kb DS0 circuits
will be replaced by T1 DS1 leased circuits.
Central server will be a midrange Unix system configured for general
timesharing and remote file access, e.g. a Sun SPARC 20/514 with 128MB memory,
14 GB disk space. It will be located at the University of Oregon Computing
Center and managed in conjunction with other Sun Unix servers also located at
that facility.