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Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 16:25:21 -0800 From: Shantha Fernando To: Maria Dolores Lizarzaburu , Steven Huter Subject: Re: Information for Sri Lanka's Academic and National networks Message-ID: <400C26E0.6090501@cse.mrt.ac.lk> Academic network: ================= Academic network is referred to as LEARN (Lanka Academic and Research Network) which was initiated at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Moratuwa and then later became an inter-university collaborative network. LEARN plays the role of an ISP as far as the academic institutes are concerned, but institutionally it is not an ISP. Currently LEARN is under UGC (University Grants Commission) and governed by a director board. > Please give a technical description of the network topology and > connectivity of the academic network. LEARN has obtained international links from Sri Lanka Telecom (512kbps), Suntel (128kbps - need to verify) and Lanka Communications Ltd (512kbps). I think that LankaCom link is satellite and SLT is submarine cable. Each national university is linked with 2Mbps E1 links. Provincial universities and other academic institutes may have 128 kbps or even 64 kbps links. 2Mbps E1 links (last mile connections) are provided by Suntel. For longer links it can be Frame Relay for the back bone connectivity. Apart from these links, each university or a department may have its own private link with an ISP. The major institutes having 2Mbps links are: University of Moratuwa University of Peradeniya University of Colombo University of Ruhuna University of Kelaniya University of Sri Jayawardenapura The Open University Major institutes with 128/64 kbps : Eastern University University of Jaffna Other universities and institutes : Sabaragamuwa University South Eastern University University Grants Commission (UGC) Naional Science Foundation (NSF) > Please describe the technical setup of the academic/research > network There are no specific applications at the moment. But firewall security and proxy services were provided for each institute until recently (but now no firewall security provided and each institute has to have its own security - prxy services still continue). Whole LEARN network used to have a private 10.0.0.0 range IPs to achieve security, although it had enough global IPs for its use. For necessary servers and networks, global IPs were allocated. For a major university 4 class C blocks were given. Within universities, 192.168.0.0 IPs are used, and if it needs to connect to internet NAT is used. Mainly Squid proxies are used to improve the connectivity. (some departments in a university may have their own proxy configuration). Mail servers are usually on Linux running sendmail as MTA and web servers are usually Apache. There amy be IIS and other sevrers in some networks. > How many institutions are currently connected to your research > network? The above 13 institutes have current connections. Apart from them there are some dial-up connections given to small research institutes. > Is the academic network currently connected to other research > networks? Current status is that LEARN is a full member of APAN but not a member of I2 group. LEARN had the intention of doing some research work in collaboration with APAN on I2 but it did not go forth as expected, mainly due to lack of initiative from LEARN's side. Currently the collaboration is limited to membership. However, LEARN wishes to encourage any academic entity or individual who would like to start some work in I2. National Network: ================= >Please list the ISPs in the country and include their URLs, and the >email address for the appropriate contact. There are more than 20 ISPs in Sri Lanka, but some of them are not licensed. The following are the licensed providers (some may have got added recently). Celltel Lanka Limited --------------------- http://www.celltel.lk/ e-mail: celltel@celltelnet.lk Ceycom Global Communications Limited ------------------------------------ http://www.ceycom.lk or http://www.ceycom.com http://www.ceylincoconsolidated.com/ceycom_global_communication.html e-mail: info@ceycom.lk DPMC Electronics Pvt. Ltd ------------------------- http://www.dpmce.com/ e-mail: info@dpmce.com might work. I found dilan@dpmce.com being the contact address given to the domain registry Eureka Online (Pte) Ltd ----------------------- http://www.eureka.lk/ e-mail: info@eureka.lk (or noc@eureka.lk may work) ISP Lanka/Sumathi Group ----------------------- http://www.isplanka.com/ and http://www.isplanka.lk/ e-mail: info@isplanka.lk ITMIN Ltd --------- http://www.itmin.com e-mail: info@itmin.com Lanka Communication Services (Pvt.) Ltd --------------------------------------- http://www.lankacom.net e-mail: info@lankacom.net or webmaster@lankacom.net Lanka Internet Services Limited ------------------------------- http://www.lisl.lanka.net/ e-mail: info@sri.lanka.net MTN Networks (Pvt.) Ltd/Dialog ------------------------------ http://www.dialog.lk/ e-mail: service@dialogsl.net Sierra Information Systems (Pvt.) Ltd ------------------------------------- http://www.sierra.lk/core.html e-mail: pperera@sierra.lk Sri Lanka Telecom Ltd --------------------- http://www.slt.lk e-mail: pr@slt.lk Suntel (Pvt.) Ltd ----------------- http://www.wow.lk e-mail: info@wow.lk might work, but not sure. There are several other ISPs which are not given here. The following are few that comes to my mind, but I am not sure whether they are licensed or not: E-W Inforamtion Systems Ltd. ---------------------------- http://www.ewisl.net/ e-mail: general@ewisl.net Dynanet Pvt Ltd. ---------------- http://www.dynanet.lk e-mail: info@dynanet.lk Keels Business Solutions Ltd. ----------------------------- http://www.kbsl.lk (link did not work) e-mail: try info@kbsl.lk PanLanka Networking Pvt. Ltd ---------------------------- http://www.pan.lk e-mail: support@panlanka.net In addition to above you may refer to http://www.nic.lk/agents.html to get the contacts of domain regestration agents. > Which ISPs have external connectivity? The following are the ISPs which have their own international links. The others most probably have got the link from one of these. SRI LANKA TELECOM has the highest international bandwidth, using sea fiber. Some bandwidth is still not allocated and kept for future use. I am not sure about their total bandwidth. Though I said a higher bandwidth, that is in our terms - not compared to what USA or any European country would have. But they have their capacity since SLT is linked with NTT (Japan) LANKA COMMUNICATIONS LTD. has a satellite link to Singapore (they are linked with Singapore Telecom). They may have recently got a sea fiber, but I am not sure. I know that they increased their bandwidth. They used to provide X.25 based data networks in the past. LANKA INTERNET SERVICES LTD. has a satelite link. ISP LANKA belongs to Sumathy Group of companies and had their own link before they started their ISP services, mainly to get sports news on-line, directly from UK. They may be using these links, or quite possible that they go through SLT. Chairman of SLT is one of the directors or CEO of Sumathy Group. ELECTROTEKS Ltd. which was not given as an ISP also has international satellite links. So some ISPs have got links from them. Electroteks itself is not an ISP, but runs various voice and broadcasting services. -- Shantha Fernando, Senior Lecturer Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa 10400, Sri Lanka E-mail: shantha@cse.mrt.ac.lk Web: http://www.cse.mrt.ac.lk/~shantha Tel: +94-11-2650301 Ext.3114 Fax: +94-11-265091