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Back to list of 2000/01 seminars
| Managerial and technical issues arising from the growth of the JANET customer base and the network architecture | ||
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| Tuesday 27 February 2001 | 16:00 | Brian Spratt Room |
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Geoff McMullen
CEO of UKERNA |
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For some twenty years, the United Kingdom has invested in a common network for connecting Higher Education and Research institutions. The network (called JANET - the "Joint Academic Network") has grown in two senses: the range of institutions attached to the network has developed to include most aspects of the "lifelong learning agenda"; and the technology has developed. The network backbone capacity has increased from some 4.8 kilobits per second to 2.5 gigabits per second - 500,000 times, and the network has been part of the Internet for ten years.
The organisations responsible for the management of JANET wrestle constantly with important questions:
- Why does the UK need such a network?
- Whom should it serve?
- Who should pay?
- How should the operators find out what the users want?
- How is quality of service defined, achieved and measured?
- Can the technology cope?
