"The ABCs of the Regional and National Network Initiatives"
Summary: We offer the following primer to clarify the often confusing "alphabet soup" of regional and national network initiatives.
- UCNet -- http://www.ucnet.net/
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The University of California Intercampus TCP/IP network (UCNet) connects all of the UC campuses including Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and the UC Office of the President.
- CENIC -- http://www.cenic.org/
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The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) represents most of California's higher education academic and research community and its mission is to advance the use of communications technology to enhance teaching, learning, and research at California's institutions of higher education. CENIC is now building CalREN-2.
- CalREN-2 -- http://www.calren2.net/
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The California Research and Education Network (CalREN-2) network will provide advanced communications services for all institutions of higher education in California, and facilitate access to a broad range of research and education programs throughout the state and the nation. CalREN-2's primary connections to the vBNS - one at Berkeley and one at San Diego - were completed in September 1998.
- vBNS -- http://www.vbns.net/
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The very high performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) is a nationwide network that supports high-performance, high-bandwidth research applications. It is supported by the National Science Foundation and MCI.
- UCAID -- http://www.ucaid.edu/
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The University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), which includes over 175 member universities, corporations and non-profit organizations, is working to advance networking in higher education via Internet2 and the Abilene Project.
- Internet2 -- http://www.internet2.edu/
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The major goal of Internet2, which includes over 100 member universities, is to rapidly transfer new network services and applications to all levels of educational use and to the broader Internet community, both nationally and internationally.
- Abilene -- http://www.ucaid.edu/abilene/
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A primary goal of Abilene is to support and encourage the development of advanced applications by UCAID university members and, in particular, to support Internet2. The Abilene Project will develop an advanced backbone network to connect regional network aggregation points, called gigaPoPs, being developed by UCAID members and is intended to complement existing research networks already being used by UCAID member researchers and educators. The Abilene network should be up and running in January 1999.
