Progress in The Silk Project

1
Progress in The Silk Project

• Peter Kirstein
• Chair, SILK Board

2
Overview

• The Background of the Project
• The equipment being delivered
• Current status
• The conditions for delivery of equipment
• Operations
• User and Technical Groups
• Sponge technical activities

3
Equipment Status at March 14, 2003

• Stations operational in Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyz
  Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
• Equipment in customs in Azerbaijan
• Equipment ready for shipping to Kazakhstan and
  Turkmenistan
• Waiting for a transmitter to be repaired
• National Research and Education Networks (NRENs)
  exist in most of the countries

4
Equipment at Each Site

• Kalitel-supplied, NATO financed, central hub and
  VSATs
• 5.6 m dish for hub
• 2.4 or 3.8 m dishes for VSATs (the 3.8m dishes
  are needed for Almaty and Bishkek)
• Cisco-supplied and financed LAN items
• A 7204 Router, and a 3524 Switch with 24
  interfaces
• A CE 560 Content Engine with 155 GB of disc as a
  Web Cache
• 2 IP telephones

5
Schematic of Equipment at each site
6
Bandwidth Plan
7
Pre-conditions for Eq Delivery

• NREN Existing
• AUP Agreed
• Licence Approvals
• Suitable site
• Suitable Personnel

8
Current Problems

• Siting of the E/s - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
• AUPs Armenia
• Licence - Armenia
• Existence of NREN Turkmenistan
• Shortage of B/w Georgia
• Number of E/s Kazakhstan
• Faulty transmitters
• delaying Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan

9
Silk Board and Exco

• Silk Task Force (STF) was appointed by Panel
• Silk Board (SB) is most of STF plus one/NREN
• Silk Exco membership agreed in SB
• Must be ratified by Panel

10
The Silk Task Force/Exco

• Sergey Berezhnev, MSU, Russia
• Jane Butler, Cisco, UK
• Hans Frese, DESY, Germany Panel Member
• Robert Janz, RUG, Netherlands - Consultant,
  SPONGE
• Walter Kaffenberger, NATO, Belgium NATO Panel
  Officer
• Peter Kirstein, UCL, United Kingdom STF Chair,
  SPONGE
• Ramaz Kvatadze, GRENA, Georgia Panel Member,
  SPONGE
• Askar Kutanov, AKNET, Kyrgyz Republic SciCom
  Member
• Ruben Mkrtchyan, ARENA, Armenia SPONGE xxx
• Rolf Nordhagen, UIO, Norway ex - Panel Chair
  xxx
• Zita Wenzel, ISI, USA

11
Silk Board - Membership

• Networking Panel Director Kaffenberger
• Networking Panel Chair
• Managers
• Panel Members
• NREN Representatives one per NREN
• Funders

12
Exco Membership

• Sergey Berezhnev, MSU NOC Manager
• Jane Butler, Cisco
• Hans Frese, DESY Panel Member, Technical
  Manager
• Robert Janz, RUG, Netherlands - SPONGE, Service
  Manager
• Walter Kaffenberger, NATO NATO Networking Panel
  Officer
• Peter Kirstein, UCL SPONGE, Chair
• Ramaz Kvatadze, GRENA, Georgia Panel Member,
  SPONGE
• Askar Kutanov, AKNET, Kyrgyz Republic - SciCom
  Member
• Zita Wenzel, ISI, USA - External Liaison
  Executive

13
The SILK Countries
14
Theoretical Rules

• Funded by NATO/Cisco
• Minimum equal facilities for each NREN
• Co-funded by NGOs and others
• More bandwidth for NRENs
• More earth stations
• Libraries, schools, etc.
• Advanced Facilities
• Staged implementation
• Installing equipment only when NRENs ready
• Staged upgrades

15
Current Funding

• NATO over 4 years - 2.5M
• Cisco Foundation Eq - 450K 50K
• DESY Manpower housing dish management
  Internet access 450K
• EC SPONGE 220K

16
External Discussions

• World Bank
• Soros Foundation
• US State Department
• Aga Khan Foundation
• NATO Military Medical Education
• EC - INTAS

17
World Bank

• Want Central Asia Distance Learning Centres
• Multi-way H.323 Video Conferencing
• Normally ISDN, need convincing on IP
• Want about 784 Kbps full duplex to/from one
  centre in each Central Asian site
• Hope to use up to 8hrs/day otherwise free
• Are arranging tests, could be done, would double
  SCPC for Central Asian sites

18
Soros Foundation

• Would fund centrally training, translation, some
  travel, some workshops
• Would fund nationally some B/w e.g. for schools
  and libraries
• Have concerns in some countries where relations
  with NRENs poor
• Feel should be entitled to some NATO B/w
• Looks very hopeful

19
US State Department

• Requested Proposal from Silk
• Proposed 150K, 2 Earth stations, small
  equipment, plus limited bandwidth
• Cisco agreed to match with routers
• Siting of E/s to be agreed with State
• Might well be Uzbekistan
• Initial reaction from State positive
• Should hear around June

20
Aga Khan Foundation

• Setting up Distributed University of the
  mountains
• in Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
• Need connectivity to each other and Internet
• Agreed to make presentation in June Meeting

21
NATO Military Education

• Had presentation in Istanbul
• Would like to use Silk to do distance courses
  with military centres in partner countries
• Courses look interesting and innocuous
• Might fund B/w but no commitment yet
• Cisco, Soros, World Bank expressed strong
  reservations because military
• Since meeting hear this would remove any
  co-funding
• May jeopardise even SPONGE
• Current decision any connection only via NREN

22
EC INTAS and Framework 6

• Only preliminary contacts
• EC can fund partner countries
• E 315M for 3rd countries under INTAS
• E 285M for 3rd countries under FP6, may have
  future infrastructure activity like GEANT
• Only infrastructure is FP5 digital library
  access
• Might use Silk for this, no communications
  funding
• Publishers are concerned about caching
• Have training activities via contractors
• Might be a joint User Group activity

23
Extending the System

• Have started talking to Kallitel and EurasiaSAT
  on further extensions
• Current plans with World Bank would have 24 Mbps
  DVB, 10 Mbps SCPC, Central Asian stations 1.4
  Mbps SCPC each
• Current transponder limited to 42 Mbps
• Current SCPC limited to 1.5 Mbps each

24
Preliminary Solutions

• First limit SCPC per station
• Could increase power very expensive
• Could increase dish size about 5K/ station
• Favoured solution, re-deploy existing stations
• Second limit transponder
• Should have additional transponder
• Might drop price for more bandwidth

25
Cost of Additional Bandwidth

• Have cut modulation from 16 QAM to 8PSK
• Needed to improve stability
• Assume 20 overhead charge
• Some discussion about level and what it includes
• Cost 2K/ Mbps month to remote stations,
  3.2K/Mbps month from stations
• Internet Access (1/0.33 Mbps) 3.1K/ month
• Video Conference (1/1 Mbps) - 5.3 K/ month

26
The SPONGE Project

• Started October 1, ends March 2005
• Partners ARENA, GRENA, Groningen U, UCL
• Minimal funding 11 mm for Janz and Kirstein, and
  travel for Silk purposes
• Extra support from Cisco
• So far Network Measurement S/w
• IP Telephones
• VoIP Server (will add conference mixer)
• Would like to be able to apply for small sums for
  ARENA and GRENA

27
SPONGE WorkpackagesWP1, WP2

• WP1 Administration and Management - PK
• Project Management. Relationships with Funders
• Q1 Progress Report available
• Had two Silk Board Meetings, established ToR
• WP2 Infrastructure Services - RJ
• Liaison with other projects, Dissemination on
  SILK project, assist Workshops
• Have set up web site, distribution lists, two
  papers, links to NOC data

28
SPONGE WorkpackagesWP3, WP4

• WP 3 Technical Activities - RJ
• Configuration, Measurement, Caching
• Have good measurements as seen from NOC
• Expect to have service level measurements
• No work yet on caching but will start soon
• WP 4 Personal Communications - PK
• VoIP, Video Conferencing and Video Streaming
• Have VoIP working well, with Ciscos donation of
  server
• Now dial out to Cisco/BT conference servers
• Will upgrade server to do own mixing
• Shipping equipment to all Silk partners

29
SPONGE WP4 Video Conferencing

• Some early work on H.323 conferencing
• In context of World Bank interests
• DESY, UCL and RUG have equipment
• All have 3-way mux, UCL 12-way
• Will provide simple equipment for SPONGE partners
• Low-end runs on any PC, needs small upgrades
• Expect to have some high end workstations
  available in Silk Countries through World Bank
• Mainly year 2 activity
• Will do some work with Mbone tools

30
WP4 MBone Video Conferencing

• Runs on any PC or other workstation
• Needs same upgrade as H.323
• Works differently, but more error proof
• Easier to multiplex, but needs more installation
• Again will first experiment over SPONGE
• Again year 2 work

31
Service issues

• Fault reporting
• Now NOC has 24 x 7 cover, is working better
• Has tracking and history system
• Will provide access to Silk Board members and EC
• Could provide them to Panel
• Will provide training in Russian
• Must provide for Cisco system support
• First year free with Cisco donation
• Proposed new NREN package, 210K/yr fee
• Based on 5M H/w, could include all installations
  in Silk countries including NRENs

32
Communication

• Webpages www.silkproject.org
• document store minutes, publications, manuals,
  papers
• Operations current status, historical status
• Soon performance, resource usage, caching
  statistics
• Distribution lists
• Silk taskforce, Silk board, Working groups,
  funders
• Regular News letter
• Future Interactive facilities support
• IP telephony (with advice on document store)
• Video conferencing (with advice on document store)

33
Training

• NATO workshops
• OSI support for NRENs and workshops
• CISCO Academy
• On-site training
• distance education
• Can provide specialised courses

34
SILK Groups

• Some SILK Technical Groups identified at SB2
• Caching, measurements, conferencing
• Hope they start next quarter
• No real User Groups started yet
• Expect to start next quarter
• Possible that other funding and ANWs can help in
  getting these started

35
SILK User Groups

• SILK User Groups
• Normally started by NRENs or Users
• Subjects of common interest
• Coordinated by Service Manager
• Possible examples
• Authentication for digital library access
• Distance Education
• Facilities for multimedia conferencing

36
Summary

• SILK System 6 sites by end of Q1 03
• 8 sites should be operational by 04-03
• Need to consider provision of ongoing support
• Discussions with funders looking very promising
• Potential problems from NATO military on policy,
  would scupper any outside funding
• Probably getting to 800Kbps transmit/site
• 20 Mbps shared receive at all sites
• If World Bank OK, Central Asia sites 1.5 Mbps
  transmit

37
Summary Continued

• If other bodies support comes through, will need
  to upgrade total system
• At least a further factor of three is achievable
• Technical activities starting on measurements,
  caching, conferencing etc
• Training activities need further planning
• Technical and User Groups need starting