Aberdeen Metropolitan Area Network

AbMAN Information

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History of AbMAN

Introduction to MANs

A MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) is a network that interconnects users with computer resources in a geographic area such as the interconnection of networks in a city into a single larger network. The benefits of a MAN include the rapid transmission of data between connected sites, shared high performance computing capability, use of videoconferencing for teaching, real-time playback of audio items and multimedia rich, flexible on-line training material. AbMAN provides this concept for the educational and research establishments in the Aberdeen area. For eligible institutes, AbMAN provides Internet access by the JANET network. Universities in the UK have historically always been at the forefront of data communication networks. Back in the 1970's and early 1980's Universities were beginning to experiment with electronic links to each other. This culminated with the formation, in 1984, of the Joint Academic NETwork, or "JANET", which was a national backbone network created out of the previously separate networks. By the late 1980's over 200 Universities and Colleges were connected to JANET and, in 1991, JANET was connected to the Internet. JANET has undergone a number of upgrades, moving from X.25 and Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocols to the Internet Protocols and migrating through various technologies culminating with the latest incarnation, SuperJANET5.

History of AbMAN

This is a brief description of how today's Aberdeen Metropolitan Area network evolved, the current configuration, and possible developments.  

AbMAN has developed in several phases. The first phase, in 1995, involved the University of Aberdeen, the Robert Gordon University, Northern College and the Macaulay Institute. Fibre optic cables were provided by Thus from the Edward Wright building to the other institutes and between the institute's campuses, for example from Old Aberdeen to Foresterhill.The initial Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) technology was soon replaced by Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), the then emerging technology for the development of MANs or large campus networks.  

For Phase II in 1996, more fibre optic cable was provided by Thus and the Rowett Research Institute, Scottish Agricultural College, Aberdeen College, Marine Laboratory, Innovation Centre and the Aberdeen Science and Technology Park joined the network. Physically, AbMAN consisted of a star network centred on the University of Aberdeen. The technology used was ATM on Cisco routers running at 155Mbps over mono mode fibre optic cable with a central Fore ATM switch. ATM has the ability to reserve bandwidth for various types of traffic. Between the Scottish Universities a very successful ATM based video conferencing system was developed. The network was also used for a telephony link between the Northern College's Aberdeen and Dundee campuses.  

Risk analysis of the network and in particular the link to JANET resulted in a second access point being provided in 1999, remote from the first but connected to it. The reliability of the initial network however was such that this second link was rarely used. Full resilience within AbMAN was not developed.  

In 2002 work started on phase III, in step with the SuperJANET4 extension to AbMAN. With this, the Scottish ATM network was replaced. The JANET connections into Aberdeen were reduced to a single connection but increasing in bandwidth from two 155Mbps circuits to one at 622Mbps. AbMAN phase III became a simple star network again with Foundry routers used to provide 1Gbps Ethernet over the fibre optic cables replacing ATM. Aberdeen City Council became another organisation to be connected by fibre optic cable and   the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Banchory and the Banff and Buchan College at Fraserburgh were connected to AbMAN using leased managed circuits.

To provide again for resilience, in 2005 a secondary star network was created, centred on Aberdeen University's Foresterhill site, connected by 1 Gbps fibre to the primary network and by a LES100 circuit to Glasgow. LES100 circuits were used to connect AbMAN sites to the secondary network.

With the introduction of SuperJANET5 in 2006/2007, dual 2.5 Gbps connectivity was provided by JANET with one link between Edward Wright and Leeds and a second between Foresterhill and Glasgow. The AbMAN leased LES100 to Glasgow was discontinued and the link between the primary and secondary star networks upgraded to 10 Gbps. The Foundry site routers were replaced by Cisco equipment. The communication technology was IPv4 and IPv6 Ethernet, albeit still running over the same fibre-optic cables that had been installed over a decade previously.

AbMAN, as an existing high capacity network across the City of Aberdeen, has the potential to support future developments across the City - linking public and private sector organisations alike in a collaborative venture.