2012.4.15/7.3/7.5+/7.7

ARPANET had been in operation with NCP over ten years when we had the first research networks in Asia in early 1980s; ACSNET in Australia connecting a few computer science departments in New South Wells in 1980, N1net in Japan connecting major university computer centers in 1981, and SDN in Korea connecting two sites with TCP/IP protocols.[PCCS 1985] All of them were inspired by ARPANET Project.

ARPANET were extended to NATO countries including UK and Norway in 1970s [Kirstein 2009], but it was never extended to Asia or any other country in Europe. ARPANET started with NCP transport protocol initially in 1969.[Kleinrock 2010, Leiner 2003] ARPANET community realized on NCP’s limitation, and developed the datagram-based network with Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) in 1970s. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) was also developed. The transition from NCP to TCP/IPv4 took place from the midnight of December 31 of 1982.

Computer network developments started in several countries in Asia in 1980s including Australia with ACSnet in 1980, Japan with N1net in 1981 and JUNET in 1984, Korea with SDN in 1982, Indonesia with UNInet in 1984, and India with ERNET in 1986. Most of these networks supported UUCP protocol except N1net in Japan. SDN in Korea supported TCP/IP for its backbone in addition to UUCP. ACSnet supported the proprietary protocol called Sydney University Network(SUN) in addition to UUCP.[Kummerfeld 1985]

2.1 Australia

[from Kummerfeld, PCCS, 1985]

The Australian Computer Science Network began in 1980 when the first version of the Sydney UNIX Network software was developed by Pierre Dick-Lauder and the author at the University of Sydney. At that time, the network consisted of a small number of machines on the University of Sydney an University of New South Wales campuses. This work is described in Kummerfeld and Dick-Lauder. By mid-1983 the network had grown to cover many machines at Sydney and UNSW and a small number of machines on other University sites. The software then underwent a major redesign and rewrite with the current version (SUN III) being distributed in 1984. The network grew rapidly until it now includes machines in all states of Australia.

Initially network hosts were found in University Computer Science Departments, hence the name of the network. However, this has now changed and a large number of network ho0sts belong to other University departments, Government research group and Industry.

The Sydney UNIX Network software provides a message delivery service. Message may be submitted to the system at any node in the network and addressed to any other node; the software will provide reliable delivery of the message. Routing is determined entirely by the system, the user only specifies the destination address. Higher level protocols are available that use the message delivery system to provide services such as electronic mail, file transfer, remote printing and a news handler. New higher level protocols are easy to install and work is in progress on file server, remote execution, database access and directory server protocols.

The basic message delivery service uses a store and forward technique with the message being moved from host to host to the destination. The network is entirely host supported. There are no dedicated network node machines.

2.2 India

[by S. Ramani]

ERNET started UUCP email exchanges between NCST and IIT Bombay in 1986/87 and established TCP/IP connectivity between major cities in 1988. A TCP over X.25 connection was the first international link, set up in 1987. This connected India to the Internet through a router at CWI in Amsterdam. A TCP/IP link was commissioned to UUNET’s gateway in Falls Church, MD, in the US in 1988 using a dial-up link that worked round the clock. This dial-up link was replaced by an analogue leased line in 1989.

Inter-city connection within India took a major step forward in 1988, starting with leased lines connecting the ERNET Centre in Bombay with ERNET centres in Delhi and Madras. Links to other cities followed soon after. Initial use of these leased lines was for running UUCP, and in a year or two, Intercity leased lines of ERNET offered high enough bandwidth to run TCP/IP within India.

2.3 Japan

[From H. Ishida, “Academic Internetworking in Japan,” INET 1992 Proceedings[Ishida 1992]]

It was in 1984 when an e-mail/e-news exchange network called JUNET (Japanese University/UNIX NETwork) was initiated by a group of Keio University, Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo researchers. The group leader was Jun Murai(then with Tokyo Institute of Technology). We used telephone lines at 9600 bps and the UUCP protocol to link UNIX computers at the 3 institutions.

The dial-up JUNET was an instant success. The number of participating organizations increased rapidly soon afterwards. Not only universities but also industrial research laboratories began to join. This was an unusual combination of universities and industries in Japan where there are administrative barriers between universities and industries. JUNET was possible because it did not rely on government funds and it was operated completely on volunteer basis. Thus, it was an unofficial network with no recognition from the government.

In the meantime, the BITNETJP, an extension of the BITNET to Japan, came into existence in 1985 by the support of IBM (for initial 3 years) when the Science University of Japan established a 56 Kbps link with the City University of New York. This was the very first international internetworking in Japan.

Then in 1986, we started an international link from JUNET to the CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) in USA using a dial-up packet-switching circuit of KDD (Japan's overseas carrier)'s Venus-P (a packet switching service). In establishing the link from Tokyo University Computer Center to BBN in Boston area, it was fortunate for us to have the generous help from Larry Landweber of Wisconsin University, David Farber of Pennsylvania University, and Hideyuki Tokuda of CMU.

Then, Jun Murai (then with the University of Tokyo) initiated WIDE (Widely Integrated and Distributed Environment) network project in 1987 as a joint project between universities and industrial research laboratories. The WIDE corresponds to a leased line extension of JUNET and was the first true Internet in Japan which employed 64~192 Kbps leased lines and the TCP/IP protocol. With substantial help from Toben Nielsen at the University of Hawaii, WIDE established a 64 Kbps international link to the US Internet through Hawaii in 1989. Most of international mail traffic into and from Japan goes through this link now. It is also possible to use telnet and ftp services internationally in much the same way as in the US Internet. Thus, Japan became a member of the international Internet community.

[Figure 1 Main links between Japan and USA from Ishida's paper, INET, Kobe 1992]

2.4 Korea

In 1980, a research proposal to develop the first computer network in Korea was made to Ministry of Commerce and Industry of Korean Government, but it was rejected. A revised proposal was made to the same ministry as part of National Project on Computer Research and Development in 1981, and it was approved. An implementation plan was developed for this project [Chon 1981], and the network was named Software Development Network (SDN). Later, it was renamed as System Development Network.

The National Project on Computer Research and Development was based on the open systems with open source including the UNIX operating systems. The computer network research group at KIET carried out research and development on the computer network as part of the National Project. The TCP/IP protocols were selected as the base computer network protocols since they harmonized with the UNIX operating systems, and it is the open system with the open source in many ways. Other network protocols including UUCP and OSI were also supported. [Chon 1985c]

The major undertaking was the TCP/IP router development. The ARPANET Interface Message Processor (IMP) from BBN was not available outside USA and the NATO countries such as Norway and UK. The TCP/IP protocol development from scratch was rejected since it would take too much time and we were short of competent human resource.

We chose UNET [Borden 1980] from 3Com, the TCP/IP protocol implementation for Ethernet, rather than the TCP/IP implementation under the BSD. UNET TCP/IP could be ported to any UNIX operation system including System V and BSD without much effort. On the other hand, BSD TCP/IP protocols were machine dependent on DEC computers including VAX and PDP-11 computers. In 1982, with a substantial effort on the router development based on the UNET TCP/IP software, we managed to develop the routers based on the PDP-11 computers. The TCP/IP link between the PDP-11 computers of KIET and SNU with distance of 300 km was successfully launched in May 1982 with the initial bandwidth of 1.2 Kbps. This marked the birth of the TCP/IP network in Korea. Later in 1982, the UNET TCP/IP protocols were implemented in the VAX superminicomputers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). It was further implemented in the SSM-16 UNIX computer from Samsung [Chon 1985c], the commercial product based on the National Project on Computer Research and Development.

UUCP protocol was also implemented as the complimentary network protocol to the TCP/IP since TCP/IP implementation required much more computer and network resources. Moreover, the international TCP/IP links such as the one with ARPANET in USA were not available then. Thus, UUCP link was extensively used for almost all international networking as well as for many domestic links. [Wikipedia 2012]

Other network protocols such as the OSI protocols and PC communications were also considered for development and deployment. Notable examples include EAN [IANW 1985], X.400 message system from University of British Columbia, and the IP-to-X.25 of CSNET.

With the successful development of the TCP/IP networks with two nodes in 1982, we were ready to extend SDN to be the nationwide research network based on TCP/IP as the backbone network. In 1983, we added KAIST to SDN, and moved the network operation and management center to KAIST where we had the dedicated VAX as the SDN hub. In 1985, we had around twenty universities, national laboratories, and company research laboratories as the members of SDN. See Figure 2 on SDN Map.

SDN consisted of the following networks;

- International dialup network with UUCP

- X.25 networks with IP-to-X.25 of CSNET

- OSI network with X.400 and others

- Domestic backbone network with TCP/IP

- Domestic dialup network with UUCP

- Campus network with TCP/IP

The domestic backbone network of SDN consisted of serial line interface with 1200 bps in 1982. Later in the 1980s, the bandwidth was increased to 9600 bps or more. The international networks are either the dialup network with UUCP, or the X.25 network with IP-to-X.25. The leased line connection to USA was not realized until 1990 due to the USA policy on the restriction of IP connection to foreign countries as well as the high cost of international leased lines.

International connections for SDN had been emphasized since the inception of SDN. Dialup links to UUCPNET and EUNET were made in 1983 with the bulk of news sent by postal mail in magnetic tape in order to save the international telephone charges. The CSNET connection using dialup was added in 1984, and it was changed to X.25 in early 1985. The main applications in SDN were email including Korean language email, file transfer, virtual terminal, and USENET news. However, overseas links were restricted to email and limited news groups due to expensive overseas communications until the leased line Internet connection using TCP/IP was made between Korea and USA as part of Pacific Communications Network (PACCOM) Project in 1990.

[Editorial: add SDN Map]

2.5 Indonesia

[From Jos Luhukay UNInet, IANW 1986 Proceedings, [Luhukay 1986]]

Indonesian Inter-University Computer Networks(UNInet) [Luhukay 1983, Tedja 1986]

A. Aims of Indonesian Inter-University Computer Networks(UNInet)

The Network Laboratory at the University of Indonesia (NETLAB) acts as UNinet's development center. It operates the Indonesian UUCPnet country gateway: indogtw (previously known as indovax), which is accessible through international public switched data- networks (PSDN's). Currently all other nodes operate through the domestic public switched telephone network (PSTN). When a domestic PSDN becomes available, a number of UNinet's nodes may conceivably opt to use the X.25 protocol. At the time of writing, work is continuing to finish connection of the first 13 sites by the first quarter of 1987.

The gateway subnet runs at 1200 bps and is connected through dial-up PSTN. International connections currently use X.28 dial-up PSDN. Gateway-to-host links use whatever services are available locally on-campus: local-area networks, 9.6kbps direct lines, or modem lines through campus PABX.

B. Accessible Sites

Hosts connected over PSTN dialup lines in the first stage of UNInet are as follow:

- University of Indonesia, Jakarta

- Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung

- Gajahmada University , Yogyakarta

- Surabaya Institute of Technology, Surabaya

- Indonesian Open University, Pondok Cabe

- IKIP, Jakarta

- Hasanuddin University, Ujungpandang (Sulawesi)

- Bogor Institute of Agriculture, Bogor

- Directorate General of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Culture, Jakarta

- Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta

- National Engineering Laboratory, Bandung

- National Instrumentation Laboratory, Serpong

- National Technology Assessment & Development Board, Jakarta

C. Gateways to Other Networks

There are 3 UUCP gateways to other networks over X.28 dialup PSDN, i.e. :

USENET & most of other networks : seismo

SDN (South Korea): kaist

ACSNET & CSIRONET (Australia) munnari

C. Administration

UNInet is sponsored by and conducted under the auspices of the Directorate General of Higher Education (DGHE), Department of Education and Culture. DGHE is also the main source of funding for the development and operations of UNInet. Technical and administrative support is performed by the NETLAB at University of Indonesia.

D. Current Status

UNInet started with 3 sites, namely University of Indonesia (Jakarta), Bandung Institute of Technology (Bandung) and Gajahmada University (Yogjakarta). The first major development issue at this stage is to set up the proper environment for computer communications to find the best configuration. This often includes "mundane" tasks such as acquiring basic telecommunication services. Interest to join the network is high, although budgetary limitations often dampen the enthusiasm. The list of sites/hosts given above reflects those most ready to join. It is hoped that at the end of the first quarter of 1987, all 13 sites will be connected.

As of August 1986, 5 sites with 7 hosts are linked through UNInet. All links use dial-up telephone lines with 1200 bps modems. Cooperation with the Indonesian Satellite Corp resulted in free packet-switching on the international lines.

E. Future plans

Plans for the future include service expansions and improvements , namely:

a. The use of domestic PSDN as it becomes available. This will be used for a high-speed back-bone service.

b. Protocol improvements by adopting an international standard, in this case the CCITT X.400. Negotiations

with the University of British-Columbia (Canada) will be resumed to used the RAN software for UNinet.

c. Merging the "informal" services of this type of network with those which are more ''formal" in nature.

This includes batch-mode library or database accesses, requirements which are high on the priority list

of the Indonesian science & technology community.