CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Phill Gross/CNRI TEWG Minutes Past IETF meetings have typically featured status reports from various operational networks. These have included NSFnet, the US DOE Energy Science netwowrk (ESnet), the US NASA Science Internet (NSI), DCA Milnet, and more recently, occasional regional networks and European networks. These reports have typically been featured during the technical plenary session. Starting at the Boulder IETF meeting, the network status reports have been moved into the Topology Engineering Working Group sessions. This is in response to suggestions from IETF participants to make time for additional technical presentations during the plenary sessions. This will also have the effect of providing more time for those interested in network operations to interact in more detail. This represents a shift in emphasis for the Topology Engineering Working Group. I'd like to consider this an experiment for the next few meetings, after which, I will poll regular TEWG attendees, and others interested in network operations, for comments regarding the new format, and whether there are other operational topics that TEWG (or, perhaps, another Working Group in the Operational Requirements Area) should consider. Dale Johnson (MERIT) submitted the text below to accompany his slide presentation. NSFNET Presentation (Dale Johnson /MERIT) o NSFNET T1 Backbone 1990: An additional node was added to the NSFNET T1 backbone in October of 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia, bringing the total number of nodes on the backbone to 14. The Atlanta NSS is located at Georgia Institute of Technology and is connected to the NSSs in Houston and Pittsburgh. In November, the Atlanta NSS passed 164 million packets, which was more than that passed by two other NSSs. o NSFNET T3 Backbone 1990: The real story of the NSFNET is occurring with the current engineering of the T3 network. Merit has a goal of passing some 1 production traffic on the new T3 network within calendar year 1990. T3 NSSs will be located in the eight locations shown, which include two new sites in Argonne, Il. and Cambridge, MA. The T3 network is being engineered and built as a totally separate peer backbone to the T1 network. It will have its own AS number, and will interoperate with the T1 network using an exterior gateway protocol. o NSFNET T1/T3 Backbones 1990: As can be seen in the combined T1 and T3 map (see slides), several sites will have both a T1 NSS and a T3 E-NSS (exterior NSS - see below). Packets will be routed between the two backbones at these locations. o NSFNET T1 Architecture: This is a diagram of the T1 NSS and circuit architecture as it relates to the MCI backbone junction point, or Point of Presence, (POP). In the diagram, everything inside the circle is physically located at the MCI POP. The circles labeled DXC represent MCI backbone Digital Cross-Connect switches. There are two (or more) clear-channel T1 circuits which run over local loops from the DXC to the NSS located at the university or supercomputer site. This architecture does allow for redundant circuits from the MCI backbone to the site, however an outage at the site not only disrupts traffic to that site, but also disrupts backbone traffic running through that site but destined for other locations. o NSFNET T1 Architecture: The diagram of the T3 architecture indicates that there will be two new types of NSSs at each node on the backbone. Again, everything inside the circle is physically located at the MCI POP. As indicated in the diagram, the first new type of NSS, the Core-NSS (C-NSS) will be collocated at the MCI POP. The C-NSSs will form a backbone infrastructure which will be independent of activity at the end sites. Therefore, an outage at an end site will affect traffic only to that site, not backbone traffic destined for other sites. The second type of NSS, the ExteriorNSS (E-NSS) will be located on site at the organization hosting the node, as is done in the T1 backbone. The E-NSS will be connected to the C-NSS by a single T3 pipe. o Number of Networks Graph: The number of networks configured on the NSFNET backbone reached 2063 by the end of October 1990. This included 527 foreign networks. The number of configured nets by the end of November 1990 totalled 2125. (Chart not available at the time of this presentation.) o NSFNET Monthly Traffic in Packets: Traffic in packets for the month of October 1990 was 5.25 billion. 2 This represents a 269 o Major NSFNET Applications By Packets: As is the norm, networked mail applications and file exchange accounted for the highest usage of the backbone in September of 1990. Interactive applications, again as is the norm, accounted for the third highest usage of the backbone. o NSFNET - The Reliable Network: The NSFNET backbone maintained an average uptime status of 99.88through September 1990. Included in this calculation are Class One outages only, which means a node site was completely unreachable due to an NSS being down. Planned outages, such as for UPS maintenance, are included in this figure. Attendees Vikas Aggarwal vikas@JVNC.net Guy Almes almes@rice.edu Ronald Broersma ron@nosc.mil Robert Cooney cooney@wnyose.nardac-dc.navy.mil Tom Easterday tom@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu Fred Engel engel@concord.com Peter Ford peter@acl.lanl.gov Vince Fuller vaf@Standford.EDU Phillip Gross pgross@nri.reston.va.us Tony Hain alh@eagle.es.net Susan Hares skh@merit.edu Eugene Hastings hastings@psc.edu Kathleen Huber khuber@bbn.com Dale Johnson dsj@merit.edu Philip Karn karn@thumper.bellcore.com Holly Knight holly@apple.com William Kutz Kutz@dockmaster.ncsc.mil E. Paul Love loveep@sdsc.edu Matt Mathis mathis@pele.psc.edu Milo Medin medin@nsipo.nasa.gov Donald Morris morris@ucar.edu Chris Myers chris@wugate.wustl.edu David O'Leary oleary@noc.sura.net Joel Replogle replogle@ncsa.uiuc.edu Robert Reschly reschly@brl.mil Timothy Salo tjs@msc.edu Tom Sandoski tom@concert.net Bernhard Stockman boss@sunet.se Roxanne Streeter streeter@nsipo.nasa.gov Kannan Varadhan kannan@oar.net Carol Ward cward@spot.colorado.edu Dan Wintringham danw@osc.edu Robert Woodburn woody@sparta.com 3