Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP), UCAR Point of Presence (UPoP), Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON)

1. Front Range GigaPoP (FRGP), UCAR Point of Presence (UPoP), Bi-State Optical Network (BiSON) Marla Meehl UCAR/FRGP/UPoP/BiSON Manager UCAR/NCAR 2014-04-04 1

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. What is the UPoP? • http://upop.ucar.edu • The UCAR PointofPresence(UPoP) isaconsortiumofcolleges, K-12s, non-profitcorporations, governmentagencies, andnon-profithealthcareentities • These groupscooperateinanaggregationpointcalledtheUPoPinordertoshareFRGP services • The UPoPispartoftheFRGP

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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, CoreSiteAny2, and the Energy Sciences network (ESnet).

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

16. 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

17. 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. 4

21. 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

22. 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

23. Discussion • Any follow up questions or feedback? • Other items? 18