Internet & Peer Network Connectivity
Off-Campus Traffic
Paths
McMaster is a member of the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network,
ORION , providing connectivity to
Ontario’s research and educational institutions. This path enables the
flow of several different classes of traffic:
- ORION inter-member traffic
- Traffic to commercial Internet service providers located in the Toronto Internet Exchange (TORIX) and transmitted via an ORION VLAN (logically separate from ORION traffic, exchanged over the same physical network
- Peer-network traffic; ORION interconnects with a number of service providers to exchange traffic directly between them without recourse to commercial Internet paths
- CA*net 4 inter-member traffic; McMaster is a member of the national research network CA*net, provide by Canarie
- Intenet2 traffic, since ORION & CA*net interconnect with the US national network, and with European & Asian network
Members of ORION & CA*net are primarily the community of universities, colleges and affiliated institutions. Traffic on these networks flows between member institutions, whereas other traffic must travel via the commercial Internet path to sites on the Internet. (This is done automatically with no special action required on the part of the user.)
McMaster ORION & CA*net Bandwidth
The ORION network has a high bandwidth across the province, and McMaster’s
connection is at Gigabit speed (1000 Mbps), allowing high speed, high
volume traffic between members with fairly direct routing to minimize
latency, included in the cost of membership.
McMaster Commercial Internet Bandwidth
Commercial Internet traffic is a scarcer resource, much more expensive
than inter-member traffic, and hence subject to controls separate
from other traffic exchanged over ORION. Its routing between carriers
is more complicated, usually entailing many ‘hops’ before reaching
its destination. The ORION network is enabling access to additional
sources of less expensive Internet bandwidth in the Toronto market.
Cogent Communications is currently McMaster's primary Internet bandwidth supplier with 200 Mbps of bandwidth. TeleGlobe Canada provides a secondary supply in case Cogent is unavailable. Both of these are delivered over the ORION network using separate VALNs.
In order to manage Internet bandwidth on campus, a Packeteer packet shaping device is used to give lower priority to ‘recreational applications’ at times when there is not enough bandwidth to satisfy all requests.
Latency and jitter are two measures of wide area network traffic flow that are typically much worse on a commercial Internet path, than on the more directly connected research networks. Latency measures delays, usually due to busy routers at each hop along the path to the final destination, and jitter measures the variability in latency experienced by successive packets in a traffic flow.
Municipal Area Networking (MAN)
In addition to commercial Internet and ORION/CA*net inter-member
provincial, federal and international connectivity described above,
there is a need for off-campus connectivity between local institutions
at greater bandwidth than otherwise affordable using commercial Internet.
Transparent LAN Services (TLS)
This can be accomplished using a combination of Transparent LAN Services,
and peer connection between institutions (either directly connected,
or a common TLS used by the organisations). Since many Hamilton public-sector
organisations and businesses have chosen FibreWired Hamilton to provide
MAN connectivity, it is possible for traffic destined to flow between
cooperating FibreWired customers to be routed through their FibreWired
connection. Two examples of this are the HWIN community network described
below, and some Hamilton Service Providers affiliated with FibreWired.
Institutions with multiple campuses typically use MAN connectivity to connect distributed locations to a central networking site, which is in turn connected to external networks (often through a firewall to enforce traffic access control rules). This is necessary to effectively manage and troubleshoot networks, which would be extremely difficult otherwise with multiple points of external connection.
Examples of institutions which use FibreWired Hamilton’s large base of fibre optic cabling across the region include: Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph's Health Care which interconnect their hospital sites; both school boards, which link each of their schools to their respective board offices; the City of Hamilton; Hamilton Public Library, and McMaster University.
The McMaster University Downtown Centre (former Wentworth County Court House) is linked to central campus using FibreWired TLS (layer 2 switched vlans), as are CE&B staff located at 105 Main E. and at Henderson Hospital, MMRI staff located on Sandhill Drive in Ancaster, and McMaster staff at 51 Frid Street, logically extending the campus network to these sites as if they were campus buildings.
An example of direct connection peer networking exists between the Hamilton Health Sciences network (MUMC site) and the McMaster main campus network through each firewall, allowing specified traffic to flow without traveling via the Internet or FibreWired connections.
Community Based Network (CBN)
In 1994 the Hamilton-Wentworth FreeNet (now Hamilton-Wentworth Community
Network - HWCN) formed, and in 1995 McMaster provided a location for
equipment and connection to the Internet at reduced cost through the
ONet. The McMaster Consortium was born when the Hamilton Public Library
(HPL) joined in this Internet access arrangement. Initially HPL was
connected to McMaster with ISDN lines at 128 kb/s. Over 1995-96, the
school boards built internal networks, developed YouthNet and joined
the Consortium, along with the City of Hamilton, the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth,
the Wentworth Libraries and the Dundas Public Library (through the
HPL connection). In 1997, optical fibre was provided through Weslink
Datalink Corporation to connect McMaster, HPL, HWCDSB and HWDSB so
that high speed ATM links replaced the ISDN circuits.
Hamilton Community Net, with its mission as a "not-for-profit organization ensuring that members of the local community are able to participate effectively and equitably in the global Internet community", makes available inexpensive access choices, including high speed DSL service. For more information, see Internet Accounts.
The Hamilton Wentworth Information Network (HWIN) is the parent organisation through which non-profit community members explore the potential for cooperative services, such as the Consortium. With the advent of ORION, HWIN members were no longer be eligible to purchase general Internet bandwidth in conjunction with McMaster, as they were with ONet, so HWCN is now hosted by Hamilton Library.
The HWIN community network remains in place however, and facilitates interchange of data between partners without recourse to traffic over the Internet. One benefit derived from the HWIN members all subscribing to FibreWired managed services is that a physical link between members is already in place for their MAN connectivity, and hence a logical HWIN network has been implemented as a shared vlan.
Similarly community ISPs with connections to FibreWired are able to send traffic to HWIN members over another such vlan, keeping that traffic local and directly routed within the community without using Internet bandwidth.
Current HWIN Membership (2003-2004)
Service Desk
| Hours: | Monday - Friday 8:30 am - 4:30 pm |
|---|---|
| Phone: | 905-525-9140 x24357 (2HELP) |
| Email: | uts@mcmaster.ca |
| Location: | Main Campus BSB Rm. 245 |
| Service Catalog: | |
| http://www.mcmaster.ca/uts | |
Service Bulletins
- There are no Service Bulletins at this time