Bringing increased network capacity to educational institutions across Northern Ireland

New organisation – new network

In order to meet the anticipated bandwidth demands of the Northern Ireland tertiary education sector, Northern Ireland Regional Area Network (NIRAN Ltd.) was set up by the local, further and higher education institutions. Formed as a limited company, its remit is to own, manage, and develop the new network in order to provide high-quality bandwidth for its member institutions to facilitate best use of teaching, learning, and research content available via the Joint Academic Network (JANET) and the Internet.

JANET is the private, governmentfunded network for the United Kingdom education and research community. All further and higher education organisations are connected to JANET as are all the Research Councils. JANET comprises 19 regional networks and SuperJANET, the backbone network that straddles the UK.

The United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association (UKERNA) manages the operation and development of the JANET  network under a Service Level Agreement from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK Higher and Further Education Funding Councils.

In June 2004 NIRAN, signed two contracts. The first was with UKERNA to enable NIRAN to serve as the local delivery agent of JANET services. The second was with ntl’s business division to provide the Northern Ireland network infrastructure that would  bring those services to colleges and universities. The ntl contract, including possible upgrades, is worth almost £3 million over three years, with potential to extend the contract for a further two years.

The case for the new network

Prior to 2000 there were only five Northern Ireland (NI) sites connected directly to JANET: two universities, two teacher training colleges, and one research institution. Historically the NI Further Education (FE) colleges connected to the  Internet in a fragmented fashion, each seeking their own route via a diversity of Internet Service Providers. In 2000 the Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) funded direct 2Mbps access for the colleges to JANET, creating a common wide area network infrastructure for the NI tertiary education sector managed by the single agent, UKERNA. The infrastructure marked a significant improvement on the colleges’ previous connections, which ranged from 128 kbps up to 512 kbps. However, as the years progressed and the NI JANET community became more sophisticated in its internal LAN infrastructure - driven by earmarked DEL funding - its usage of JANET/Internet increased exponentially. The increases in traffic within the NI FE and HE sector over a six-month period - from May 2002 to January 2003 -were roughly equivalent to a 50 per cent growth in bandwidth usage. More importantly, however, high bandwidth utilisation began to adversely impact network performance within several quarters of the sector and was beginning to hamper students’ ability to access content essential to their studies.

In practice, approaching 50 per cent of the FE colleges were saturating their existing bandwidth provision on a daily basis. IT managers were having to implement technical procedures to limit bandwidth-hungry services considered less essential to teaching and learning. The colleges not only had a problem with increasing demand on bandwidth, they had to expend resource to manage the existing bandwidth provision. More locally accessible bandwidth was required.

A true broadband regional network

It became clear that a way forward might be the creation of a true broadband high-speed regional network, as was happening in other regions across the UK. The DEL facilitated discussions regarding the possibility of developing a NI network along similar lines. A NIRAN Steering Group was established within the sector to help drive the project. Chris Kelly, the Northern Ireland Regional Network Co-ordinator for UKERNA, was detailed to work closely with the NIRAN Steering Group to help make the case for an integrated broadband network for all Higher and Further Education establishments in Northern Ireland – which would alleviate the strains that the existing network was experiencing.

A survey helped to determine the approximate connectivity requirements of each institution, in terms of future bandwidth provision. After a discussion process, there was a formal endorsement from Directors of each institution. Various other reports were also delivered to the sector and the DEL, which also required that a full economic appraisal be prepared on the project. It was only when this received full approval from the DEL and the Department of Finance and Personnel in autumn 2003 that a procurement process could start, according to the open Procedure of the European Union Services Directive.

After a stringent competitive tender process, the contract for the new network was awarded to ntl. ntl has worked with the public sector throughout the UK for more than 40 years and could point to an impressive track record for cost-effective and reliable service, including customers like Cambridgeshire County Council. In Northern Ireland ntl supplies most of the Belfast area links of the Public Service Network, which aggregates the bandwidth requirements of the various Departments of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. ntl has also provided a high bandwidth network for the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education (BIFHE) for a number of years connecting all the campuses around Belfast. The Institute gave a very positive reference on ntl as part of the procurement process.

The previous network had just one point of presence (PoP) in Belfast, the centre of the network. Distancerelated pricing meant that the Belfastcentric network had made circuits to the west of the province extremely expensive. It became clear from the Economic Appraisal that a more cost-effective approach - especially for sites to the west of the River Bann - would be a two PoP topology, with a second PoP in Derry, 80 miles north-west of Belfast. This meant shoter, cheaper routing for traffic from Fermanagh, Omagh other towns that now link into Derry.

The value of new technology

Working in partnership with NIRAN, ntl proposed an innovative solution based on the recently ratified Ethernet over- SDH standard, which was tested and approved on the ntl network before implementation. Brian Doran, Deputy Director at Newry and Kilkeel Institute of Further and Higher Education and Technical Director of NIRAN commented, “ntl’s proposal is technically sound on paper, and represents good value for money. The use of Ethernet-over-SDH is an innovative use of technology. It gives us the increased bandwidth that we want while keeping within our budget.”

This combined technology enjoys the best of both worlds - supporting high bandwidth Ethernet data applications, while retaining the resilience of the SDH network and allowing network monitoring. This more flexible solution virtually halves the in-life network costs versus a traditional SDH solution and meets NIRAN’s high-capacity requirements with appropriate bandwidths.

Another reason for selecting ntl was the company’s own well-established SDH network that links Belfast to Derry, curving its way around the province to take in the major provincial towns en route. That network is critical to ntl’s provision because it not only runs between the two PoPs, but provides service to the hub sites of the colleges on the NIRAN network, some linked into Belfast in the east and some to Derry in the west. The NIRAN Board is conscious that the new network straddles Northern Ireland, as opposed to the previous Belfast-centric one. By establishing a PoP in Derry, NIRAN is putting large bandwidth into the North West with potential to link up the more rural areas.

The new network

The new network went on-line in November 2004 linking 23 sites in total, including 16 FE colleges, Queens University Belfast, the University of Ulster, two University Colleges, the Armagh Observatory, the Department of Agriculture training colleges, and the Economic Research Institute for Northern Ireland. There is potential for other public sector organisations, schools and education-related enterprises, such as science parks, to be linked in the future. Chris Kelly comments: “The ntl team has been very helpful during the implementation process. They have listened to our technical requirements and been flexible when we have had to alter installation schedules.”

NIRAN links to the SuperJANET backbone network, and the global Internet, via a resilient route to Glasgow. Cross-border links connect NIRAN to HEAnet – the Higher Education Authority Network in the Republic of Ireland - through a Belfast/Dublin connection that provides extra resilience to NIRAN’s external connectivity.

Key requirements for the network were reliability and availability. The backbone network between Derry and Belfast consists of two separate 155 Mbps circuits providing a primary and back-up path for resilience. The diverse routing backbone was a particular benefit offered by ntl, given the importance of network reliability to users. This was strongly endorsed by the NIRAN Management Procurement Group, comprising NI tertiary education sector IT specialists, who helped oversee the selection process.

Faster access

Faster access encourages greater use of available services and the new bandwidths would be eagerly taken up. But while there is potential to upgrade bandwidth even further, the NIRAN Steering Group felt that they had incorporated a lot of futureproofing into the bandwidth requirements for each institution. It was hoped that NIRAN had done enough homework to ensure that these bandwidths would be more than sufficient for three years, if not five.

The Network Services team at Queens University Belfast (QUB) acts as NIRAN’s network managing agent and provides first line support for network users. Any issues with circuits and routers that cannot be resolved by QUB are referred to ntl’s helpdesk for priority customers and on to ntl’s Belfast-based team of engineers. ntl has worked closely and effectively with Queens University Belfast in expediting the rollout of the network.

“The QUB network team must be highly commended for their tireless efforts in helping to get the network up and running in a very short space of time. While ntl provided the infrastructure, QUB have actually configured all the routers and coordinated the switchover to NIRAN from the old circuitry”, observes Chris Kelly.

Encouraging take-up

All the institutions linked to the network now have the opportunity to use new resources and highspeed applications. Once used exclusively by the universities, JANET is increasingly being seen as an ‘education’ network. Now that the Northern Ireland network is online, there is no part of the UK that is not covered by a regional network within the context of the UK-wide JANET network.

“The new network will provide a boost to the whole of the tertiary education sector in Northern Ireland. ntl’s innovative and cost-effective solution provides us with the bandwidth we need today with the ability to scale to meet foreseeable needs for the next three to five years. It will help us to develop and deliver a new generation of education resources and services such as multimedia streaming and video conferencing to enhance learning, training and collaborative research,” comments Nigel Macartney, Director of Information Services at the University of Ulster and Chair of NIRAN.

Among the web-based projects that are already benefiting from the new network are The Northern Ireland Integrated Managed  Learning Environment (NIIMLE) and the Northern Ireland Common Information System (NICIS). NIIMLE is a co-operative Further and Higher Education project that provides a regional web portal to a range of services. The aim is to encourage students to see Further and Higher Education in a more coherent and unified way and find out about the choice of courses and progression routes across the tertiary sector. Where FE colleges previously had 2 Mbps circuits; now they have 10 Mbps, 34 Mbps or even 100 Mbps.

The Antrim Campus of the North East Institute of Further and Higher Education where NICIS is managed has immediately put the higher bandwidth allocation (from 2 Mbps to 34 Mbps) to good use with a co-operative project being rolled out across the further education sector. This web-based management information system will reduce the level of administration in the areas of academic courses and student management, human resources, and payroll and estate management. It is also designed to deal with the latest developments in education such as funding, performance indicators and course planning.

Newry Institute

Gerard NcVeigh, Network Manager at Newry Institute, was looking forward to the advent of NIRAN. He explains: “The final year of the BA modern studies degree is delivered by the University of Ulster, using Newry and Kilkeel Institute premises. One of these modules is delivered using video conferencing facilities. We had experienced problems facilitating this using the old 2 Mbps connection through lack of sufficient bandwidth. The move to the new NIRAN 34 Mbps link has eliminated this shortfall now that the circuit has been replaced and staff and students can concentrate on the content rather than be concerned about the means of delivery.”

Stranmills University College

At Stranmillis University College - which specialises in teacher training - information and communication technologies play an important part in the curriculum. Bandwidth to the Belfast PoP has been increased fivefold and Charles Reid, IT Services Manager, is noticing the difference: “Upgrading from our existing 2 Mbps circuit to our new NIRAN 10 Mbps connection has removed the traffic bottleneck which previously slowed our TALIS library system access at peak times. The extra capacity has also proved useful in supporting rapidly rising e-learning activity across the College.”

East Antrim Institute

of Further and Higher Education Michael Kane, the IT Manager at East Antrim Institute of Further and Higher Education immediately appreciated the improved network performance. “I accessed my college web-based email from home last night and the performance was amazing. Usually there is a five to 10 second delay in showing the emails. Now it’s instant - even my large graphic emails appear just as if I was accessing them from within the college. I also tried remote desktop from home, once again - amazing performance. It was very impressive. The introduction of NIRAN is going to provide students and staff with a faster, more enjoyable online experience.”