From: pte900@jatz.aarnet.edu.au (Peter Elford)
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus,aus.aarnet
Subject: Re: US-AUS net link is lousy.  Cure?
Date: 18 Dec 1992 07:25:33 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: aus
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Robert Marks (bobm@agsm.unsw.oz.au) wrote:
: I'm sending this by telnetting to a machine in Sydney from one in the San
: Francisco Bay Area.  But for the last few days the link has been dropping out
: more and more frequently, which means I'll be lucky to finish this.  This
: must be affecting others adversely too.  Any ideas on causes, cures? (Geoff?)
: It's almost become unacceptable, rather than just inconvenient.

What's the cause ? That one is easy. You - the users. In June 1991 there 
were some 25,000 connections to AARNet - in October this year there were
56,000 connections. This growth has ocurred in the university campuses
where considerable sums of money (much more than is being spent on AARNet)
are being used to upgrade the campus networks, extend them to more and more
users and improve the devices on peoples desktops. At the same time, user
support sections are running courses to educate people on how to make
better use of their computer and networked resources, and deploying more
and more powerful utilities such as WAIS, gopher and archie that increase
the intensity of the average network client's use of the network.

These are all very good things ... but the net result is exponential growth
in network traffic. This can be accomodated by increasing funding (linearly)
to match this growth with timely upgrades of key links, in this case the
critical international link to the USA. At AARNet we have tracked this growth
and identified when link upgrades are required (see graphs in aarnet.edu.au:
pub/usage/trends). Note that unlike a phone system which just does not give
a dial tone when it is overloaded, a data network like AARNet allows 
additional users on, and as a net result *ALL* users suffer. As load increases
data packets get dropped and have to be retransmitted further increasing
congestion.

What can be done ? Upgrade the US link. To do this requires money and the
agreement of those that control the network - the Vice Chancellors. Although
recommendations have been advanced for an upgrade of the existing 512K link
this year, the current plan is an upgrade to 768K (still on satellite) in
March with a further upgrade to T1 (1.54M) on fibre in August. This program
of upgrades is guided more by cost constraints than engineering demand (see
AARNet Business plan in aarnet.edu.au:pub/doc - latest budget and upgrade
plan has changed considerably from this document - the arguements are the
same).

Operationally, our hands are tied. We need more money and a faster more
reactive decision making process. Fundamentally, the VC's need to be
convinced of the value of the network, and the need to increase funding
for it.

--
Peter Elford,                             e-mail: P.Elford@aarnet.edu.au
Network Co-ordinator                      phone: +61 6 249 3542
Australian Academic Research Network      fax:   +61 6 249 1369
c/o, Computer Services Centre             pager: +61 6 245 3035
Australian National University            post: GPO Box 1142     
Canberra, AUSTRALIA                             Canberra ACT 2601
Newsgroups: aus.netstatus