AARNet

AARNet (Australian Academic and Research Network) provides Internet services to the Australian education and research communities and their research partners.

AARNet built the Internet in Australia.

AARNet was initially built between the

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 SUNIII 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

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

Chronology

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

Pre-AARNet – pre-internet

• 1963: CSIRONET established by the CSIRO's Division of Computing Research
• 1976: CSIRONET had grown to connect more than 50 computers spanning from Townsville to Hobart to Perth via a combination of dial-up and low speed leased line connections
• 1979:
  newsgroups
  between computers in Australian universities and to the United States via low speed dialup connections
• 1986: South Pacific Education and Research Network (SPEARnet) formed – used X.25-based Coloured Book protocols to interconnect 22 Australian and New Zealand universities
• 1989: Internet brought to Australia via a
  University of Hawaii

The early years – building the Internet in Australia

• 1989: AARNet established by the
  Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee
• 1990: AARNet national backbone network built from Brisbane to Perth, each link initially at 48 kbit/s capacity, starring from a hub at the international Internet landing point at the University of Melbourne. AARNet national network was initially built as a multi-protocol
  layer 3 network, comprising Internet Protocol (IP) as well as DECnet and X.25
  so as to accommodate the pre-existing ACSnet and SPEARnet networks. Connections to around 40 universities and CSIRO sites commissioned.
• 1990–92: International capacity increased in several rapid increments from 56 kbit/s to 1.5 Mbit/s, at an average 6 month doubling rate. In 1991, the national backbone links were upgraded to 2 Mbit/s. By 1992, AARNet connected 40,000 computers.
• 1991: 'Affiliate membership' programme and
  Connect.com.au, Pegasus Networks and Internode
  .
• 1993: Local links to major customer sites progressively upgraded from low capacity carrier leased lines to microwave links for more capacity, typically 10 Mbit/s, at lower costs
• 1994: 'Value-Added Reseller' programme established and AARNet's AUP broadened to accommodate growing demand for Internet access from a wider range of users, including ISPs OzEmail and iiNet
• 1995: The AVCC sold the then entire Australian Internet (AARNet1) as a going concern to Telstra, including staff, infrastructure (routers, etc.), intellectual property and the entire commercial customer base. Telstra then took over operating AARNet1 as its initial Telstra Internet.
• 1996: AARNet2 tender awarded to Optus, accelerating the build of Optus' Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Internet infrastructure, capabilities and services
• 1997: AARNet2 ATM-based national network commissioned

Building the present AARNet

• 1998: AARNet Mirror site commissioned
• 1998: AARNet Pty Ltd established as a separate company
• 1999: Ownership of AARNet Pty Ltd transferred from the AVCC to Australia's universities and CSIRO
• 1999: AARNet's
  VoIP
  service commissioned
• 2000: AARNet telecommunications carrier license granted by
  Australian Communications Authority
• 2001: AARNet became the first research and education network to operate its own trans-oceanic optical-fibre capacity, initially comprising dual 155 Mbit/s links to Canada's CANARIE network
• 2002: GrangeNet built as a separate demonstration next generation network, through which various in the sector obtained their first exposure to then next generation gigabit Ethernet and long-haul optical fibre transmission systems. Later, when user institutions had operational need to interconnect their AARNet and GrangeNet services they also gained experience with the complexities of asymmetric routing.
• 2003: AARNet negotiated purchase from Southern Cross Cable of multi-gigabit 'SXTransPORT' trans-Pacific links via diverse paths
• 2003: AARNet buys into Nextgen Networks ensuring its survival as an independent long-haul optical-fibre infrastructure provider
• 2004: Dual 10 Gbit/s and dual 622 Mbit/s SXTransPORT trans-Pacific links commissioned
• 2006: AARNet3 national network commissioned

Up to the present

• 2007:
  Layer 1
  point-to-point 1 Gbit/s transmission services ('EN4R') introduced for high-end research data transfer applications between points reached by the AARNet3 national network
• 2008: Direct link to Asia upgraded to 1 Gbit/s via diverse routes between Perth and Singapore, reducing latency (delay) to Asia, cf much commercial Internet traffic between Australia and Asia still traverses the Pacific Ocean twice via the USA.
• 2011: High-capacity wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) link built from Perth via Geraldton to the Australian site of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, and the various telescope facilities at the MRO in particular the initial Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope array at the site.
• 2011: Second optical fibre path to Asia commissioned, from Sydney to Singapore via Guam, increasing AARNet's direct capacity to Asia to 1.2 Gbit/s
• 2012: International capacity increased to a total of 90 Gbit/s trans-Pacific plus a further 3.1 Gbit/s in two diverse routes to Asia
• 2013: AARNet4 announced,
  Tbit
  /s).

AARNet generations

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

• AARNet-operated
  layer 3 routers; one point of presence
  (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 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 Pty Ltd

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 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]

National network

The AARNet4 national network comprises high capacity optical fibre transmission paths between switching centres in major cities from

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

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]

International connectivity

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.

Application services

In addition to providing high capacity Internet transmission and routing services and a comprehensive range of core Internet 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

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