- Current Network Status
There were two incidents to report, both occurred at CFHT:
- On Mar 19th, we switched a fiber between CFHT and the
Communication room to a fiber with less DB lost.
- On May 19th, we switched a FDDI cable at CFHT.
The ring is currently operating at full counter-rotating mode.
- FY 98/99 budget
Pui Hin Rhoads presented the proposed FY 98/99 budget:
- Per institution cost has dropped because of the full
participation of Subaru and Gemini.
- Total direct cost has increased slightly as a result
of a 4% salary increase and increased fringe benefit costs.
- Budget has to be recalculated if we decide to move on to ATM.
Henry Stilmack of JAC requested to drop the maintenance on
the JCMT router since all JAC traffic is currently routed
through UKIRT. Pui Hin will recalculate the charges and have
an update at the next meeting.
- Status of Infrastructure Upgrade
Renovation of the old generator room is completed except for
some minor detail work. Inspection by the architect and engineers
was made on May 21. HawTel is planning to move their equipment
from the temporary area in the old generator building to the
permanent location in the same building on June 15. Removal
of the radio on top of the 88" dome will occur once the voice,
T1s and 56kb services are taken care of. Several members of
the group expressed interest in seeing if the radio could be
used to support at least voice services in case of a failure
to the fiber system. Pui Hin Rhoads will look into it.
The MKOCN fibers extension is completed. Gemini is expected to
be added to the FDDI ring after the meeting.
- Update of UH's effort to improve Internet Access
- UH has signed a contract with GTE for a T3 link to the
mainland. The new link is expected to be online within a
couple of months.
- With the approval from the Military to use the DREN to
get to the vBNS for free, UH will submit a proposal to NSF
for a grant to provide a link from UH to the vBNS for data
packets with vBNS destinations. Deadline for the proposal
is July 31. If this comes through, we should have the link
in place by next spring.
Pui Hin pointed out that in order for the Observatories to take
advantage of the extra bandwidth, the link between HP and UH
Manoa has to be upgraded. The cost will consist of the cost of
the link itself and the UH Internet access charges. David Lassner
of UH has indicated that the Internet access charges will be based
on the size of the link between HP and UH. Following are some
budgetary rates for a 6Mbps link from HawTel:
- 3-year contract = $5,400 per month
- 5-year contract = $5,200 per month
- 7-year contract = $5,000 per month
A quick survey shows that most members will not be interested
if the increase in bandwidth means a big increase in their costs.
Pui Hin will look into prices for a smaller size link, such as 2 T1s.
Note:
Since the last meeting, UH has changed their position and have
included in the proposal a 6Mbps link between HP and UH. I will
try and get a feel from David Lassner as to what the Internet
access charge will be before the next meeting.
- Further Discussion on ATM Support and other Upgrades
Pui Hin reported that she has been working with Cisco on ways to
deal with the backup units. Together with the migration to ATM,
Pui Hin also wants to upgrade the ethernet at HP to 100Mbps, she
pointed out that a 10Mbps ethernet can easily be overloaded with a
couple of the new Sun Workstations.
- Interop 98 Summary
Although ATM equipment for both LAN and WAN were widely available,
IP integration remains complicated and confusing. Different vendors
are taking different approaches.
Gigabit Ethernet is emerging as a very viable alternative for high
speed network for the LAN. A draft standard for Gigabit Ethernet
over fiber is expected to be ratified in the near future. The
distance limit according to this draft is 550 meters on multimode
fibers and 5000 meters on singlemode fibers. A draft to provide
Gigabit Ethernet over 4-pair Category 5 unshielded twisted pair
wiring up to 100 meters is under developement. Gigabit Ethernet
provides QOS through protocols such as RSVP and VLAN.
- Sun monitors failing at the summit
- Members have different opinions on the subject.
- Keck, CSO, CFHT do not see any problem specific to the
altitude.
- Jonathan Chock suggested the road up to the summit might
be more of a problem.
- JAC and IRTF have problems with the large Sony monitors,
small 17" seems ok.
- At Keck, a combination of spare monitors and a Sun hardware
maintenance contract help safeguard their operation.
- JAC and IRTF recommend the Viewsonics 21" monitors.
- Subaru found that installation of a humidifier solved their
problems with monitors.
It could very well be that climate control is the key to getting
equipment to work properly on the summit.
- Next Meeting
Thursday, September 10, 1998, 10:00 a.m., at Gemini Hilo office.
