NIRAN: a Vehicle for Internet Service Provision for

1

NIRAN Awareness Day 18th April 2008
Stranmillis University College, Belfast

• NIRAN a Vehicle for Internet Service Provision
  for
• NI Education Public Sector
• --- 0 ---
• Christopher Kelly
• NIRAN Network Coordinator
• c.kelly_at_qub.ac.uk
• Website www.niran.ac.uk

2
Talk Structure

• Network in Context
• NIRAN and JANET
• Membership
• Network Topology
• Technical Benefits
• Administration
• Funding
• Governance
• NIRAN-2
• Strategic aims
• Benefits to NI plc
• Procurement
• Résumé

3
Overview

• Established October 2004 23 Sites
• Core members Higher Further Ed
• inc. QUB, Ulster, 6 FE Colleges
• Now Connects 30 sites
• inc. 7 public sector sites
• One of 18 regional networks
• Over 200,000 users
• NIRAN JANET ? Internet
• Contract with NTL to Oct 2009
• New one needed for 2009-2014
• Reprocurement to start Aug 2008
• More in tender better VFM for all

4
Connected Sites

• Higher Education Institutions
• Queens University Belfast
• University of Ulster
• Stranmillis College
• St Mary's College
• Belfast E-Science Centre
• Other Institutions
• Armagh Observatory
• Dept of Agric Training Colleges
• Economic Research Institute of NI
• NI Common Information System
• Learning Skills Dev Agency
• Edu Guidance Service for Adults
• North Down Borough Council
• Derry City Council
• Alta Systems
• Interconnect to C2K
• Interconnect to HEAnet (via Letterkenny)

• Further Education Colleges
• Belfast Metropolitan College
• Belfast Campus
• Castlereagh Campus
• North West Regional College
• North West Campus
• Limavady Campus
• Northern Regional College
• East Antrim Campus
• North East Campus
• Causeway Campus
• Southern Regional College
• Newry Campus
• Upper Bann Campus
• Armagh Campus
• South Eastern Regional College
• North Down Campus
• Lisburn Campus
• East Down Campus

5
Network Topology
6
Resilience Internal and External
7
NI Public Sector Networks Internet Feed
8
NIRAN Services (above Telcos)

• NOT Telco Managed Service
• NIRAN manages IP network
• via QUB Networks Team
• Helpdesk with NI human staffing
• 8am12pm,363 days per year
• Network Monitor service to sites
• DNS services provided

• Circuits and Routers
• Bandwidth routers to each site
• PoP Routers Cisco 7609
• Site Routers Cisco 7204, 2600
• Future-proofing and scalability
• Meeting 99.97 uptime - all links
• IP address space

• World-class Bandwidth
• 12 sites on 10Mbits
• 8 sites on 34Mbits/s
• 8 sites on 100Mbits/s
• 1 site on 300Mbits/s
• 3 sites on 1000Mbits/s
• Internet _at_ 2500Mbits/s
• Participation in NIRAN community and governance

9
Netsight Live Traffic Monitoring private
account per site
Belfast Metropolitan College
10
Funding Sources

• NIRAN Ltd ? Not-for-Profit organisation
• DO NOT Connect Commercial Sites
• Department for Employment and Learning
• JANET (UK) funds the parent body
• Non Ed institutions ERINI, Arm Obs, etc
• Diversify Membership better VFM for all

11
Governance
12
NIRAN-2 Strategic Aims

• Continuity of Service - Seamless transition to
  new network
• Imperative that members get as good as existing
  service
• Review infrastructure for 3-5 year projection (to
  2014)
• Institutions Backbone bandwidths/routers
• Explore extra resilient Internet linkage
• via HEAnet, New NI-US link, Telco peering
• Collaborate with other NI networks
• C2K (Schools) enhance capacity, functionality,
  applications sharing
• ELfNI (Libraries) - establish interconnect
• NHS-net (Health) explore common gateway
• Engage with wider public sector (to facilitate
  Review of Public Admin)
• Local Government, Education Skills Authority,
  new Library Authority, etc
• Exploit uniqueness of NIRAN EU cross-border
  element (no other in JANET)
• Strategic collaboration between North-South
  client base mutual resilience
• Explore future current network applications/techno
  logies
• IPv6, Multicast, QoS new circuit technologies
  (e.g. Metro Ethernet VPN)

13
NIRAN-2 Benefit to NI-plc

• Regional Network Local Ownership and Agenda
• Economies of scale bulk buying power ? Better
  VFM
• Regional Development - supporting local economy
• Coherent Strategy ? Cohesive Community
• Integration of Edu sectors HE, FE, Schools and
  Public Sector
• Broadening of JANET into public sector user base
• Fosters Intra-regional, Cross-border and Global
  Links
• Potential for all-Ireland Ed Public Sector
  network
• Sustainable Vehicle for Internet Service
  Provision

14
NIRAN-2 Procurement

• Talk to members and others in NI Apr-July
  2008
• Invitation to Tender document July-Aug 2008
• Advertise ITT in OJEU Sep
  2008
• Tender using Competitive Dialogue procedure
• Preferred Supplier selected May 2009
• NIRAN-2 in place for testing Sep
  2009
• NIRAN-2 operational Oct 2009
• Three to five year contract to
  Oct 2014
• ? If interested in joining, talk to me !
• Chris Kelly 9097 6099 OR c.kelly_at_qub.ac.uk

15
Résumé

• Regional computer network of 30 Education
  Public Sector sites
• Part of the UK-wide JANET network community
• World-class future-proofed bandwidth 10M, 34M,
  100M, 1000M
• Reliability of 99.97 uptime - resilient NI
  backbone
• Resilient Dual 2.5Gb Links to Internet
• 1Gb interconnection to RoI Education network,
  HEAnet
• Funded by DEL JANET (UK) Colleges non-Edu
  sites
• Network owned managed by NIRAN Ltd with local
  agenda
• Current contract with NTL for 5 Years to Nov 2009
• New NIRAN procurement will bring new contract to
  2014