Fife and Tayside Metropolitan Area Network
FaTMAN Historical Material
FaTMAN is the first academic network of its kind in the UK to become
fully operational.
FaTMAN Developments
| FaTMAN-1 |
1995-1996 |
Initial configuration with
University of Abertay Dundee, U of Dundee, U of St Andrews |
| FaTMAN-2 |
1996-2000 |
Northern College joined |
| FaTMAN-3 |
2000-2002 |
6 FE members joined |
| FaTMAN-4 |
2002-2006 |
Connected to SuperJANET4 |
| FaTMAN-5 |
2006-on |
Connected to SuperJANET5 |
Northern College became a member of FaTMAN in 1995/6 but
was merged with University of Dundee in 2001
(at least the Dundee Campus was so merged -
the Aberdeen campus of Northern College merged with University of Aberdeen).
Glenrothes College and Fife College merged in 2005 to become the Adam Smith College.
Purpose of FaTMAN
The partners in FaTMAN have agreed to collaborate in many areas.
These allow many benefits of this new technology to be exploited
for the benefit of their institutions.
What is FaTMAN?
FaTMAN is an innovative high-speed computer network in Fife and
Tayside. The first phase of the project, which will provide links
between the three institutions using fibre optic cable, will cost over
half a million pounds. It has been supported by generous grants from
the Scottish Higher Educational Funding Council and the Joint
Information Systems Committee.
MANs in Scotland
There are other academic networks in Scotland:
- AbMAN
is the Aberdeen MAN
- ClydeNet
is the Glasgow MAN
(details)
- EaStMAN
is the Edinburgh and Stirling MAN
- FaTMAN
is the Fife and Tayside MAN
- UHI Millennium Institute has its own network covering much of the North of Scotland
All these networks have the same underlying goal of providing fast and
innovative links between universities and other Higher Education
institutes in Scotland.
FaTMAN
Of these networks, FaTMAN will have the longest open fibre link in
the connection from St Andrews to Dundee which is over 23km.
The total length of the network is nearly 48km.
It has a data transfer rate of 155 megabits per second.
This is the equivalent of transmitting 15 books per second.
Alternatively, it could carry about 15 live TV pictures (though new techniques are squeezing more and more TV transmissions into ever smaller channels).
The network uses Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) which is the
preferred basis of future networking. ATM allows many different types
of traffic on the network; this includes video, and telephone calls as
well as normal computer data.
It is particularly suited to modern computing based on multi-media presentations which require very high bandwidth and near-instantaneous delivery.
Service and Equipment Suppliers to FaTMAN
A new telecommunications company, Scottish Telecom, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Scottish Power, has won the contract to provide the
optical fibre infrastructure. Communications equipment has been
ordered from Chernikeeff of Middlesex and K-NET of Surrey.
SuperJANET
The SuperJANET network connects Universities and Colleges throughout
Britain. Like FaTMAN, it is based on ATM.
SuperJANET is a development of JANET (the Joint Academic Network) that
provides connections between all UK universities and research centres.
Fast links across the Atlantic and to Europe give high speed
connections to the Internet.
The new services will support additional ways of
working, involving video-conferencing, the "virtual library",
electronic publishing, distance learning, multi-media teaching and
collaborative research.
Scotland is leading the way
Dr Malcolm Bain, Convener of the FaTMAN Management Committee said "It is
widely accepted that the British universities network - SuperJANET - is
the most advanced wide area network of its type in the world.
Metropolitan Area Network developments like FaTMAN will provide the
development path for SuperJANET and, in this respect, Scotland is leading
the way in the UK. It is to the credit of managers of the computing
and network services in the three universities that such a network is now
under construction. This augurs well for the collaboration that will be
needed in the future to ensure that maximum benefit is obtained for higher
education and research from this investment."
LTDI Learning
Technology Dissemination Initiative.
LTDI links to MAN pages
FaTMAN-4 Technology (2002-2006)
FaTMAN consists of communication circuits provided by Thus plc.
Between the University members are open fibres which we currently
operate at 1Gbps (1 thousand million bits per second).
Most Further Education Colleges are connected by LAN Extension
Services operating at 100Mbps (1 million bits per second).
Dundee College is served by open fibres
The switching and routing equipment is from Cisco and is supplied by
Stiell Networks Ltd of Uddingston, Glasgow.
FaTMAN-4 Connection to SuperJANET (2002-2006)
The SuperJANET network connects Universities and Colleges throughout
Britain.
The FaTMAN-4 connection to SuperJANET is via 622Mbps circuit to
Glasgow.
LTDI links to MAN pages
FaTMAN home
Page prepared by Mike Whitehead.
Last updated by Mike Whitehead 17th April 2002
Background paper courtesy of
Gibson Grafx