Connectivity Providers Database

From: CINET Editor <cinet-editor@CND.ORG> Date: Sat, 30 Apr 1994 14:46:59 -0500 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ C I N E T - L N e w s l e t t e r +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Issue No.17, Saturday, April 30, 1994 +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China's InterNET Technical Forum (CINET-L) is a non-public discussion | | list, CINET-L is technically sponsored by China News Digest and CINET-L | | newsletter is published by volunteers in CINET-EDITOR@CND.ORG, for more | | information regarding CINET-L, please see the end of this message. | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Table of Contents # of Lines =========================================================================== 1. China's Pioneer IP Connections (2 Items) ............................. 24 2. China Unveils Plan for Nationwide Data Networks ...................... 33 3. A Nic For The Asia-Pacific Region .................................... 94 4. Two Guides To The Internet And its Technoskeleton ................... 150 =========================================================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. China's Pioneer IP Connections (2 Items) ............................. 24 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: NCFC, CNC, Beijing, April 24 1994 BEIJING - The IP connection from Beijing, NCFC CNC to Internet is "partly working", according to Prof. Qian Hualin, Deputy Director of CNC. CNC is already able to access many information, databases, public domain sites on the Internet using this 64k link. NCFC CNC is National Computer Networking Facility of China, Computer Network Center, China's first metropolitian network, linking 3 major campus LAN's in Beijing - Chinese Academy of Science (CASnet), Tsinghua University (TUnet) and Beijing University (PUnet). This 64k link along with NCFC project are financed by World bank and Chinese Goverment. Currently, engineers in China and the US are working on registering domain names, installing new routers and linking hosts on their local nets. The link is expected to be fully functional soon and will offer full Internet access, including TELNET, FTP, GOPHER and many other Internet services. ___ ___ ___ Source: IHEP, Beijing, April 26 1994 By: Haoxin ESnet has established IP routing for IHEP to all of ESnet's IP networks. IHEP registered the domain ihep.ac.cn under the CN domain. Domain name service is provided by the primary server linux.ihep.ac.cn (202.38.128.54) and two secondary servers: dns-west.es.net (128.55.128.191) and iraun1.ira.uka.de (129.13.10.90). Right now the IP connection is limited to within ESnet sites which have some 100 networks. We hope in the not so distance future IHEP will gain full IP connectivity to the Internet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. China Unveils Plan for Nationwide Data Networks ...................... 33 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Reuter, April 13 1994 BEIJING - China's telecoms minister unveiled plans Wednesday to build two nationwide digital information networks to help the economic development. Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Wu Jichuan said that information exchange was as important to development as the rule of law as China tries to leapfrog its way out of technological backwardness. "The establishment of a socialist market economy depends first on the building of a complete legal system, and second on a well-informed economic information network," he wrote in the People's Daily. China in fact is building two parallel systems, Wu said, an information resources network and an information telecommunications network. Wu said the first would be a network of databases of various types of information and data application systems. The second, he said, would be an "on-line operation of information resources and application systems via state-owned public telecommunications networks." Wu gave no details. China completed the foundation of its first nationwide on-line system when the Chinapac network went into commercial operation in March. Chinapac has more than 20,000 user nodes in 267 cities in all provinces -- including remote Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang -- all linked digitally by fibre-optic cables or satellites. The network transmits datanetwork transmits data at 64,000 bits per second. Wu said initial stages of another high-speed data network roviding "special digital circuits" to customers in 21 high-tech exporters and particularly for those with manufacturing joint ventures in China. Analysts say that without the sharply higher capital flows that would come with foreign equity investment, China will be hard-pressed to finance an ambitious plan to quadruple its telephone lines to 100 million by 2000. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. A Nic For The Asia-Pacific Region .................................... 94 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: AACUNY-L, April 22 1994 By: David Conrad By the time you read this article, a new regional Network Information Center will have accepted the delegation of the 202.0.0.0 and 203.0.0.0 IP address blocks for assignment to networks in the Asia-Pacific region. This new regional network Information Center, known as the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC), is still in a pilot project phase, but has already provided significant benefits to the Asia-Pacific internetworking community. The original APNIC project began on January 15, 1993 at the first APCCIRN meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii. The APNIC pilot project officially opened its electronic doors to the public on September 1, 1993. Since that date, infrastructure within the Asia and Pacific Rim regions. These initiatives, driven by specific needs within the Asia and Pacific Rim region but having general application to the rest of the Internet, include: CIDRized allocation of network addresses. Creation of a national NIC naming convention, namely 'xxNIC.NET', where xx is the ISO 3166 country code for the country in question (e.g. AUNIC.NET for Australia, etc.). Creation of a common contact point at the national NICs, namely 'hostmaster@xxnic.net', for general information. Modification of software, documents, and forms supplied by the European regional registry RIPE-NCC to address Asia-Pacific needs. Establishment of a file archive and gopher server for the Asia-Pacific region. Establishment of a Asia-Pacific Internet Registry and associated databases. In addition, and perhaps more significantly, the APNIC pilot project has established a general plan for its formal organization. The APNIC, when it becomes permanently established in July of 1994, actually will consist of a group of semi-independent cooperative organizations. This model, similar to the way the InterNICSM operates in the U.S., will delegate specific NIC functions to national NICs around the Asia-Pacific region. For example, the APNIC's Internet registry functions, such as allocating IP network number and associated services, is expected to be operated via Japanese national Network Information Center (JPNIC). The information services portion of APNIC is expected to be operated by the Korean national Network Information Center (KRNIC), and so on. The definition of all the appropriate APNIC functions and who will perform those functions are currently under discussion within the APNIC pilot project staff and will be presented at the termination of the APNIC's pilot project phase in July. This model of operation also provides a means of avoiding the problem of funding. In the U.S., the InterNIC is funded in part by the U.S. government In Europe, the RIPE-NCC derives its funding from IP service providers, but has the assurance of funding from RARE in the event funding shortfalls. Within the Asia-Pacific region, no single funding agency exists, so APNIC pilot project staff has been searching for a viable and stable funding source. Since national NICs will be providing APNIC functionality in conjunction with their own services, it is believed that funding problem became much less of an issue. Thus, the APNIC project has advanced significantly in its ultimate goal of providing information to the APCCIRN on issues relating to the operation of an Asia-Pacific network information center. This information will be summarized and presented to the APCCIRN in the form of two reports: a mid- term report (already issued as of press time) and a final report which will be presented to the APCCIRN at the termination of the pilot project. These ducuments, like all other documents produced by the APNIC pilot project staff are freely available over Internet from the APNIC file server fs.apnic.net. For further information regarding the APNIC pilot project, contact the APNIC headquarters at: Asia-Pacific Network Information Center c/o University of Tokyo, Computer Center 2-11-16 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113 JAPAN or send electronic mail to info@apnic.net. David Conrad is the technical contact for APNIC and a network engineer with Internet Initiative Japan, Inc. Copyright 1994 General Atomics. This article is reprinted with permission from the _NSF Network News_, published by InterNIC Information Services. This newsletter and its contents may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without the written permission of the copyright holder. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Two Guides To The Internet And its Technoskeleton ................... 150 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: HPCwire, April 29 1994 **"The Whole Internet: User's Guide & Catalog", by Ed Krol; second edition, revised and expanded; 543 pp. (compared with 376 pp for first edition) O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, Calif., April 1994. **"Handbook of Networking and Connectivity", ed. by Gary McLain; 415 pp.; AP Professional/Academic Press; Harcourt Brace, San Diego and elsewhere,1994 These two books, which differ in so many respects, share one welcome characteristic: neither makes any mention of the term data or information superhighway. The reader is thus spared trick metaphors and cute comparisons with actual highways (a sin which this reviewer also confesses). Both deal authoritatively with the digital networking phenomenon that is bringing so many new dimensions to computing -- and, at the same time, transforming decisively the telecommunications business all over the world. Both are clearly written, easily comprehended by readers reasonably accustomed to computers and networking. Their perspectives and content are, however, very different. Ed Krol is a user, since 1989 assistant director for networking services at the University of Illinois, Urbana, after a stint hooking up the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to the NSFnet, one of the Internet's ancestors. As his subtitle implies, Krol's book tells how other users like him can nefit from the immense resources of the Internet while finding their way and getting things done with a minimum of difficulty and delay. CATALOGS As with the initial edition of Krol's book, one of its most useful feature is a catalog, with its own index in the back of the book, organized by category, of resources available on the Internet, ranging from aeronautics to White Pages. This has been brought up to date and expanded from 46 to 72 pages. The closest Krol approaches the superhighway concept is a reference to the "National Information Infrastructure Proposal" (described as "highly touted but rather vague"). The legendary teacher at a one-room schoolhouse in rural Kansas who wishes to tap into the Library of Congress can do so via telnet locis.gov (Krol warns that the TELNET is "pokey") or an easier interface: gopher marvel.loc.gov. Krol has also expanded and brought fully up to date another treasure: a listing of nationwide and international service providers and an additional compilation of regional providers, ranging in size from region-wide or international providers like SURAnet and CERFnet to commercial providers like CRL Network Services and more localized services like the Santa Cruz Community Internet. These references alone should tempt many owners of the previous edition(the publishers claim that 250,000 copies have been sold). In addition, several chapters have been enlarged considerably as well as brought up to date. Perhaps the most significant is a chapter on the World Wide Web (WWW). This is based on hypertext, a highly flexible topic-tracing system that is just reaching wide use and still lacks editors and other tools. WWW was developed initially at CERN, the European particle accelerator center for high-energy physics. Krol describes WWW in detail, along with Mosaic, a browser/explorer for WWW developed at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications that has been placed in the public domain. Responding to readers who are confused or repelled by the "Unix-y" look of the Internet, Krol has included a brief (he describes it as a "five-minute primer") listing of key Unix commands and other basic information designed to make the non-Unix-literate user feel more at ease. TECHNOLOGY SUBSTRUCTURE Krol approaches the Internet as an institution and as a service. He takes the technological substructure of the Internet for granted. The index to his second edition makes no reference to ATM (for Asyn- chronous Transfer Mode, the current superstar technology for broad-bandwidth communication), SONET(known outside the U.S. as SDH, for Synchronous Digital Hierarchy, an international standard for high-bandwidth transmission over optical circuits that is often employed with ATM) or even TCP/IP (the communications protocol that has been central to the Internet since its birth in the early Mesozoic era as ARPAnet). McClain's book is aimed at technical staff, professional network-spinners and is written for another purpose. It is described on the back-cover blurb as "a complete reference and guide for the network systems administrator."He is vice president of the International Techvantage Group and an author who has written and edited many works on connectivity and network technology. The chapters are written by thirteen contributors whose work has been molded into a coherent, consistent whole. The book is not simply a compendium of papers delivered at a symposium. Rather than immerse the reader in exhaustive discussions of hardware, McClain's book starts with widely-used (or emerging) standards and then describes how those standards can be applied in practice. Kenneth M. Zemrowski starts the book with a thorough examination of OSI (Open Systems Interconnection), an international standard that has not received very much respect in the United States but is becoming popular elsewhere. OSI concepts are nevertheless reflected in much other networking software. Zemrowski, who has had extensive experience as a participant in standards-setting processes, makes OSI comprehensible and even plausible. A chapter by Shaun E. Deedy examines TCP/IP in detail -- but in a specific context: the SNA (Systems Network Architecture), a host-centered network architecture introduced by IBM in 1974 and still popular among users of mainframes. SONET & FRIENDS Gary C. Kessler and Thomas A. Maufer discuss in detail SONET (Syn- chronous Optical Network), a relatively new standard that seems almost certain to become the prevailing transfer-rate-defining standard for future high-bandwidth local and long-distance digital communication. Kessler also describes a high-bandwidth service endorsed by the regional Bell operating companies, or RBOCs (the politically correct term for the Baby Bells). The Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS) was originally defined by Bellcore, the RBOC's counterpart to AT&T Bell Labs, and is intended for metropolitan area networks. Like ATM (which is dealt with only briefly, primarily in this context) SMDS uses a 53-byte cell but differs in a number of respects from ATM. The RBOC, plans call for 75 SMDS systems in operation in U.S. metropolitan areas by the start of 1994. It has also been installed in Australia, and plans to employ SMDS are going forward in a number of European countries and in Taiwan. Familiar local networking systems like Ethernet and Token Ring are also described -- and compared. Other practical issues relating to local networks use, management, and cost/benefits are also discussed. Oh, yes, what does the McClain book leave out? There is no reference to the capital "I" Internet, although Deedy, in his chapter on TCP/IP, brushes pastit in a discussion of "internets" (small "i"), defined as a network of networks, running typically upon TCP/IP. The "Handbook of Networking and Connectivity" is for the technically inclined who can draw benefit from it without being network experts. For the reader who wishes to obtain some understanding of the technical underpinnings of the acronyms and numbers that are bandied about in arguments over high-bandwidth data communication (for example, why do transfer speeds for high-bandwidth communications hop so obscurely from 155 Mb/s up to 622Mb/s and 1.24 Gb/sec? -- see the chapter on SONET) it is a compacct, well-organized reference. It also provides an illuminating glimpse into another view of high-speed data networking: telecoms-oriented people whose perspectives, assumptions, and economic objectives differ significantly from the Internet-centered, bandwidth-hungry world of high-performance computing. The Whole Internet" was one of the first reference guides to the Internet (after all, Krol wrote the original online "Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet," which was unquestionably the first solid reference of this kind). Many other titles appeared soon thereafter, and the flood continues. Some were well written and thoroughly researched; others bear the marks of a hurried, derivative job. Despite all this competition, especially in its new form, which opens up opportunities like WWW and Mosaic to the ordinary Internetter, Krol's book remains the best single source for the relatively sophisticated user who appreciates lots of authoritative detail. Readers who already have the first edition should weigh the new one carefully (in more ways than one) to determine how much they need the new material. For any Internetters who have overlooked Krol's book in the past, the new edition provides an ideal opportunity to repair that oversight. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor: Jun Wu | | Coordinate Editor: Cindy Zheng | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | CINET-L (China's InterNET Tech Forum) is a non-public discussion list, | | however, CINET-EDITOR@CND.ORG welcomes contributions on networking in | | China. Some related discussions may be found on CHINANET@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU | | To join the forum CHINANET@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU (or CHINANET@TAMVM1.BITNET), | | send a mail to LISTSERV@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU or LISTSERV@TAMVM1.BITNET | | (Note: NOT CHINANET@TAMVM1) with FIRST LINE of the mail body as follows: | | SUB CHINANET Your_First_Name Last_Name | | Back Issues of CINET-L Newsletter are available via anonymous ftp | | from CND.ORG [IP: 132.249.229.100] directory ~ftp/pub/cinet | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1993 12:32 -0800 (PST) From: COTTRELL@SLACVM.EARN To: o.crepin-leblond@IC.AC.UK Cc: CXG@SLACVM.EARN Subject: Chinese Link since 93.03.01 Thanks for your mail asking about the SLAC Chinese link and Internet connectivity. You are correct. Since March 1st 1993, a 64kbps satellite link has been in place between SLAC and the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing. Currently this is carrying DECnet only. It will carry IP also soon, initially tunnelled over DECnet using Multinet. Later when IHEP gets a Cisco router (they are currently working Cisco and the Department of Commerce (DoC) to get an export license) then both DECnet and IP will be carried without tunneling. At the moment, Chinese traffic is not allowed to be carried by the Internet. Thus the link is to first order a point to point link between SLAC & IHEP. Our intent is to get the link opened up as soon as possible. SLAC's main connection to the Internet is via the Department of Energy's Energy Science network (ESnet) which peers with NSFnet etc., thus getting ESnet to carry Chinese traffic is a first step. In order for ESnet management to allow the Chinese traffic to flow on ESnet, ESnet needs assurance that they have the U.S. Department of Commerce's approval. There is an ESnet Steering Committee working group pursuing a similar issue for proposed Russian links. Since the Chinese link is already in place it was agreed that this working group should focus on the Chinese link first. The requirements for DoC are a documented plan on how the links will be managed, in particular covering access controls and secur- ity issues, and a document showing how the link is implemented. It was agreed that Les Cottrell from SLAC or his nominee and Bill Zajc from Columbia U would join the working group. The working group will make a report at the next ESSC meeting in Sante Fe, July 27-29, 1993. So it's all politics at the moment. Hope that helps.