AARNet

The AARNet network as at October 1993

AARNet was initially built between the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, where the international Internet feed initially landed, and university and CSIRO facilities in all Australian state capital cities and the Australian National University in Canberra. AARNet was formed in 1989 by the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC).

In 1989, Kevin Robert Elz established the first permanent Internet feed to Australia, at the University of Melbourne. Until this time, researchers within Australia had limited access to the ARPANET, due to the high expense of providing communications between Australia and the United States. The national network infrastructure generally consisted of groups of hosts connected throughout the country exchanging mail and files on a periodic schedule using the SUN3 software and protocols, with several international dial-up links around the country exchanging this information where required.

AARNet was initially built as a multi-protocol network, comprising Internet Protocol (IP) as well as DECnet and X.25 so as to accommodate pre-existing ACSnet and SPEARnet systems then in current use. With the rapid subsequent growth in popularity of the Internet, AARNet soon evolved into an IP-only network. In 1988, there were a number of popular network protocols, such as IBM's SNA and the CCITT's X.25, and the ARPANET's IP protocol was only beginning to become favoured. Australian National University staff members Geoff Huston and Peter Elford were seconded by the AVCC in 1989 and tasked with technical management and build of the new network.[5]

AARNet introduced its 'value added reseller' program to allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to use its network, the first being Connect.com.au in May 1994.[4] AARNet gradually became a wholesale backbone ISP, serving over 300 smaller ISPs by June 1995. At that point, about 20% of total AARNet traffic was from these other users, and AVCC decided to sell the AARNet commercial assets to Telstra, who currently operates it under the name Telstra Internet.

In early 1997, AARNet2 went into service, a network that used ATM links and Internet services under a contract with Cable & Wireless Optus (CWO), now Optus. AARNet became a separate company from the AVCC in 1999.

In 2001 AARNet deployed its own international capacity by acquiring 310 Mbit/s of capacity from Sydney via Hawaii to Seattle. As of 2006, the current network is known as AARNet3, and the backbone uses a dark fibre network provided by Nextgen Networks.

The AARNet international network as at September 2013, showing onward connections to peer NREN networks

Major milestones in the development of AARNet include:[1][2][6]

Key milestones in the creation of the Internet in Australia

AARNet1 (1989–1997): Australia's first Internet:[2]

• AARNet-operated layer 3 routers; one PoP per capital city
• national backbone: carrier-provided (Telstra) inter-PoP transmission capacity
• carrier-provided trans-Pacific transmission capacity
• AARNet1 sold to Telstra in 1995

AARNet2 (1997–2006): Fostered the building of Optus' ATM and Optus' Internet networks:[1]

• AARNet-operated layer 3 routers; one PoP per capital city
• national backbone: carrier-provided (Optus) inter-PoP ATM transmission capacity
• carrier-provided trans-Pacific transmission capacity

AARNet3 (2006–2013): The AARNet optical network:[9]

• AARNet-operated layer 3 routers; two physically-diverse PoPs in each capital city
• national backbone: AARNet-operated optical fibre transmission capacity
• AARNet-operated international fibre transmission capacity
• Also delivers enduser Layer 1 optical transmission and Layer 2 VLAN switching services

AARNet4 (2013–present): The AARNet optical network grows:[10]

• entirely AARNet-operated
• national optical backbone: optical fibre transmission capacity ultimately 80 wavelengths each at 100 Gbit/s (total 8 Tbit/s)
• national IP network: 100 Gbit/s layer 3 routed network via diverse paths
• international connectivity: 240 Gbit/s of optical fibre transmission capacity, via six network interconnect points in USA and one in Singapore
• enduser services: layer 1 point-to-point optical transmission; layer 2 metro-Ethernet VLAN; layer 2 and layer 3 MPLS-based VPN services; high performance layer 3 routed access to global research and education (R&E) networks and the public Internet

AARNet was established in 1989 originally as an activity under the auspices of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC).

AARNet was formed into a separate company on 22 December 1998.[11] AARNet Pty Ltd, ACN 084540518, ABN 54 084 540 518, is a not-for-profit company limited by shares. The shareholders are 38 of Australia's universities and the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).[12]

AARNet Pty Ltd became a licensed telecommunications carrier (Telco) under the Australian Telecommunications Act on 27 November 2000, becoming Australian carrier number 61.[13]

AARNet national network as at October 2013

The AARNet4 national network comprises high capacity optical fibre transmission paths between switching centres in major cities from Cairns to Perth as well as branch lines to Darwin, Hobart and several other locations. Because optical fibre repair times are long, the backbone network follows two physically diverse paths. As at late 2013, capacity on each leg of the routed network was between 10 and 100 gigabit per second (Gbit/s).[14] Starting with only 48 kbit/s national backbone capacity in 1990, this reflects a similarly rapid exponential growth rate as for AARNet's international capacity.

The Network peers with external content providers and ISPs to increase performance and availability of the network. The organisation has a selective peering policy[15] for peering with other providers. This policy applies to all requests for settlement-free interconnection with AARNet, either via dedicated connections or traffic via public internet exchanges.

AARNet provides the Internet to several million end-user devices at Australian universities, CSIRO, various other research and educational institutions, and some hospitals. Customer site connections are mostly at 1 to 10 Gbit/s rates, with most end-user Ethernet services at 1 Gbit/s, and Eduroam services at available Wi-Fi performance levels.

AARNet's layer 3 services are usually delivered at the AARNet PoP sites. With the introduction of the AARNet3 optical fibre network (i.e. from 2006 onwards) AARNet progressively developed capability to extend services to customer sites in some locations, as well as providing layer 1 and layer 2 inter-campus connections in those areas. Prior to that, and at other locations, it is end-customer institutions' responsibility to extend services to site and to provision their own inter-campus network links. These are either operated directly by AARNet such as in Queensland or provided by companion networks such as SABRENet in South Australia and VERNet in Victoria.

Summary of AARNet national IP network performance levels as at 2013:

• National backbone links: mostly 10 to 100 Gbit/s
• Customer site connections: mostly 1 to 10 Gbit/s
• End-user services: mostly 1 Gbit/s Ethernet and available Wi-Fi rates
• Continues to sustain traffic growth rates of 50% per annum year on year over the preceding decade[7]

AARNet's trans-Pacific capacity growth from its inception to 2013

AARNet provides the Australian component of the global advanced Research and Education Internet network. AARNet has high capacity interconnections with North American[16][17] (Internet2), European[18] (GÉANT) and Asian[19] (TEIN3) components of the global network.

As at late 2014, AARNet operated a total capacity of 120 Gbit/s to North America and a further 5 Gbit/s to Asia.[20] This equates to a 2.2 million-fold increase over AARNet's initial trans-Pacific capacity of 56 kbit/s in 1990 and represents an average doubling time of aggregate international capacity of only 14 months over the entire history of AARNet (cf. Moore's Law).

In addition to providing high capacity Internet transmission and routing services and a comprehensive range of core Internet services including BGP, DNS, NTP and IPv6, AARNet also provides a variety of higher-layer network services including:

• Eduroam global federated authentication service, most often appearing as Eduroam Wi-Fi services on-campus and at associated locations
• VoIP IP telephony services[21]
• AUCX unified voice and video communications exchange[22]
• Cloud services including CloudStor file storage service
• AARNet mirror site to reduce load on international links due to repeated downloads of the same material.

To further optimise network traffic loads, AARNet operates high capacity peering links with various major content providers including the Australian ABC, Apple,[23] Microsoft and Amazon.[24]

CSIRO's ASKAP antennas at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), Western Australia, Australia

Throughout their life, a major driver for the very high capacities of advanced Research and Education Internet networks including AARNet has been to meet the needs of data-intensive research across a wide range of research disciplines in both the sciences and the humanities. For example, to interconnect major research instruments such as synchrotrons and telescopes in remote locations to high performance computer systems and researchers around the world, such as astronomers in Europe viewing the southern sky using telescopes in Australia[25] or high resolution realtime video links between remote locations.[26]

Most recently, AARNet has built a 100 Gbit/s WDM optical fibre transmission system[14] from Perth to Geraldton and on to the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia in support of Australia's component of the international Square Kilometre Array project and the initial ASKAP telescope array at the MRO.

• AARNet
• AARNet mirror site