Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/fade into you/access/Japan Internet/Academic Internet In Japan

Text File | 1994-11-11 | 24KB | 456 lines

     ACADEMIC INTERNETWORKING IN JAPAN

     Haruhisa Ishida, Computer Centre, University of Tokyo, Japan
                    ([e-mail])

Abstract

     Internetworking is somewhat new in Japan. It came to be known when
     JUNET started operation in 1984 using dial-up lines and UUCP.
     Research people were hooked to e-mails and began subscribing to e-
     news. But it was after the entry of Japanese texts became easier
     when e-mails and e-news became really popular. The Japanization
     required the use of 2-byte codes (the so-called JIS 7-bit codes) and
     the modification of networking program (mainly on UNIX) to
     accommodate 2-byte codes. In the meantime, a serious internetworking
     began in 1987 when the JUNET was extended to WIDE which employs
     leased-lines and TCP/IP protocols to inter-connect LANs in many
     institutions. Today, there are several major internets in Japan
     besides JUNET and WIDE such as BITNET, JAIN, TISN, SINET, HEPNET-J,
     TRAIN etc. and some have international links to USA. But the
     transmission speed is limited to 64-192 Kbps because of high
     tariffs, lack of funding and lack of coordination.  In this paper,
     we discuss the background and history, current status of Japanese
     internets and their applications. Finally, we will point out various
     problems facing our internets in Japan.


1. Background and History

     Internetworking is a relatively new concept in Japan, not well
known until about the time when the WIDE project was started in 1987.
The reasons of this rather late startup of internetworking despite the
wide-spread use of computers in general seem to be the following.

(1) Centralized computing has been dominant. A computer network meant
mainframe-to-terminal connections or a network of mainframes as is the
case of the inter-university network called N1net. Japan has many large-
scale online networks used by banks, security houses and railway systems
etc. but they are not what we call internets.

(2) LAN has not been widely used. It has begun to be used only recently
with now fashionable "downsizing" trend. Currently many universities are
trying to install LANs based on Ethernets (10 Mbps) and FDDI (100 Mbps).

(3) Each computer manufacturer has been using propriety network
protocols represented by such names as SNA (IBM), FNA (Fujitsu), HNA
(Hitachi), DINA (NEC) and DECnet (DEC), making internetworking
difficult. The makers are only now starting to promote UNIX-based
systems as "open systems".

(4) The TCP/IP protocol has not been recognized as a standard protocol.
The government and computer/communications industries have been trying
to develop OSI protocol products. However OSI efforts have been very
disappointing as in other countries and, with the proliferation of UNIX
systems, TCP/IP is now regarded as the best protocol for internetworking
under the influence of USA.

(5) Routers have not been readily available with support and training in
the Japanese language. Routers developed by US venture companies are
used widely and Japanese makers are not in the market yet. They are
software-intensive equipment and their design requires detailed
knowledge of a variety of protocols. This seems to make it difficult for
Japanese makers to get into this market.

(6) Postal regulation and high cost of leased lines have not encouraged
personal communication on networks.

(7) It has been difficult to enter Japanese and Chinese texts into
computers even if an e-mail facility existed. This language barrier has
deterred us to use electronic mails because most of our users want to
use our native tongue in communications with colleagues. People began to
show interest in using e-mails only after about 1987 when popular
Japanese wordprocessing software such as Ichitaro (Version 3) appeared
and made Japanese character entry easier.

(8) Japan is a small country and much activities are concentrated in
Tokyo. So face-to-face meeting is not difficult and it imposes less need
for e-mails.

(9) Leased lines are very costly. NTT (Japan's largest telephone
company) has been making a big effort to make ISDN a nation-wide service
while keeping leased lines relatively expensive. Thanks to this policy
supported by the government, the ISDN service is available in most
cities in Japan but the cost to use leased lines has not come down much.

     In this background, the first attempt to build a nation-wide
academic network was the N1 project started in 1974. It had an NSF like
support from the Ministry of Education of Japan from 1973-1979. The
participants were 3 universities (Tokyo, Kyoto and Tohoku), a common
carrier (NTT) and 3 computer makers (Hitachi, Fujitsu and NEC).The
resulting wide-area network called N1net links heterogeneous mainframe
computers from 3 makers. The N1 protocol developed in the project was
designed with the ARPANET protocol as  a model. It had remote login
(network TSS), RJE (Remote Job Entry) and limited file transfer (allows
only fixed-length-records of 80 bytes) capabilities. This network was
the very first WAN which employed the commercial packet-switching
service called DDX (Digital Data Exchange) started by NTT in 1980.

     The N1net did not have any mail/news exchange facilities because
they were not allowed under the communication regulation then existed.
Also we (the developers) were not aware of the significance of
electronic mails and entry of Japanese texts was difficult then. No
attempt was made to experiment the idea of personal communication using
the network. It was only a resource-sharing network. This was quite
different from the ARPAnet where much of the traffic were e-mails as we
learned later.

     In retrospect, although the N1 protocol was a proprietary protocol
of the 7 parties, the specification was public and it was (and still is)
almost the only network protocol in wide-spread use for linking
heterogeneous computers.

     It was in 1984 when an e-mail/e-news exchange network called JUNET
(Japanese University/UNIX NETwork) was initiated by a group of Keio
University, TIT Tokyo Institute of Technology) and the University of
Tokyo researchers. The group leader was Dr.Jun Murai (then with TIT). We
used telephone lines (at 9,600 bps) and the UUCP protocol to link UNIX
computers at the 3 institutions.

     The dial-up JUNET was an instant success. The number of
participating organizations increased rapidly soon afterwards. Not only
universities but also industrial research laboratories began to join.
This was an unusual combination of universities and industries in Japan
where there are administrative barriers between universities and
industries. JUNET was possible because it did not rely on government
funds and it was operated completely on volunteer basis. Thus it is an
unofficial network with no recognition from the government.

     In the mean time, the BITNETJP, an extension of the BITNET to
Japan, came into existence in 1986?? by the support of IBM (for initial
3 years) when the Science University of Tokyo established a 56 Kbps link
with the City University of New York. This was the very first
international internetworking in Japan.

     Then in 1986 we started an international link from JUNET to the
CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) in USA using a dial-up packet-switching
circuit of KDD(Japan's overseas carrier)'s Venus-P (a packet switching
service). In establishing the link from Tokyo University Computer Centre
to BBN in Boston area, it was fortunate for us to have had generous help
from Prof. Larry Landweber of Wisconsin University, Prof. David Farber
of Pennsylvania University and Dr. Hideyuki Tokuda of CMU.

     Then Dr.Jun Murai (then with University of Tokyo) initiated the
WIDE (Widely Integrated and Distributed Environment) network project in
1987 as a joint project between universities and industrial research
laboratories. The WIDE corresponds to a leased-line extension of JUNET
and was the first true internet in Japan which employed 64-192 Kbps
leased-lines and the TCP/IP protocol. With substantial help from Prof.
Torben Nielsen at the University of Hawaii, WIDE established a 64 Kbps
international link to the US Internet through Hawaii in 1989. Most of
international mail traffic into and from Japan goes through this link
now. It is also possible to use telnet and ftp services internationally
in much the same way as in the US Internet. Thus Japan has become a
member of the international internet community.

     There are some other academic networks besides N1net, BITNETJP and
JUNET/WIDE in Japan now. They include: SINET (Science Information
NETwork) JAIN (Japan Academic Inter-university Network) TISN (Todai
International Science Network) HEPNET-J (High Energy Physics NETwork in
Japan) TRAIN (Tokyo Regional Academic InterNet)

     Fig.1 shows the main international links between Japan and USA. Two
links have been upgraded to 192 Kbps. [This figure is not included in
this transmission. It is described in my report, inet.92, mentioned above.]

2. Current status of major academic networks

     There are 7 major academic internets in Japan with a total of 739
IP-style domains. Of these, the majority belongs to the UUCP-based
JUNET.

(1) WIDE      58 domains
     WIDE has a total of 6 NOCs (Network Operation Centers) in Tokyo,
Fujisawa, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka and Sendai as shown in Fig.2.  [Not
included in this electronic transmission.] The protocol used is TCP/IP
and the line speed is 64-192 Kbps. TCP/IP over X.25 is used in some ISDN
links with speed of 64 or 128 Kbps.  Organizations sponsoring the WIDE
project have reached 58. Since WIDE is maintained in a research project,
many research activities are being carried out using WIDE as a testbed.
They include ISDN applications, TCP/IP over X.25 and satellite (wireless
and mobile) communicatios. More details will be reported by Jun Murai in
another paper.

(2) BITNETJP      118 nodes in 82 institutions (domains)
     The Science University of Tokyo has the Japan gateway to BITNET and
acts as the hub of BITNETJP --- Japanese portion of the BITNET. It had a
56 Kbps RSCS link to the City University of New York until the end of
1991 but changed it to a 56 Kbps TCP/IP link into JvNCnet at Princeton
University in January 1992. BITNETJP is now a consortium called the
Japan BITNET Association comprising of 82 institutions, most of which
are private universities in Japan. The BITNETJP configuration is shown
in Fig.3 [not included in this electronic transmission].  It is expected
that most nodes will be reconfigured gradually to BITNET II (TCP/IP)
from now on.  There has been some confusion in using Japanese/Chinese
characters on BITNETJP mails but it's Kanji code was standardized to JIS
7-bit code just recently in April 1992.  The Japan BITNET Association
has been active in promoting Asian connections and has links to Taiwan
and Korea. BITNETJP has formed CAREN (Consortium of Asian Research and
Educational Network) with Taiwan and Korea in July 1991. The CAREN has
an agreement with CREN (Corporation for Research and Educational
Networking) in USA.

(3) SINET      9 domains
     SINET is a backbone network maintained by NACSIS with nodes in 8
universities including Tsukuba University. NACSIS (National Center for
Science Information Systems) is a national institute under the Ministry
of Education.  It is the center of the N1net (the mainframe network) and
also the center of a library network linking major university libraries
in Japan via N1 protocol with it's own X.25 packet-switching lines
leased from telephone companies.  Since NACSIS is a national institute,
it has held the stance to support OSI protocols and has actually led an
effort to implement X.400 MHS mail systems on mainframes in the above
universities.

     It was only in 1991 when  NACSIS started to support TCP/IP
protocols on its backbone. It has now a direct link (at 192 Kbps) to the
FIX-West at NASA-Ames via a SPRINT international line. Thus it is in a
position to compete and complement with the WIDE link for international
services.

(4) JAIN      44 domains
     JAIN is an experimental academic internet linking many universities
mainly with X.25 packet switched lines provided by NACSIS. Although the
protocol is TCP/IP, IP packets are carried by X.25 packets and hence the
transmission is slow.  It is expected that the practical part of JAIN
will be absorbed by regional networks like TRAIN (described below) when
experiments supported by the Ministry of Education are over. JAIN can be
in a position to pursue gigabit network technology but no definite plan
exists.

(5) TISN      17 domains
     TISN is an internet linking 2 universities and 15 research
laboratories in science field at 9.6 to 64 Kbps as shown in Fig.4 [not
included in this electronic transmission].  The protocol supported is
DECnet and TCP/IP. The members include:

      University of Tokyo, Faculty of Science
            "              Institute for Nuclear Science
      Kyoto University, Chemistry laboratory
      National Astronomical Observatory
      National Institute of Genetics
      Institute of Physical and Chemistry Research (Riken)
      KEK (High Energy Physics Laboratory)
      STE (Plasma Physics) Laboratory (in Nagoya)
      Institute for Molecular Science Research (in Okazaki)
      Cellular Engineering Laboratory
      Communication Research Laboratory
      NASDA (National Aero-Space Development Administration)
      Institute for Space Science Research
      Japan Atomic Energy Research Laboratory
      Institute for Statistical and Mathematical Analysis
      Japan Weather Association
      Rikei corporation

     TISN was started in 1989 and now has a 128 Kbps link to the US
Internet through the University of Hawaii. TISN reports that the traffic
from Hawaii to Tokyo is about 1,700 Mbps per month while the traffic
from Tokyo to Hawaii is about  1,300 Mbytes per month.

(6) HEPNET-J
     This is network centering around KEK (High Energy Physics
Laboratory in Tsukuba) and has a link to US HEPNET thru Lawrence
Berkeley Laboratory.

(7) TRAIN and UTnet
     TRAIN is the name of the first major regional internetwork being
developed around the University of Tokyo Computer Centre. The Centre has
installed 3 multi-line routers contributed by Cisco, Proteon and 3COM.
Currently it has only several links at 64 Kbps but it is expected that
the number will quickly increase.

     The most important member of TRAIN is UTnet (University of Tokyo
local-area network). UTnet constructed under a 3-year project
(1990-1992) by a grant from the Ministry of Education has 3 FDDI rings
and a 400-Mbps multimedia ring connecting major buildings in the main
campus. In each building, twisted-pair Ethernet wiring is used to link
many PCs (Personal Computers) , workstations and mainframe computers.
For other campuses, 768 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps leased lines are used as you
see in Fig.5 [not included in this electronic transmission]. The 1.5
Mbps is the highest speed in Japanese internetworking at the moment.


3. Internetwork Administration and Management

     There are several organizations for the administration and
management of the entire Japanese internets.

(1)JCRN (Japan Committee for Research Networks)
     This is an academic network coordination committee organized in
1990 and chaired by Prof. Shoichi Noguchi of Tohoku University. The
committee consists of the representatives of major academic networks and
academic societies in Japan. We thought that the best place for
combining both universities and industries is a meeting of academic
societies.  Coordination between WIDE, SINET, BITNETJP and TISN is
discussed in JCRN.

     Also Japanese representatives  to CCIRN (Coordinating Committee for
Intercontinental Research Networks) and IEPG (Intercontinental
Engineering Planning Group) are elected in JCRN. The corresponding
JEPG/IP (Japan Engineering and Planning Group for IP internets) and JNIC
(Japan Network Information Center) operate with the consensus of JCRN.

     Another objective of JCRN is the promotion of internetworking in
Japan and JCRN has held annual symposia to this end.

(2)JNIC
      JNIC was set up at the UNiversity of Tokyo Computer Centre in 1991
as a center of the whole Japanese internets. Domain names, IP addresses
and routing policies are administered by JNIC in consultation with the
NSFNET NOC in USA. To resolve IP addresses from domain names, JNIC uses
BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) software.

     The top domain name for Japan is 'jp' and the second-level domains
under jp are as follows. (The left-hand number indicates the number of
organizations belonging to each domain.)
       452     co     companies
       195     ac     academic institutions
        40     go     government laboratories
        39     or     public organizations
        10     ad     network administration
         3     ntt, nttdata, kek        special domains
       ------------------------------------------------
       739     total

4. Notable Applications of Internets in Japan
     Since internetworking is relatively new in Japan, we do not see
many applications yet. The following are some examples.

(1) Remote use of Fujitsu AP1000
     The AP1000 is an experimental massively-parallel computer system
     designed by Fujitsu, the largest computer manufacturer in Japan.
     Each processor in AP1000 is a SPARC chip (15 MIPS; 8 MFLOPS) with 16
     MB memory. Each AP1000 system can be configured with 16 to 1,024
     processors. Fujitsu makes 4 AP1000 systems (one 512-processor
     system, one 128-processor system and two 64-processor systems)
     available to WIDE users round-the-clock. Fig.6 shows the
     configuration [not included in this electronic transmission].

(2) GenomeNet for human gene data exchange
      The GenomeNet is a special purpose network set up to exchange human
      genetic analysis data among researchers. The project has it's own
      64 Kbps leased-lines between TISN, Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka
      universities but it depends on WIDE, TISN and JAIN for nation-wide
      and overseas connection as shown in Fig.7 [not included in this
      electronic transmission]. The GenomeNet center in
      Kyoto University is now preparing for anonymous ftp with access to
      GenBank and EMBL databases. These are already available in USA and
      Germany.

(3) Distribution of Physics Preprints
     In 1992, Kyoto University Computer Center stopped to support a
     preprint distribution service on a basic physics database called
     DESY/RIPF, which had been compiled by DESY (Germany) and Yukawa
     Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University. The service is
     now offered on SPIRES (Stanford Public Information REtrieval System)
     on an IBM mainframe at YITP connected via BITNET and Internet with
     SLAC (Stanford in USA), FNAL (Fermi Lab in USA), SSCS (USA), LANL
     (Los Alamos in USA), CERN (Switzerland), DESY and KEK (Japan) as
     shown in Fig.7. Papers written by researchers in each region served
     by each laboratory are distributed to other laboratories and
     deposited into their respective databases.  Thus any researcher can
     retrieve and read any preprint anywhere in the world where the
     Internet/BITNET access is possible. One can also send an e-mail to
     the SPIRES system to get a preprint.


(4) Inet Club
     The Inet Club is a consortium of 205 JUNET member companies for
     overseas connection. While JUNET has 64 Kbps links to WIDE, the WIDE
     is only open to universities and WIDE sponsor companies (mostly
     related to computers and communications). So it was necessary for
     non-WIDE member companies to join forces to form a private club to
     share an international link. Inet Club was thus formed in 1987 with
     the help of the KDD laboratory.  Currently, Inet Club uses high-
     speed TrailBlazer modems located in the KDD lab and UUCP protocol to
     make overseas telephone calls to uunet (USA), mcsun (Netherlands)
     and uknet (UK). The amount of network news subscribing to Usenet
     reaches 70 MB per month and they are distributed to other domestic
     sites on JUNET with the use of the TrailBlazer modems.

5. Problem and Needed Actions

     For further promotion of internetworking in Japan, we still have
many problems like the following.

(1) We must have greater public and financial support both from
government sources and private sectors. It is necessary to educate the
general public and government officials on the significance of
networking and personal communication on networks.

(2) We need more coordination between existing internets. To accomplish
this, we must try to eliminate walls between universities and industries
imposed by administrative barriers of the government.

(3) Japan must increase the number of freely (at no charge) accessible
systems. In the USA, there are many anonymous ftp servers, free-access
database systems and info-servers (mail-answering systems) but not in
Japan. This is not so easy in Japan because it involves not only cost,
management and change in consciousness but also a language barrier (we
need to prepare information in English!). We must note also that
'who-is' service (as available on nic.ddn.mil) is not available in Japan
yet.

(4) We need more applications software utilizing networking and
distributed environments. Japan still lags behind USA and Europe in
software development and we do not have many client-server type software
and groupwares of our own design yet.

(5) It is necessary to make our links faster. The top speed of our
networks is only 192 Kbps for WAN and 1.5 Mbps for inter-campus links.
There is no plan for gigabit testbeds. Obviously, this is because the
tariffs for data communication are too high. We need to give greater
pressure to PTT and common carriers for lower tariffs.

(6) We should try to increase the number of students and researcher in
networking fields. Since human resources are limited, Japanese
communication industries are concentrating their efforts mostly on
B-ISDN (ATM) and OSI, leaving small room for other possibilities. The
fact that Japanese-made routers and frame-relay equipment are just
appearing is an indication of this narrowness of the industry pursuit.
The education problem is also related to the lack of the public
awareness as mentioned in (1).

(7) It would be worthwhile to try to extend our links to Asian countries
at Japan's expense. Japan has a sustantial amount of budget for ODA
(Official Development Assistance). If we can spare only a fraction of
the money for international academic internetworking, it will be very
effective to promote international understanding. We should have direct
links to Europe, too.

References

1) H. Ishida: Current status of the N1 (Japanese Inter-University)
network with access to supercomputers, Proc. of Pacific Computer
Communications Symposium, pp.571-578 (1985)

2) J. Murai & A. Kato: Researches in netwrok development of JUNET,
Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM'87 Workshop (1987)

3) J. Murai, A. Kato, H. Kusumoto, S. Yamaguchi & T. Sato: Construction
of the Widely Integrated Distributed Environment, Proc. of IEEE
TENCON'89 (1989)

4) S. Yamaguchi, K. Okayama & H. Miyahara: Design and implementation of
an authentification system in WIDE internet environment, Proc. of IEEE
TENCON'90, pp.653-657 (1990)

5) K. Murakami & T. Sugawara: ISDN Internet for FIPTH: Fast IP to the
Home, Proc. of INET'92 (1992)


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