Fife and Tayside Metropolitan Area Network

Development of FaTMAN-5

Key

RNEP1	Regional Network Entry Point 1 (located in Dundee)
RNEP2	Regional Network Entry Point 2 (located in Dundee)
PoP	Point of Presence (Kirkcaldy)
Leeds	The JANET backbone (SuperJANET5) connection point
Glasgow	The JANET backbone (SuperJANET5) connection point

FaTMAN-5

FaTMAN-5 is the latest incarnation of the Fife & Tayside Regional Network. During 2006 it brought our members the benefits of SuperJANET5. These are:

resilient connections to JANET (see below)
faster link speed into JANET of 2.5Gbps
access to bandwidth channels (supporting research projects which are big or involve network developments)

Funding restrictions mean that the full benefit of our resilient core network will be delivered only to our Higher Education (university) partners. However, our Further Education (college) partners may opt in later and will continue to enjoy full 100Mbps connectivity.

The University of Dundee is the Regional Network Operator.

News: Update May 2008

We have been fortunate to procure a new dark fibre circuit from Dundee to Kirkcaldy. This will allow us to separate FaTMAN/JANET and University of Dundee traffic. There will be performance benefits for the FaTMAN partners served by the Kirkcaldy PoP (Point of Presence).

Particularly welcome is the ability to provide additional resilience for all those connected via Kirkcaldy. This will be achieved by using Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) equipment so that multiple circuits can be connected across a single fibre. Although the cable itself remains a single point of failure, the circuits can be connected to different equipment at each end of the link. Then a failure of one of these systems should leave the other one running and the service in full operation.

FaTMAN-5 Connections to SuperJANET5

SuperJANET5 is a development of JANET (the Joint Academic Network) that provides connections between UK universities, colleges and research centres. Fast links to Europe and across the Atlantic give high speed connections to the Internet.

FaTMAN-5 has two separate Regional Network Entry Points (RNEPs) with separate and diversely routed fibre links to JANET.

RNEP1 connects to the SuperJANET5 Point of Presence (PoP) in Leeds
RNEP2 connects to the SuperJANET5 Point of Presence (PoP) in Glasgow

This will minimise the risk of any single failure causing a break in service. Even if a major loss of a building should occur it will be possible to implement a recovery strategy in a much faster time than with SuperJANET4 and FaTMAN-4.

FaTMAN-5 Technology

FaTMAN consists of communication circuits provided by Thus plc. Between the University members are open fibres. Dundee College is also served by open fibres with the other Further Education Colleges being connected by LAN Extension Services at 100Mbps.

The switching and routing equipment is from Cisco. For FaTMAN-5 there are two Cisco 7609 high-performance routers. Both have a variety of interfaces for:

2.5Gbps connections to SuperJANET5 via OC-48/STM-16 Optical Services Modules (POS)
1Gbps Ethernet connections to local universities
100Mbps Ethernet connections to local colleges
155Mbps aggregated connection for colleges in the Kirkcaldy area

Because FE Colleges have only a single connection, the router to which they are connected must be as resilient as possible. Therefore, the FaTMAN-5 router which serves FE has additional redundancy consisting of dual Supervisor modules and dual power supply units.

FaTMAN-5 core routers are housed in University of Dundee premises. They are protected by 60KW UPS systems providing at least 20 minutes of battery-backup with automatic connection to generator power if mains supplies are lost.

Initial FaTMAN-5 deployment

Before we had the dark fibre from Dundee to Kirkcaldy we used a single circuit running Packet over Sonet (PoS) at 155Mbps supplied by Thus plc.