InfoMagic Standards 1993 July/Disc.iso/inet/isoc/isocnews/issue1_2/040.52a

Text File | 1993-02-08 | 6.3 KB | 118 lines

N-1-2-040.52  Official Opening of the Internet Services in CSFR
and First Eastern and Central European Countries Networks Coordinating
Meeting, Czech Technical University Prague, February 13-14, 1992 by
Steven N. Goldstein*, <[e-mail]>


A single router at the Czech Technical University was placed in
service in January and connected to the Internet through Linz,
Austria.  This was the start of Internet service in the Czech and
Slovak Federated Republic (CSFR), and the ceremony on the 13th of
February marked the official recognition of the service and its
demonstration to the assembled guests and the university community.  A
notable aspect of the opening ceremonies was the attendance of guests
and supporters from neighboring Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Austria.
During the morning ceremonies, chaired by Lubomir Ohera, Director of
the Computer Science Faculty, Michal Chital of the Office of the
Presidium of the CSFR welcomed the guests officially on behalf of the
Government and noted with pride how far his country had progressed
toward integration in the international science communication
community.

Steve Goldstein, National Science Foundation, brought greetings from
the United States and gave an overview of the growth of the Internet:
the continued exponential growth of attached computers to today's
727,000 count; the 39 countries whose approximately 4,500 networks are
now routed in the Internet; the appearance of CSFR, Hungary and Poland
among them, and the emergence of graphical user interfaces and
client-server interactive computing which offer simpler interfaces and
productivity enhancements to the end-user.

Rob Blokzijl, Chair of the European IP Networking cooperation (RIPE),
gave an overview of the growth of Internet services in Europe which
mirror the exponential global growth and account for about 20 percent
of the attached hosts and about a third of the Internet's networks.
He mentioned the technical assistance that western European IP
networking colleagues have offered to the East Central European
networks, and pledged continued priorities in helping the emerging
networking organizations.

Wilfred Maschitera and Guenther Schmittner of the University of Linz,
Austria, described Austria's Central Europe Networking Cooperation
(CENC) and their proposal to host a Central European network backbone
with the homing of two major nodes from each of the countries, one
each in Linz and Vienna.  This would offer interconnectivity among
their country networks and also would provide connectivity to western
Europe and the rest of the Internet via Austria's existing connections
as well as its proposed extension to Europe's emerging E1 Backbone,
Ebone.

Yves DeVillers then described the assistance that the French National
Institute for Automatics and Informatics (INRIA) Project Copernicus,
has provided to the development of Internet service development in
CSFR.  This has included the configuring of low-cost PC-based routers
for CSFR's Federal Science and Education Network, FESNet, an
architectural design for FESNet, and the hosting of Milan Sterba of
CSFR's Higher School of Economics for networking training (Milan, whom
many of you know from his moderating of the Central European
Networking e-mail list, will return to Prague from INRIA this coming
May).  INRIA plans to extend Project Copernicus assistance to another
Central European country in the near future.

Jan Gruntorad, director of FESNet development and EARN Director for
CSFR, spoke proudly of the growth of networking since the opening of
EARN services in the CSFR, and reviewed plans for the implementation
of the Prague-Brno-Bratislava FESnet backbone and the complementary
Slovak Academic Network (SANet) services in the Slovak Republic.  Jan
recounted with pride of accomplishment and a bit of amazement how
easily he had been able to connect with hosts as far away as Australia
and Japan from his university.  He invited the guests to a
demonstration of the Internet connections in the afternoon.  Jiri
Orsag, the top level CS domain administrator gave technical details of
the connection and Czech Republic architecture.  About a half hour
remained for questions from the audience, and a number of spirited
discussions ensued.

During two "shifts" in the afternoon, about 50 people came to the
computer terminal room to try connections to hosts around the world.
All this activity on the mainframe host and the currently slim line to
Linz and beyond, slowed the reading of e-mail from remote hosts to a
pace reminiscent of the final days of the ARPANET.  We wish our
colleagues in the CSFR continued success and growth in hosts AND
bandwidth to the outside world!

The Opening Ceremonies were followed by the "1st Eastern and Central
European Countries Networks Coordinating Meeting".  Networking
representatives from the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Poland
and Bulgaria met to set their agenda and agree on basics on the
afternoon of the 13th, and they were joined by observers from Austria,
Germany, RIPE and the U.S. on the 14th.  Each of the Central European
countries summarized its networking status, plans and needs.  Then the
CSFR, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria proceeded to hammer out a draft
"Memorandum on Cooperation in R&D Networking".  Key points of the
memorandum included an agreement to cooperate in developing networking
strategies, international connections, training programs, network
management, and user services.  They affirmed the principle that the
driving force would be user needs and that they would be guided in
choosing technology primarily according to those needs.  While
expressing thanks for past assistance and present offers of additional
assistance, they stated the principle that such [future] assistance
must suit the interest of the R&D communities in their countries.

All in all, the mutual support evidenced by the large turnout of
visitors and their success at forming a networking cooperation for
Central European networking inspired confidence that they will rise
above the challenges of shortages of trained staff, money and
communications links to build a successful networking infrastructure.
Their efforts will provide essential support to the nurturing of
research and education in this emerging region of the Global Internet.


* Program Director, Interagency & International Networking
Coordination - Div. of Networking and Communications Research &
Infrastructure - National Science Foundation