The Edinburgh and Stirling Metropolitan Area Network
G Howat
A version of the following discussion was presented at a colloquium on
``Extending the LAN - high speed data services'', Institution of
Electrical Engineers, Monday 24th April, 1995. For further information
or discussion please contact
the author.
Who is involved in the EaStMAN Project?
The EaStMAN consortium currently comprises of seven Higher Education
funded institutions (HEIs) in the Edinburgh and Stirling region:
The Universities of
- Edinburgh,
- Heriot-Watt,
- Napier and
- Stirling,
with the
- Edinburgh College of Art,
- Moray House Institute of Education and
- Queen Margaret College.
Aims of the EaStMAN Project
The aim of EaStMAN is to provide a pervasive multi-service network using
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) throughout the region with the
potential to encompass educational, hospital academic departments,
public and private sector partners etc.
Considerable benefits are perceived in pursuing the collaborative route
to improving communications infrastructure through a MAN. For example,
when compared with `going it alone', costs may be effectively reduced by
sharing infrastructure. In so doing, we may achieve better intra- and
inter-institution communication, provide early access to high speed
networks to stimulate and support multi-media applications, for example,
medical imaging, pace and distance learning, library sharing,
integration of telephony and security services.
Experience with Suppliers
Before funding appeared on the horizon, a technical group carried
out an initial study, involving specification of a MAN and
its functionality, as well as examining the technical solutions by
which it could be achieved. Meetings and discussions with the local
providers of telecommunications services helped considerably in that
phase.
Deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the UK has resulted
in considerable local changes in the technical possibilities available
for network provision. For example, newer entrants in the
telecommunications marketplace (such as cable TV, utility companies etc)
often offer very competitive and aggressive rates for traditional
tariffed circuit services. All are seeking that differentiator between
the various suppliers.
Suppliers were extremely interested in the project and were able to
respond with a variety of suggestions:
- `Self installed': the various institutions could procure
the installation of their own fibre. In this mode, the
customer supplies the equipment and can migrate at own pace,
the upward path to higher speed is practically unlimited and
is dependent on the capabilities of customer equipment.
- `Open fibre': that is, unlit fibre but managed and owned
by the supplier. The characteristics of this service are
similar to own fibre, but incurs a recurrent charge to the
customer. When the customer requires more fibres, there is
also a charge.
- `Open circuit': several suppliers were able to offer E3
34Mbps PDH circuits, Ethernet (2km), FDDI (15km), but the
recurrent costs for these options tends to be high.
- `Managed services': some suppliers regard the provision
of unlit fibre as `not making good business sense', and state that they
will never provide this service. Suppliers have
suggested variously: cross-connect ATM switches, fully meshed,
and SMDS.
- `STM-1': it was interesting to observe that 155Mbps
circuits were available in the wide area (for example
between Edinburgh and Stirling). Estimated costs were
reasonable for this type of service.
- `Consortium approach:' some suppliers wish to provide the
whole managed network, penetrating as far as is possible
into the organisational structure of the customer - in some
cases it was stated that structured cabling within buildings
and running to the desktop was possible. (The
afore-mentioned `Managed ATM' is an example of a collaboration
between a fibre-rich supplier and an equipment vendor, but
the degree of penetration in that case is not so high.)
Appearance of Funding and MAN Phase I
In September 1994, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC)
invited bids to improve networking infrastructure within Scottish HEIs.
As a condition, successful institutions were committed to meeting 20% of
the SHEFC supplied funding. During the evaluation phase of the bids,
the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) enhanced the funding
pool, recognising the role which MANs could play in the rollout of
SuperJANET.
The aforementioned technical project team rapidly expanded, turned
itself into the EaStMAN consortium and carried out an open procurement
for the first stage of the MAN. The consortium subsequently accepted an
offer from ScottishTelecom (a company evolved from the
telecommunications arm of ScottishPower) to lease open monomode fibre
running between ten important HEI sites. We have proceeded to procure
routing and ATM switching equipment to attach to the fibre network.
Phase I of the project, with some possible Phase 2 sites,
is shown in the attached Figures (the
Annex contains a key to
the site names for the interested):
-
The geographical map
- shows the infrastructure consisting of a number of monomode
fibres in a ring connected through the ten sites shown in the map. The
fibres will be employed to construct parallel networks for production,
experimental and migration purposes. The University of Stirling is
connected to the MAN at the King's Buildings site via a 155Mbps
SDH/STM-1 managed service from ScottishTelecom.
-
The technology map
-
shows the two inter-connected
networking technologies for EaStMAN Phase I. Firstly, there
is a 100Mbps FDDI ring between the ten Edinburgh city sites; the
circumference of the ring is 58km. This network will deliver SuperJANET
IP services to various HEIs via the King's Buildings SMDS interface, as
well as general metropolitan connectivity. Five sites will also
participate in a 155Mbps SDH/STM-1 ATM network, which is connected to
both the Stirling campus and to the SuperJANET ATM Pilot network.
The target date for completion of the infrastructure is end of May
1995, full user service on the first stage MAN will commence by July
1995.
Some MAN Applications
At this time, we are in a period of tooling up for the new applications
which are going to become possible through the MAN and new technologies.
Education and information for the potential user population is important
and ongoing. As examples, plans have been made for
- delivery of SuperJANET services to HEIs and other
partners;
- remote ultra-sound scanning experiments;
- video conferencing trials and evaluation;
- multi-processing across high speed networks between clusters
of work stations and supercomputers;
- remote library facilities;
- integration of directory data services.
Concluding Remarks
The current Edinburgh and Stirling MAN is, as it were, in its infancy.
However, strong interest from other potential partners has been demonstrated,
before the first phase MAN is in place. Even within the founding HEI
group, strong interest from researchers and teachers has demonstrated
the need to extend to other sites as soon as is possible, in order to
bring departments closer together. The challenge is to demonstrate the
value added by the MAN in order to ensure its expansion.
Annex 1: Management Structures
At the present time, EaStMAN is overseen by a Management Group (MMG)
while day to day operational matters are handled by the MAN Operations
Centre (MOC) which is the
EUCS Network Services Division. Models for
recurrent funding, rules for expansion of the network and its use have
been proposed and are under discussion. It may be the case that as the
partnership on the MAN changes, the management group will evolve into
some other structure.
Annex 2: Site Key used in the Geographical Map
Phase I sites on the map are:
KB King's Buildings (U of E)
OC Old College (U of E)
NC New College (U of E)
Poll Pollock Halls (U of E)
MH Moray House
QMC Queen Margaret College - Clermiston
NM Napier Merchiston
NS Napier Sighthill
HW Heriot-Watt Riccarton
CoA Edinburgh College of Art
The possible Phase 2 sites marked in red are:
Edinburgh College of Art - Lauriston campus
Western General Hospital (U of E)
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (U of E)
Moray House - Cramond campus
Napier Craig House
Napier Craiglockart
Queen Margaret College - Leith Links
with some possible later phases being, among others:
Royal Edinburgh Hospital (U of E)
Royal Observatory (U of E)
Bush Estate (U of E)
Gateway Studios (QMC)
Scottish School of Textiles (Galashiels - HW)
