JuNet

JSC is responsible for the design, operation and development of the campus network JuNet and the analysis and deployment of new communication techniques.
JuNet is one of the major building blocks of JSC for offering Supercomputer Resources to the scientific community at FZJ and NIC. In this context, the testing and exploration of upcoming communication standards, protocols, services, device types and features is one of JSC's Division of Communication Systems main activities.
This is often done in cooperation with manufacturers of network equipment, e.g. during Beta-Tests or Early-Field-Tests. The information gained, concerning topics like access control, traffic filtering and shaping, Quality of Service or high availability, is used for further development and optimization of the campus network.

Technical Overview

JuNet at its present state is mainly based on a Gigabit Ethernet backbone built in a star topology. By deploying more than 50 switches and routers (mainly Catalyst 6500 multilayer backbone- and server-switches at JSC and Catalyst 4000 access-switches at the departments) as well as dedicated management and monitoring devices, JuNet is a state of the art network for more than 10.000 participants of different operating systems and protocols at the campus.
Although Ethernet at different speeds (10/100/1000 MBit/s) ist the main transport technique and even first test with 10 Gigabit Ethernet equipment of different vendors have already been accomplished, JSC has a lot of knowledge in planning, deploying and management of different network technologies and protocols. This is based on the networking history at the Research Centre Juelich as well as JSCs participation in research projects and Beta- and Early-Field-Tests. Examples of this are ATM (Classical IP and LANEmulation with speeds up to OC48 (2.4 GBit/s)), FDDI (the former JuNet backbone technology) and HiPPI (Supercomputer coupling).
The rapidly growing wireless part of JuNet, W-JuNet, based on the IEEE standards 802.11b and 802.11g, has been designed as a secure and access controlled extension to the cable based JuNet.
Build up of more than 100 Access-Points, W-JuNet covers at this time, demand dependent, only parts of the campus. It operates at 2.4 GHz and achieves transfer rates of 11 / 54 MBit/s. For security reasons W-JuNet is treated as an external network with an dedicated mechanism of access control that is easy to handle even for guests and participants of conferences at the Research Centre.
At the access layer JSC is cooperating with the FZJ's departments B (installation of the fixed cabling inside the departments) and ZEL (patch cabling and hardware support).
last change 05.04.2004 | Thomas Eickermann | Print