Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP), UCAR Point of Presence (UPoP), Bi-

State Optical Network (BiSON)

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Marla MeehlUCAR/FRGP/UPoP/BiSON Manager

UCAR/NCAR2014-04-04

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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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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,

non-profit 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 non-profit 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

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• 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

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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) installations

• 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

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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 land circuits for redundancy– AHEC could land a circuit, e.g. MOE, at an alternative FRGP/UPoP

colocation facility to increase redundancy– AHEC may be able to partner with MSUD on their redundancy plans

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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

Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON)

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• 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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Expectations for fiber providers such as AHEC

• Someone to call if an outage has been isolated to AHEC fiber

• Access to staff to troubleshoot and repair

• Assume follow standard locating notification procedures

• FRGP/UPoP would request AHEC fiber via CU-Denver as the colocation provider– Haven’t asked for any fiber since initial 1850 to

1200 path

Mutual NOC contact• Review of NOC/Nagios procedures

– email aliases you would prefer be used– What names and numbers in what order

• For outage or urgent follow up issues:– please do not e-mail individuals, instead use

upop-eng@ucar.edu– NOC reachable at 307-996-4300

Discussion

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Any follow up questions or feedback?

Other items?