This report is produced and published by the United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association (JANET(UK)) for use within the JANET Community. We welcome comments on all aspects of this document and on any other JANET(UK) publications. Please direct feedback or any complaints about the content to JANET Customer Service (JCS), at the contact given in section 3.2.1, or email: service@ja.net
This report broadly follows the sequence of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) between JANET(UK) and the funding bodies represented on the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), for the financial year 2002/2003.
The numbering follows the numbering of the SLA, and apparent omissions reflect the fact that there is nothing to report at present.
This report covers the period October 2002 to December 2002 (Winter).
Electronic copies of JANET(UK)'s Quarterly Reports to the JANET Community
can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/quarterly.html
This reporting period has seen a total of 20 new or enhanced customer connections completed and made ready for service:
For information regarding current upgrades or connections, please
contact JCS at:
connections@ja.net
A list of all primary sites connected to JANET may be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/janet-sites/
The initial programme of provision of JANET connections to FE colleges throughout the UK is essentially complete.
England
JANET primary connections are now complete for 414 colleges, and only
one college remains to be connected.
The migration of college connections to the Learning Network South East (LeNSE) Regional Network in southeast England was completed during the reporting period.
Northern Ireland
College access circuits and the connection to the SuperJANET backbone
have been extremely reliable. Most college access circuits are being
used to capacity during peak hours.
Scotland
All Regional Network reprocurements are now complete and a launch event
for the upgraded networks was held in Stirling on 28 October 2002 and
attended by about 100 people from both FE and Higher Education (HE).
Wales
All college connections continue to perform well.
The JANET core network is provided by WorldCom UK.
Most upgrade work is now complete except for a further upgrade to 2.5Gbit/s on the access link to Belfast. The three core rings are running at 10Gbit/s with most of the access links running at 2.5Gbit/s to the regional network entry points.
Details of the SuperJANET upgrade can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/superjanet/
In the past quarter, there was one outage affecting the service. This
occurred on the Cambridge SuperJANET4 access link and lasted for 5.38
hours. A cut fibre on one path and a failure of the telecom equipment
on the other path were responsible for this outage.
Major outages are reported on the JANET web server at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/cgi-bin/index.pl/outages/
The Northern Ireland (NI) - Great Britain (GB) connection experienced no outages throughout the reporting period. The upgrade to the NI-GB link from 622Mbit/s to 2.5Gbit/s, which had been scheduled for October 2002, is now planned for January 2003.
In Scotland JANET(UK)'s involvement in Regional Network and Regional Support
Centre (RSC) meetings continues with a focus on network resilience,
development of services and the possible growth of the JANET community
in Scotland.
A request for information was issued to the Regional Network operators to assess the current extent of deployment of multicast transport across JANET. This was done through an online questionnaire and to date about one-third of the Regional Networks have responded.
JANET(UK) is keen to identify issues that may be holding back the deployment of multicast, and will be encouraging the remaining Regional Networks to respond to the questionnaire.
There is a general trend across the European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and their US equivalents to increase the pervasiveness of IP multicast. People interested in trialling applications that use multicast are encouraged to discuss their requirements with their organizations.
Recent activities have concentrated on drafting an addressing policy for multicast on JANET and defining a model for how beacons might be used to give visibility of the status of the multicast service and assist with end-to-end testing of multicast transport.
There are ambiguities in the definition of 'administratively scoped'
multicast addresses Request for Comments (RFC) 2365 Administratively
Scoped IP Multicast:
http://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2365.txt
It is likely that there will be some consultation with the JANET community
to see if there is any consensus on the value of structuring these addresses
in some way. This may be through a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session
at Networkshop in April 2003.
JANET access to European NRENs is via a 2.5Gbit/s connection to GÉANT
from TeleCity®.
Traffic over the link peaks at around 300Mbit/s.
Further information about GÉANT can be found at:
http://www.dante.net/GÉANT.html
JANET access to the global Internet is provided by Sprint®, Level3TM and WorldCom UK from Telehouse®, TeleCity® and St. Pancras in London. This provides a high resilience to the service.
Aggregated peak traffic reached 1.7Gbit/s over these five connections.
The topology of current external connectivity can be found at the following:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/topology/external.html
JANET private peerings with US research networks Abilene and ESnet are
provided via GÉANT. There were no problems experienced during the
reporting period.
The London InterNet eXchange (LINX®) is the facility that allows
the transfer of traffic between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) within
the UK. JANET access to the LINX® is achieved via two GigaEthernet
connections from Telehouse and Telecity. During the reporting period,
traffic peaked at around 550Mbit/s and the service was reliable. A new
private peering arrangement at 1000Mbit/s was established with Telewest
in October. Total private peering traffic peaked at 350Mbit/s.
One GigaEthernet and one FastEthernet connection between JANET and the
Manchester Network Access Point (MaNAP) was established in late December.
The peering connection between JANET and CERNET was well used during
this reporting period. Throughout most of December the link was saturated.
More information on CERNET can be found at:
http://www.edu.cn/HomePage/english/
The existing fault reporting mechanism remains unchanged. JANET(UK)'s
reporting problems web page has been recently updated to clarify the
procedure.
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/reporting_prob.html
Due to developments in Regional Networks, fault reporting numbers for some sites within particular Regional Networks may have to change. JCS will confirm the fault reporting numbers to individual JANET primary sites in due course.
Announcements relating to major service outages can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/cgi-bin/index.pl/outages/
The JANET Operations Desk is the main point of contact for fault reporting and can be contacted as follows:
| Telephone: | 020 7692 1111 |
| Facsimile: | 020 7692 1234 |
| E-mail: | operations@ja.net |
The network monitoring service (JANET Netsight) has been developed by JANET(UK) to provide an easy to understand view of the status and performance of JANET. The service comprises a number of UNIX based machines deployed around the edge of the backbone that will in the long term provide an overview of all the JANET regional networks.
The deployment of the Netsight systems has continued so that there are now 21 in place on the network. This leaves one system to be deployed to satisfy this phase of JANET monitoring and the requirements of the SLA.
Work has started on the relocation of several Netsight systems so that they can be connected directly to their respective Backbone Access Router (BAR). This work primarily concerns the new Scottish infrastructure links that were installed this summer. There is ongoing work to equip the deployed Netsight systems with In-Band-Access equipment to further enhance the remote management capabilities. This will be a longer-term project, as some Internet Protocol (IP) address management is required to facilitate the new equipment.
The Regional Network operators are now managing all the deployed Netsight systems. The majority of the systems have now had all their respective regional connections added. Individual connection details such as traffic, reliability and latency figures, are available to those connections via a username and password on each system. Not every connection has all three items of data available, as there is still some configuration work to be carried out by some RNOs. This work is in progress and will be completed in the near future.
The development of the Netsight system is very much a dynamic process with enhancements being incorporated continually. The Network Resource Group at JANET(UK), which is responsible for the development of the monitoring system, maintains an internal and customer based 'wish list' for desired improvements and enhancements to Netsight.
The future will see Netsight being developed further to provide a monitoring
service to other developing services within JANET. More details are
available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/services/netsight/
There has been no increase in the number of sites requesting the MRS
during the quarter. JANET(UK) continues to work closely with Synstar on
completing the service installation to sites that have already requested
the service. There are currently 16 sites connected to the MRS. Further
information about this service is available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/services/managed_router/
JANET(UK) administers the domain name approval service for both the ac.uk
and gov.uk second level domains, along with any modifications required
to registered entries in the Domain Name Server (DNS) for these domains.
The procedure for gaining names in both domains is detailed at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/naming/names_ac_gov.html
The modifications procedure for domain names under ac.uk and gov.uk
already registered in the DNS is available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/naming/naming_mods.html
The rules on eligibility for registration under ac.uk are available
at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/naming/ac.uk-naming-rules.html
During the reporting period 549 requests for new domain name registrations and modifications to existing entries were received. The rate of applications for new domain names averaged 121 per month, with an average of 62 modifications for each month.
The charge for a new name request is £94 including V.A.T. (including
the first two year's maintenance charge). There is also a maintenance
charge of £47 including V.A.T. for all modification requests,
although this charge is not applicable to organisations while they remain
connected to the JANET network. Further information on domain name charging
can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/naming/ac.uk-naming-procedure.html#payments_charges
The WHOIS server database of existing names in both the ac.uk and gov.uk domains is in place, and is currently updated approximately once a month. An automated updating system of the WHOIS server database is progressing and it is anticipated that this will be in place and operational within the next few months. The current server can be queried using one of the following UNIX commands:
whois -h whois.ja.net domainname.ac.uk
whois -h whois.ja.net domainname.gov.uk
The JANET DNS service continues to run reliably.
Active discussions are taking place to make a final decision on the model for delivery of a Primary Name Servers Service to JANET customer organisations
The Secondary Nameserver Service is currently available, without charge,
to any customer with a primary connection to JANET. Under this service
JANET(UK) will arrange for a secondary nameserver to be run on the customer's
behalf at a remote site on JANET. By the end of this reporting period
the number of organisations using the service had increased to 400.
Further information about the service may be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/services/secondary_nameserver.html
The JANET Network Time Service delivers a stable time reference to customer organisations using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) specified in RFC 1305. It consists of four 'stratum-1' servers distributed across the JANET network, and located at London, Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh. This mesh of communicating systems gets 'true time' from external references such as MSF time signals broadcasted by the UK Time and Frequency Standard Station, and the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation system. The result is that clock settings across the whole mesh are very closely synchronised and a single rogue system with the wrong time will have very little effect. A synchronised time service is important for some services, such as distributed file systems.
Fourteen more sites registered to use the JANET NTP service during
the reporting period. Overall, it is a stable and well-used service.
Details of the service are available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/ntp/
At the end of April 2002, JANET launched the JANET Mailer Shield pilot
service. The pilot is expected to run until April 2003, when it will
be reviewed and a decision taken about what service, if any, to offer.
The supporting documentation is now available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/mail/mailer_shield/
During this reporting period, one more organisation registered to take
part in the pilot, which makes a total of seven participant sites to
date. The service, as its name suggests, provides a shield to the site
mailers that are vulnerable to SPAM (Unsolicited Bulk E-mail or UBE)
hijacks and attacks. JANET(UK) is currently looking at the possibility
of developing a SPAM filter to be incorporated into the pilot service.
The filter is expected to be trialled in the first quarter of 2003.
The Terminal Access Conversion Service (TACS) was a central JANET facility for accessing remote terminal services attached to the X.25 Packet Switched Public Data Network from telnet calls in JANET.
Notification was received from the supplier of JANET(UK)'s X.25 circuit, that due to reduced demand for their service, it would not be available beyond 31 December 2002. As a result JANET(UK) were unable to continue the support of the TACS and the service closed at the end of 2002.
Further information may be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/TACS/TACS.html
The JANET Usenet News Service enables JANET customers to receive Usenet News feeds from a backbone of JANET News servers. The service is available free to all customer organisations with a Primary Connection to JANET and can provide a full feed of all the newsgroups available worldwide, except for geographically limited hierarchies and groups excluded because they have a record of containing illegal material. A customer organisation may choose to be provided with a News Feed, that does not include all the newsgroups available.
The trial of the News Cache Service has been completed. The review of the trial will take place in January 2003. The review is expected to identify possible alternative options to offering an operational News Cache Service.
There are currently two ways of receiving Usenet News over JANET and
the JANET Usenet News Service documentation reflects this. The documentation
is linked from:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/usenet/
An annual review of the News Feed Service has been completed. This
identified that some sites were no longer accepting News Feed. These
sites were contacted and seven have confirmed they no longer wish to
receive the service. There are now 93 sites connected to the service.
More information is available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/usenet/feed.html
Two sites have joined the News Reader Service during the reporting
period. One temporary assigned site has reverted back to the News Feed
Service. There are now 35 sites connected to the service. The service
is documented at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/usenet/reader/reader.html
There are 336 Coder/Decoders (CODECs) registered to use the JVCS over Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). During the reporting period 1397 conferences took place over a total of 4640 hours.
The project to procure the Videoconferencing Management Centre is underway.
JANET(UK) announced the Operational Requirement for the Management of the
JANET Videoconferencing Service in the European Journal on 1 July 2002.
The service start date is 1 April 2003. A copy of the Operational Requirement
can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/development/video/vcmc_itt.html
It is envisaged that this procurement exercise will ensure that the Management Centre will support the requirements of the JANET community as it moves to videoconferencing over IP, as well as continuing to support ISDN videoconferencing and gatewaying between videoconferencing technologies.
See also section 5.3.2.
There are 105 CODECs registered to use the JANET IP Videoconferencing
Pilot. During the reporting period 380 conferences took place, over
a total of 1290 hours.
VTAS is a JANET(UK) service that provides unbiased technical advice to JANET-connected FE, HE and Research organisations.
VTAS has maintained its schedule of product evaluations, most recently
examining the Sony® Contact 6000, VCON MediaConnect 9000, and Zydacron
OnWAN Z340TM. The evaluation reports, together with the testing schedule
and previous evaluation reports, can be found at:
http://www.video.ja.net/evaluation/index.html
One of the aims of the advisory service is to develop documentation
of interest to the JANET community. Version 1.1 of the document 'An
Introduction to H.323 Videoconferencing' is available at:
http://www.video.ja.net/323intro.pdf
The VTAS guide 'Data Sharing Within Videoconferencing' has been updated
and is available at:
http://www.video.ja.net/datasharing/
Work is continuing to facilitate the integration of the VTAS and JCS
helpdesk systems.
.
Further details about the service can be found on the VTAS web pages
at:
http://www.video.ja.net/
A Factsheet outlining the features of the service is available from
JCS.
JANET(UK) is responsible for administering the procedure for the approval
and commissioning of new and upgraded connections to JANET. This involves
liaising with customers to report progress on their new or upgraded
connections. All sites connected to JANET must fit the JANET Connection
Policy which can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/connection_policy.pdf
Requests for new or enhanced JANET connections should be made via JCS.
A list of organisations connecting to JANET during the reporting period
is provided in section 2.1.1. For information regarding current upgrades
or connections, contact JCS at:
connections@ja.net
Peering agreements with the following companies were reached and implemented during the reporting period:
Over the past three months JCS has issued seven new Sponsored Connection
licences and six new Proxy Connection licences. Further information
about Sponsored and Proxy Connections can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/connect/types_connect.html
There were a total of 12 'at-risk' sessions during the reporting period.
Activities that took place during this period included line card changes
to accommodate the SuperJANET4 upgrades and Internal Operating System
(IOS) upgrades to various routers.
The JANET/JANET(UK) web server continued to perform well over the quarter. The accessibility audit on behalf of JISC has been carried out and findings will be addressed as part of the ongoing work on accessibility. As part of the work on JANET(UK)'s business continuity plan, effort is being spent on the creation of a duplicate web server to be deployed elsewhere on the network as a mirror providing resilience.
Any comments or suggestions on the web server structure and page appearance
will be gratefully received and should be directed in the first instance
through JCS at
service@ja.net
JCS provides the primary point of contact for all enquiries concerning
JANET services and requests for information. Enquiries may be made by
telephone, e-mail, fax, post, or in person.
The number of enquiries received and logged by JCS in this reporting
period was 2060. As in previous quarters a large proportion of these
queries related to the Domain Name Service, sponsored and proxy connections,
general enquiries and JANET access/connection.
A total of eight complaints were received in this reporting period.
Of these, three are currently awaiting final resolution.
JCS is staffed from 08.00 to 18.00 Monday to Friday, with voice-mail available for calls outside these hours, and if staff are temporarily unable to answer a call.
During the next reporting period there is one UK-wide public holiday
on Good Friday (18 April). Easter Monday (21 April) is not a UK-wide
public holiday, so JCS will therefore be operating but with limited
cover from 09.00 to 16.00.
Enquiries may be made by e-mail, telephone, fax, post, or in person as follows:
| Email: | service@ja.net |
| Tel: | 01235 822212 |
| Fax: | 01235 822397 |
| Post: | JANET Customer Service, JANET(UK), Lumen House Library Avenue, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0SG |
During the reporting period, JANET(UK) produced the following documents.
Unless otherwise stated, paper copies of these documents can be obtained
from JCS, but please note that some documents are now produced primarily
for publication on the web and are better read online. If an electronic
version of a document is available, the URL is given. Electronically
available documentation is in HTML, PostScript or PDF format.
JANET(UK) welcomes feedback from the community on the usefulness of all documentation produced and encourages suggestions as to which areas require additional documentation.
Comments should be sent by e-mail to:
documentation@ja.net
Factsheets
Connecting Education: New JANET in Scotland
PB/INFO/027(02/10)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/factsheets/connecting_scotland.pdf
Technical Publications (update)
PB/INFO/008 (02/10)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/factsheets/technical_publications.pdf
Threats to Passwords
PB/INFO/025 (02/11)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/factsheets/threats_to_passwords.pdf
Unusual Traffic
PB/INFO/028 (02/11)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/factsheets/unusual_traffic.pdf
Using Passwords
PB/INFO/026 (02/11)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/factsheets/using_passwords.pdf
Video Technology Advisory Service (update)
PB/INFO/024 (02/11)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/factsheets/vtas.pdf
Working with the World (update)
PB/INFO/019 (02/12)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/factsheets/working_world.pdf
Newsletters
JANET(UK) News 21 December 2002
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/JANET(UK)_News/index.html
Service Documentation
An Introduction to H.323 Videoconferencing
GD/VTAS/005
http://www.video.ja.net/323intro.pdf
Introduction to Videoconferencing
GD/VTAS/004 Version 1
http://www.video.ja.net/intro/
Videoconferencing Audio and Video Equipment
GD/VTAS/002
http://www.video.ja.net/av/
Other
Annual Report 2001-2002
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/annual/report2001-2002.pdf
Document Request Card
NHS/JANET Architectures - a discussion paper for JANET(UK) and NHSnet
PB/CERT/002 (02/11)
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/nhs_janet_architectures.pdf
JANET(UK) Quarterly Report to the JANET Community
July 2002 - September 2002
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/documents/quarterly.html
National Information and Learning Technologies Association (NILTA)
14th Annual Conference, 13 - 15 October 2002, Hanover International
Hotel and Country Club, Hinckley, Leicestershire
JANET(UK) had a stand at the exhibition and staff raised awareness of the
JANET network and services that it offers. The presentations can be
found at:
http://www.nilta.org.uk/NILTA/NILTAconf2002presentations.htm
Connecting education: launch of the new JANET networks in Scotland,
28 October 2002, Stirling Management Centre, University of Stirling
This event was organised by JANET(UK) and the two Regional Support Centres
in Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council for Further and
Higher Education. It aimed to promote the newly procured JANET Regional
Networks and the potential of increased bandwidth, and to highlight
initiatives that involve FE/HE collaboration. Approximately 100 people
attended from both the HE and FE sectors, and presentations and demonstrations
focused on new and innovative developments in lifelong learning in Scotland
that involve use of the JANET network.
Briefing for Access Management, 6 November 2002, Trinity House,
London
A joint event between the JISC funded Authenticated Networked Guided
Environment for Learning (ANGEL) project, Universities and Colleges
Information Systems Association - Networking Group (UCISA-NG) and JANET(UK)
took place at Trinity House 6 November. Seventy five delegates attended
this conference. A report of this event can be found at:
http://www.angel.ac.uk/accessmanagement/061102_notes.doc
Network Access Conference 14 November 2002, Royal Society of Arts
(RSA), London
The conference provided an overview of the JANET(UK) Network Access Development
Area and the UK broadband market with a range of broadband 'last mile'
technologies currently available. The conference focused on network
access options and technology, in particular Asynchronous Digital Subscriber
Line (ADSL), two-way satellite and fixed and mobile wireless technologies.
Case studies on the JANET ADSL trial service, the JISC/JANET(UK) two-way
satellite trial service and UK Universities that have deployed and/or
trialled network access technologies were discussed. Presentations from
this conference can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/conferences/network_access/november02/prog.html
Association of Colleges (AoC) Conference 19 - 21 November 2002, International
Conference Centre (ICC), Birmingham
JANET(UK) exhibited in the main hall to raise awareness of JANET. Several
enquiries were made to the JANET Customer Service team during the conference.
Approximately 800 Principals and Senior Managers attended this annual
conference and exhibition.
Further Education Resources for Learning (FERL) 25 - 26 November
2002, Hanover International Hotel and Country Club, Hinckley, Leicestershire
The FERL Conference was attended by JANET(UK)'s FE account managers. This
was a popular event with college curriculum and Information and Learning
Technologies (ILT) staff and provided an opportunity for the account
managers to meet college practitioners. The programme covered a wide
range of topics and highlighted examples of current practice and future
developments. The conference was supported by a comprehensive exhibition
of commercial suppliers and National Learning Network (NLN) partners
including JANET(UK). Also featured this year was a 'Showcase' exhibition,
which demonstrated the activities taking place in the learning and skills
sector to support students with learning difficulties and disabilities.
Presentations from the conference can be found at:
http://www.ferl.becta.org.uk/display
Networking Strategy Workshop 10 - 11 December 2002, Holiday Inn,
Glasgow City - West
Delegates heard a wide variety of presentations covering updates on
the current status of JANET and the situations that JANET(UK) have responded
to during 2002. A session on the Freedom of Information Act, and how
computer services can help their organisations in this vital area of
data management was also held. Delegates also heard presentations on
SuperJANET5 followed by a questions and answers session. The final session
focused on the progress with school connections to the network both
in England and in Scotland.
The next meeting will be held by videoconference on 16 January 2003,
between 14:00 and 17:00. Further details on Video-TAG can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/video/video-tag/
The Training Section delivered six courses over the quarter.
The RSC Scotland North and East commissioned JANET(UK) to deliver Security and Router Configuration courses in Edinburgh on 1-2 October 2002. The same courses were also delivered to the RSC Scotland South and West in Glasgow on 29-30 October and at theUniversity of York on 13-14 November. A WebMaster course was scheduled to be delivered at the University of York, but low attendance led to its cancellation.
Details of courses and a timetable can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/training/
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/training/
JANET User Groups represent the views and needs of all users of JANET,
both to the bodies that fund JANET and to the providers of the network.
The JANET User Groups include those representing geographical regions,
those representing particular interest groups and the National User
Group. User Group meetings are usually held two or three times a year.
JANET(UK) also sends representatives to these meetings, as this is a good
way of disseminating information concerning the latest changes and developments,
as well as distributing recent publications. The meetings also provide
a forum for informal technical help, and discussion with people doing
similar jobs. Please ensure that your organisation is represented at
your regional user group, and that appropriate people know about the
various special interest groups, details of which can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/usergroups/
The main topic of discussion at the user groups during this period was the future of the regional user groups. Many of the groups felt that they would be better meeting as part of the Regional Area Networks structure. As a result of the various meetings the following decisions were made:
During the reporting period JANET(UK) attended the following user group meetings:
JANET(UK) also attended the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) Networking Group meeting on 22 October 2002.
Further details about UCISA can be found at:
http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/
This reporting period witnessed a similar pattern of incidents to the last. Reports of Nimda and Structured Query Language (SQL) worm infection continue to cause concern, as well as insecure mail relays and web proxies providing a route for third parties to send Unsolicited Bulk E-mail (UBE or Spam).
A large number of compromised machines have been identified connecting to suspicious Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels by IRC operators. Poorly configured UNIX systems then appear to be exploited to distribute copyright videos and music.
During the reporting period, the JANET Computer Emergency Response
Team (JANET-CERT) responded to 666 requests for assistance, 16 (2%)
of which involved only JANET sites, 539 (96%) involved both JANET and
other networks while 11 (2%) did not involve the JANET network and were
passed to other agencies for action. In the same period 36,952 informational
reports of unauthorised activity from the Internet were reported.
The JANET Security course was presented twice this quarter, in Edinburgh and York. This course is being rewritten and some of the new material was used in these presentations. Final reviews of the new versions are to be held early in the new year with the new courses being incorporated into the JANET(UK) training programme thereafter.
The Training of Network Security Incident Teams Staff (TRANSITS) training
course for Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs), developed
by the European CSIRTs task force and now funded by the European Commission,
was presented to members of European teams in Leiden in October. Feedback
from that presentation and from the previous UK presentation in July
has been used to update the materials for the next presentation to JANET
delegates in London in January.
A course unit on policing JANET and experiences of cybercrime was presented
as part of a High Tech Investigators' course at the Police Training
Centre at Wyboston. This series of courses provides valuable early contact
with police officers that are likely to be investigating crimes involving
JANET sites in future.
The East Midlands Regional Support Centre organised a one-day conference on Cybercrime and staff from FE and HE organisations heard about the practical and legal issues arising out of the criminal use of networks. JANET(UK)'s Chief Security Adviser talked about the impact of cybercrime on JANET. A member of the local police high tech crime unit spoke about policing the Internet and a speaker from JISC's Legal Information Service discussed the laws that apply to computers and networks. There were also opportunities for delegates to discuss their own concerns and problems in small groups, and it was considered a valuable day.
JANET(UK) also attended a Grid Security Workshop in Edinburgh, where the Chief Security Adviser spoke on the security threat to grid systems and the CERT Manager explained how CERTs could help to address security problems. Subsequent discussions indicated that the awareness of these issues had been raised and that there was a concern that they be addressed.
The Chief Security Adviser gave a presentation entitled 'Information
Services: Challenge and Opportunity' to JANET(UK)'s annual Networking Strategy
Workshop. This suggested that attitudes to computers and networks need
to change if they are truly to be a service, like phones or electricity,
but that such services are essential to achieve the policy and legal
aims of the next few years.
JANET(UK)'s work with the National Health Services (NHS) Information Authority has completed its first stage with the publication of a report, written by JANET(UK), proposing standard architectures that can be used to provide networked services to authorised users between NHS and JANET sites. At present such services are provided by ad hoc arrangements resulting in much repeated effort and wasted time. The NHS has now started a number of pilot projects to demonstrate the architectures in practice, with JANET(UK) observing on some of these. Once the techniques have been proven it is hoped that they will become recommended standards for JANET/NHS inter-working.
The legal issues involved in networking are increasingly complex. JANET(UK)'s Chief Security Adviser has been involved in discussions on the implementation of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, through both the Internet Crime Forum and direct discussions with the Home Office. A submission on the practical issues of implementation was made to the All-Party Internet Group's enquiry in December. An informal meeting to discuss network regulation was recently held in London.
Meetings have also been held with the European Information Society Group (EURIM) eCrime working group, the Information Assurance Advisory Council (IAAC) Cyberhood Watch project and the Office of the eEnvoy (arranged by the British Computer Society).
JANET-CERT has started collaboration within the European CSIRT (ECSIRT)
project. The aim of the project is to deploy new techniques to enable
the efficient exchange of incident data between CERTs. The project is
still in the preparation phase, and the majority of the effort so far
has been in defining a common language for use in the data exchange
based on the Incident Object Data Exchange Format (IODEF). Further details
can be found at:
http://www.ecsirt.net/
Each month a summary of recent security activity is sent to site security
contacts through the UK-security mailing list. Thirteen messages containing
new or updated security information were sent to the list during the
quarter including new vulnerabilities and 'Trojaned' code found in some
popular products used within the community.
Further information on JANET-CERT can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/CERT/
The Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA) was formed in October 1994 by the merger of the Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne and the European Academic and Research Network '…to promote and participate in the development of a high quality international information and telecommunications infrastructure for the benefit of research and education'. TERENA carries out technical activities and provides a platform for discussion to encourage the development of a high-quality computer-networking infrastructure for the European research community.
The TERENA Mobility group met in Amsterdam in October 2002. The group has set up a task force and is in the process of finalising a charter. JANET(UK)'s Network Access Project Manager has been appointed Co-Chair of the task force. The current focus of the task force is on wireless Local Area Network (LAN) access and mobile roaming. The task force is specifically focused on piloting general wireless access designed to enable access to the network of one organisation through the network of another.
Further information about the TERENA Mobility Group can be found at:
http://www.terena.nl/tech/mobility/
The group did not meet during the reporting period.
JANET(UK) continue to lead the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) project of the joint TERENA/DANTE Task Force Next Generation Networking (TF-NGN) through Dr Tim Chown of the University of Southampton. JANET(UK) and Dr Chown are also working internationally on demonstrating the use of the Less than Best-Effort (LBE) traffic class for bulk data transfer and simultaneous live User Datagram Protocol (UDP) based applications.
JANET(UK) will be attending the next meeting of TF-NGN, which will be
held in Rome in February 2003.
Further details about the TF-NGN activities can be found at:
http://www.dante.net/tf-ngn/
JANET(UK) staff and other members of the UK academic community are members of the TERENA programme committee for the 2003 European Networking Conference. This conference will be held in Zagreb, Croatia from the 19 - 22 May 2003. Much work has taken place on putting together a programme for this event and a preliminary programme is expected to be published at the end of January 2003.
The last meeting of the TERENA General Assembly was held in Prague during the last week of October. A mini symposium on authentication, authorisation and accounting took place prior to the General Assembly meeting. The symposium included some excellent speakers on the various aspects of authentication, authorisation and accounting. The General Assembly meeting discussed several issues including the format of its technical work and how the topics should be added to the work programme.
The final version of the compendium has been completed and TERENA is looking to work on the new version for 2004.
5.2.1.1 Broadband Scotland
JANET(UK) continues to provide consultancy to the two Pathfinder project
procurements for public service networking in the Highlands and Islands
and the South of Scotland regions. JANET(UK) has also been working closely
with the Spark project of the Scottish Executive Education Department
(SEED), which aims to provide broadband connectivity to all schools
in Scotland through the 32 local authorities. Spark and JANET(UK) held
a briefing seminar for local authorities on proposed connections to
JANET on 12 December 2002.
5.2.1.2 Welsh Video Network (WVN)
Funding has been confirmed for the continuation of the WVN Support
Centre for a further three-year period. The Support Centre provides
a single point of contact for support and maintenance for 90 videoconferencing
studios across the FE and HE sectors in Wales. All studios have both
ISDN and IP connectivity and are expected to be heavy users of the JANET
IP Videoconferencing Service.
Further information about the Welsh Video Network can be found at:
http://www.wvn.ac.uk/
5.2.1.3 The Lifelong Learning Network for Wales
Since the rollout of the Lifelong Learning Network for Wales (LLNW)
core was completed at the end of July 2002, 15 of the 22 Unitary Authorities
in Wales have been connected to JANET via the LLNW. Of the remaining
seven, one is waiting for routing, three are in the approval stage and
three have yet to submit requests for IP addresses. It is anticipated
that all 22 Authorities will be connected to JANET by the end of March
2003.
Some of the 15 connected Authorities have also completed the necessary upgrades to their local network infrastructure. This is phase 2 of the Welsh Assembly Government's LLNW rollout and will enable the Authorities to switch all of their schools, libraries and Information Communications Technology (ICT) centres over to the new JANET connection.
The RSC Wales has been instrumental in assisting the authorities with
the administration of their connections on behalf of Welsh Networking
Ltd.
As part of the European Procurement for equipment to support the JANET
IP Videoconferencing Service, JANET(UK) sought to procure a replacement
for the current videoconferencing booking system used by the JANET Community.
Unfortunately no commercial products were found to satisfy the requirements,
therefore the existing booking system, which was written by the University
of Edinburgh, will be reviewed with the intention of making functional
enhancements and improvements to the user interface. Subject to successful
contract negotiations, it is anticipated that these improvements will
start during the first half of 2003
See also section 2.8.1.
The streaming content demonstrator project has reached the stage where a call for participation has been issued, applications have been received and evaluated, and applicants have been informed of their success. A formal meeting prior to the start of the trial has been scheduled for January 2003 and all successful applicants will be invited to attend. Hardware for the end sites has been selected and procurement has begun. JANET(UK) continue to work with the Managing Agent and Advisory Service (MAAS), the JISC Committee for the Information Environment (JCIE) and the JISC Data Centres on this project.
Several enhancements are planned for this service during 2003. These
will include additional security for remote access to equipment and
DNS for equipment hosted as part of the service. Plans are also being
made for the expansion of the co-location service by opening additional
locations for the co-location of equipment across the UK.
Details of this service are available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/co-location/
JANET(UK)'s SuperJANET Development Programme Manager attended the Internet2
Member Meeting in October in Los Angeles and presented a summary of
developments on the JANET IP Videoconferencing Service in the video
session. The session also included talks on related activities in Germany
and Australia. A summary of the meeting can be found at:
http://events.internet2.edu/2002/Fall02-index.html
Network engineering (with an emphasis on optical networking,) and middleware
were followed up on as both are related to current UK activities, namely
the evolving UKLIGHT proposal and the joint JISC Committee for the Support
of Research (JCSR)/JCIE programme on authentication, authorisation,
and accounting for which JANET(UK) has recently been contracted to provide
programme management
The JANET QoS Development Project held its second meeting with partners (who replied to the Expression of Interest issued in April 2002) to discuss the way forward for deploying a QoS enabled infrastructure across JANET. Results of a risk analysis carried out by JANET(UK) were presented at the meeting along with an update on technology and instrumentation (analysing the traffic entering a network). The partners also presented brief reports.
Instrumentation is the first stage in implementing IP Premium (one of the QoS classes of services that has been chosen to deploy as part of this project), and has already started on the JANET backbone. JANET(UK) will be making use of the SuperJANET Development Network to test the later stages of the implementation of IP Premium before moving it to the JANET backbone.
Following the meeting, a document entitled 'JANET Quality of Service
Development - Positioning Statement' was produced by JANET(UK). This document
and further details of the JANET QoS Development Project can be found
at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/development/qos/
The JANET IPv6 Experimental Service has been running for a few months
and a number of applications have been received from the JANET community
to use the service and to request IPv6 address space. Details about
the JANET Experimental Service can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/development/ipv6/
During the last quarter, investigations into deploying IPv6 / IPv4 dual stack across the SuperJANET backbone were undertaken. As a result, testing is being undertaken by the JANET Network Operations and Service Centre (NOSC) and an implementation plan is being devised with the aim of introducing IPv6 / IPv4 dual stack during the second half of 2003.
The two native IPv6 peering arrangements between JANET, British Telecom's
UK6X and the LINX IPv6 infrastructure are currently operational. JANET(UK)
is a partner in a European Commission funded project called 6NET. The
aim of this project is to establish a pan European native IPv6 network
to gain practical experience of managing and implementing an IPv6 network.
The project officially began in January 2002. JANET(UK) has installed and
commissioned the 6NET infrastructure in the UK to provide IPv6 connectivity
to the UK Universities (University College London, University of Southampton
and Lancaster University) that are participating in this project. Further
details about the 6NET project can be found at:
http://www.6net.org/
JANET(UK) was represented at three recent workshops held at the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh. The topics covered were firewalls, managing access to resources on the grid and grid security. JANET(UK)'s CERT Manager and Chief Security Advisor gave presentations at the security workshop where they, together with JANET(UK)'s Network Strategist, participated in the ongoing debate on how e-Science activities will impact on the approach to security at both campus, regional and national network level.
Progress continues on the proposal to join international activities on optical networking with the submission of the UKLIGHT proposal to the JCSR. This would establish a UK point of access with connections to peer facilities at Chicago in the US and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The infrastructure would provide a small number of high-bandwidth, dynamically configurable channels, over which projects would be able to transport large amounts of data. JANET(UK) expects to get formal notification of the result of this bid early in 2003. Work has been continuing simultaneously to consider how potential project partners might be connected to this point of access by extending the JANET development network infrastructure in a suitable way.
JANET(UK) has also been represented at the recent Grid Network Team (GNT)
and Technology Advisory Group (TAG) meetings and took part in the review
of the Belfast e-Science centre.
The SuperJANET Development Network has been commissioned and is currently being used by the Managed Bandwidth - Next Generation (MB-NG) project. Information about the Development Network will shortly be made available on the JANET website.
JANET(UK) has been delivering an ADSL trial service to connect off-campus learning centres directly to the JANET network. The JANET(UK) Executive recently approved further developments of this trial.
JANET(UK) has produced a first draft of an Invitation To Tender (ITT) document for a JANET ADSL Service and a review of the proposed full service model is underway with the JANET NOSC to ensure the technical architecture and full service offering is manageable, scalable and resilient. Once the ITT is ready for distribution, a procurement panel will be formed and a procurement process will begin in early 2003. On receipt of the results from the procurement panel a proposal will be submitted to the JCN with a recommendation on how to proceed in terms of the provision of a JANET ADSL service.
JANET(UK) has produced a 'register your interest' web form for directors
of computing centres to express interest and likely demand for an ADSL
service. This form is available at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/development/network_access/adsl/register-interest.html
Further information about the JANET ADSL trial can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/development/network_access/index.html
The piloting of H.323 IP videoconferencing has continued across JANET. Indications suggest that all those participating in the pilot have successfully been able to use IP Videoconferencing to communicate between JANET sites. This activity has highlighted the need to prevent overloading and packet loss on the network path between the videoconferencing equipment and the main organisation access router to JANET. A particular problem that has arisen on numerous occasions involves an intermittent freezing of the video image during a videoconference. This can be caused by packet loss, however this has also been observed on lightly loaded Fast Ethernet connections. This problem was diagnosed as Fast Ethernet ports not being correctly set to 'full' or 'half duplex' or incorrectly set to 'auto-negotiate'. Manually forcing all ports in the network path to 'full duplex', between the videoconferencing equipment and the main organisation access router, has removed the problem.
A formal announcement of the service launch date is expected in January
2003. Further information can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/development/video/pilot/announcement.html
See also section 2.8.1.
JANET(UK), in collaboration with the JISC Satellite Working Group, has selected DC-Sat.Net as the preferred supplier for this trial and has concluded contractual negotiations. Both Gilat (for individual users) and Broadband Interactive (BBI) (for connecting local area networks) technologies will be trialled. The trial service will provide two-way connectivity to the Internet for participating sites.
JANET(UK) has been working with DC-Sat.Net to ensure that the necessary support services are in place for the trial, including a customer and technical helpdesk and access to content via a dedicated website area.
The first BBI installation took place at JANET(UK) at the end of October 2002 and is now fully operational. This installation was a test installation to identify the processes and information required to support the other trial sites. It is also able to monitor and confirm the connectivity of other BBI installations once installed.
JISC have appointed an independent evaluation team, that will be responsible for producing a report on the trial with recommendations.
Further information about the satellite trial can be found at:
http://www.webarchive.ja.net/development/network_access/satellite/trial.html
The Business Development Division is continuing to discuss e-Learning developments with the JANET community, and with organisations involved in aspects of the promotion, development and use of technology in teaching and learning.
JANET(UK) has been represented at events promoting the development of e-Learning in specific sectors including:
The Business Development Division as a whole is looking at the issues
involved in widening the JANET community. Discussions are continuing
with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) with regard to connecting
the Specialist Colleges in England as well as the Adult and Community
Learning sector. Teaching and learning issues are at the forefront of
negotiations in shaping all technical decisions.
The account managers continue to liaise effectively with the FE community and to build strong links with the JISC RSCs. Conferences and meetings run by the RSCs, The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTa) and NILTA prove useful forums to meet college staff, and the account managers have attended several of these events.
The account managers are involved in the LSC initiative to extend the
NLN programme to Specialist Colleges and Adult and Community Learning
and represent JANET(UK) on the Specialist Colleges ILT Implementation Group
and the Adult and Community Learning ILT Implementation Group. Pilot
projects to connect these two sections of the learning and skills sector
are currently underway.
The implementation of the recommendations of the McCrindle working
party on the governance of JANET(UK) is almost complete. The funding councils
are now members of the company and, with the exception, at the time
of writing, of the LSC, have nominated directors to the Board. The HE
and individual members of the company elected two directors to the Board
in December 2002 and a further director will be elected by the FE members
in February 2003. Further information can be found at:
http://www.janet.ac.uk/awareness/election.html
The following staff changes were recorded during the reporting period.
Leavers
New Staff
Further information on any aspect of this report can be obtained through
JANET(UK)'s general enquiry point, JCS. They can be contacted using e-mail
at:
service@ja.net
