Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP),
UCAR Point of Presence
(UPoP), Bi-State Optical
Network (BiSON)
Marla Meehl
UCAR/FRGP/UPoP/BiSON Manager
UCAR/NCAR
2014-04-29
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Acronym soup
• University Corporation for Atmospheric
Research (UCAR; http://www.ucar.edu)
– National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR)
– Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP)
– UCAR Point of Presence (UPoP)
– Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON)
• Questions and discussions throughout as needed – and as for
acronym soup ingredients, please ask if I miss one or check
decoder page at http://bit.ly/acronym-soup
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Colorado Network History
• NSFnet national network
• Funded by the National Science Foundation
(NSF)
• Operated mid-1980s to 1995
• Encouraged creation of regional networks to
aggregate
• Westnet (Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico,
and Utah)
• Operated and managed by Colorado State University
and the University of Colorado
• 56Kbps, T1, to T3
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Colorado Network History –
Cont’d
• Very high-speed Backbone Network Service
(vBNS) funded by the NSF to connect the
supercomputer centers including NCAR
• OC-3 (155Mbps) to OC-12 (622Mbps)
• Left out universities and other entities
• Internet2 formed and created the Abilene
Network – 1999
• Formed by 34 member universities
• Still in operation with a 100Gbps backbone
• Own fiber for expansion
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Abilene,
Kansas
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Colorado Network History – Cont’d
• National LambdaRail (NLR), Inc.
• Founded in 2003 and operational in 2004
• 14 members formed including the FRGP
• Owned 12,000 mile national Level3 fiber optic
footprint
• In November 2011 the control of NLR was
purchased from its university membership by
billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong for $100M
• His intention to upgrade NLR infrastructure and
repurpose portions of it to support an ambitious
healthcare project
• The upgrade never took place. NLR ceased
operations in March 2014
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Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP)
• http://www.frgp.net
• The FRGP enables advanced scientific
research and education, supports
experimental and production networks,
fosters networking and application
research, and facilitates interconnectivity
among regional, national, and international
high-performance research and education
networks.
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What is the FRGP?
• For over 14 years, the FRGP has advanced
the research and educational goals of
government, nonprofit, and educational
members in the region by establishing and
maintaining a unique multi-state network
infrastructure that is owned and controlled
by the FRGP member research and
education community.
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What is the FRGP – Cont’d
• The FRGP is a consortium of Universities, nonprofit corporations, government agencies,
secondary members, and the UCAR Point of
Presence who cooperate as part of a Regional
Optical Network (RON) in order to share wide
area networking services including the
commodity Internet, Internet2, intra-FRGP, and
peering connectivity.
• UCAR provides the management, engineering,
and network operations center support for the
FRGP and UPoP.
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What is the UPoP?
• http://upop.ucar.edu
• The UCAR Point of Presence (UPoP) is a
consortium of colleges, K-12s, non-profit
corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit health care entities
• These groups cooperate in an aggregation point
called the UPoP in order to share FRGP services
• The UPoP is part of the FRGP
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Current FRGP members - 12
• Colorado School of Mines
• Colorado State University System
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (Boulder)
• State of Colorado
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
(UCAR/NCAR)
• University NAVSTAR Consortium (UNAVCO)
• University of Colorado Boulder
• University of Colorado Colorado Springs
• University of Colorado Denver
• University of Denver
• University of Northern Colorado
• University of Wyoming
Current UPoP members - 20
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Auraria Higher Education Center
ARTstor
Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
Colorado Community College System
City of Boulder
City and County of Denver
Colorado Department of Higher Education
Colorado Mountain College
Colorado Telehealth Network
Community College of Denver
Denver Health
Educational Access Gateway Learning Environment Network
Fort Lewis College
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Open Media Foundation
St. Mary’s Academy
Science and Technology in Atmospheric Research (STAR) Institute
United States Antarctic Program
University Information Systems (CU system)
University of Colorado Hospital
FRGP/UPoP Benefits
• FRGP and UPoP members typically enjoy reduced
costs, shared expertise, shared services,
increased buying power, and economies of scale.
• Aggregated and direct intra-member network
access
– This includes access to all members, secondary
connections behind primary FRGP/UPoP members
• Direct peering connections including Comcast,
Google, CoreSite Any2, and the Energy Sciences
network (ESnet).
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FRGP/UPoP Benefits
• Access to multiple commodity Internet service providers
at 10Gbps offering resiliency and diversity
– TeliaSonera and Level3
• Traffic aggregation and FRGP membership in The Quilt,
Inc. provide cost savings for commodity Internet services
• The FRGP also participates in the commercial network
peering program known as TransitRail (TR) / Commercial
Peering Service (CPS) managed by Internet2
– Designed to improve network performance through
peering relationships with commercial networks to help
members reduce the overall cost of, and reliance on,
commodity Internet transit services.
– Carries 30-50% of FRGP/UPoP traffic
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FRGP/UPoP Benefits
• Provides caching services as part of the Akamai
and Netflix (carrying ~7Gbps)
• Provides connectivity to the Internet2 network
– Either directly for Internet2 members or qualifying
community anchor institution via the US UCAN program
(formerly known as SEGP)
– 50Gbps to Chicago
– 10Gbps to Salt Lake City
– 10Gbps to Los Angeles
– 100Gbps upgrade in progress
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FRGP/UPoP Traffic
• FRGP/UPoP Traffic (excludes caching and
intra-FRGP)
– ~14% commercial IP transit (Level3 and TSIC)
– ~60% peering (ESnet, Google, TR/CPS, Any2)
– ~26% Internet2
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FRGP/UPoP Benefits
• Has supported a doubling in traffic growth every
2-3 years since inception
• Currently serves approximately one million users
whose organizations participate in our research
and education community in Colorado and
Wyoming
• Multiple locations to terminate circuits for
redundancy
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FRGP/UPoP New members
• Initial request to Marla or Jeff at UCAR
• Reviewed internally
• FRGP members are approved by the FRGP
Management Committee (FMC) and then
the UCAR President’s Council
• UPoP members are approved by the UCAR
President’s Council
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Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON)
• The Bi-State Optical Network, or BiSON, is a
collaboration of research and educational
institutions in Colorado and Wyoming that
utilize fiber optic links for high-speed optical
networking
• BiSON members receive robust, redundant
access to regional and Wide Area Network
(WAN) services.
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Discussion
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Any follow up questions or
feedback?
Other items?
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