Lancaster (10 Questions)

Question 1

Provide the name and contact details of your local (Departmental) and Institutional network support staff.

• My Departmental network support contact is:
  • Brian Davies
  • ALex Finch/Robert Henderson
  • John Windsor/Richard Ion
• My Institutional network support contact is:
  • Lancaster University ISS Network Support Team

Question 2

Provide details of the responsibilities, together with the demarcation of those responsibilities, of your local and Institutional network support staff.

• The departmental contact is responsible for:
  • Making sure network requests in the department are resolved by themselves or passed on to the Instutional/NRO support
• The institutional contact is responsible for:
  • This gets quite complicated since our instutional support staff are not only instutional support but are also our NRO. They are however responsible for many fabric operations (http proxy, DNS,DHCP servers). They also keep our connections to both the JANET production network and some of the services for the UKLIGHT developemnt network link we use in parrallel to the production network.

Question 3

What is a Regional Network Operator (RNO), and why does this matter to you?

• An RNO is:
  • An RNO is responsible for maintaining a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). OUR MAN is CANLMAN.
• I care because:
  • The RNO through the MAN lead to access to other MAN's and the rest of the world (ROW).

Question 4

What is SuperJANET4? And more importantly what is SuperJANET5?

• SuperJANET4 is:
  • The current 2.5GB core of the JointAcademicNETwork that supports FE HE schools and research councils.
• SuperJANET5 is:
  • The sequel to SJ4. I has an inproved core of 10Gb and peripherals. This should come online in 2006/7
  • Better info can be found at http://www.ja.net/about/topology/index.html

Questions 5, 6, 7 and 9 (part)

5: Draw a simple diagram showing your local (Departmental) network and sufficient of your Institutional network such that you can trace a line from your end-system to the connection from your Institutes network into the RNO infrastructure.

6: On the diagram produced in answer to Question 5, show the capacity of each link in the network and provide a note against each link of its contention ratio.

7: On the diagram produced in answer to Question 5, colour and distinguish the switches and routers and for each device provide a note of its backplane capability.

9.x: On the diagram produced in answer to Question 5 colour in the firewall(s) (or other security devices).

(upload an image via http://wiki.gridpp.ac.uk/wiki/Special:Upload)

Question 8

* In addition to this infomation, LANCS also has 1Gb UKLight Link which connects HEPLancs to Rutherford Appleton Lab (RAL). The line has been rate tested so far up to ~900Mb and has has had a peak of 640Mbps disk to disk transfers and an average usage of 45mbps averaged over a month in addition to the university production links. 

What is the average and peak traffic flow between your local (Departmental) network and the Institutional network?

• Average traffic:
• Peak traffic:

What is the average and peak traffic flow between your Institutional network and the RNO?

• Average traffic:100Mbps inbound, 40Mbps outbound
• Peak traffic: 850Mbps

What is the total capacity of your Institutional connection to the RNO?

• Our total capacity is: There is a 1Gb connection between our LANCS and CANLMAN.

What are the upgrade plans for your local (Departmental) network; your Institutional network and the network run by the RNO?

• Departmental plans: Connection of 500Mbps to Manchester University HEP group via UKLight. Else to follow the Institutes recommendations.
• Institutional plans: Core Network upgrade in progress to Fully Gigabit Backbone
• RNO plans: SJ5?

Question 9

Do you believe in IS Security? Does your Institute believe in IS Security?

• I'm a believer: YES
• We're collective believers: YES

Do you believe in firewalls? Does your Institute believe in firewalls?

• I'm a believer: YES
• We're collective believers: YES

Provide information of how changes are made to the rule set of the firewall.

• Firewall rules are changed by: Request and negotiation with ISS for core services and internally approved for HEP Machine Firewalls.

Provide a note of the capacity of this device and what happens when that capacity is exceeded.

• The capacity is: Within the HEP machines the firewall is software and has not been calculated.

Question 10

What is the best performance you can achieve from your end-system to an equivalent system located in some geographically remote (and friendly!) Institute?

• Best performance is:

For your end-system: 640Mbps disk to disk file transfer from LANCS to RAL over uklight link.

Do you understand the kernel, the bus structure; the NIC; and the disk system?

• I understand: YES

Do you understand TCP tuning and what it can do for you?

• I understand: YES-And recommend it!!

Do you understand your application and what it can do to your performance?

• I understand: Partially