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NERO is a high-speed wide area network in the State of Oregon that supports collaborative teaching and research using new tools and techniques. IP Multicast for video and audio, interactive multimedia and remote access to resources such as the telescope at the Pine Mountain Observatory are just a few of the NERO supported projects.
Through the use of advanced digital network technologies such as asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and synchronous optical network (SONET), NERO provides high-speed, high-bandwidth connections (data, audio, video) between the OJGSE and OSSHE sites. Similar links to high-technology industrial partners can be established for collaboration. When network capacity is extended, and where appropriate, outreach to small businesses, the community college and K-12 education systems may also be included.
Initial funding for NERO was provided by an award from NASA, with the goal of enhancing science and engineering education in Oregon across the board, from K-12 through graduate school and continuing education for high-technology industry employees. In addition to working with NASA on the design and research plan for network-based collaboration, NERO has supported NASA's education and technology initiatives at meetings and exhibitions such as Educom'95, NAACP 1995 annual meeting and a "21st century classroom" demonstration at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.
NERO is also involved in a number of cooperative efforts both in state as well as nationwide:
Services
Facilities
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a network technology based on transferring data in cells or packets of a fixed size. The cell used with ATM is relatively small compared to units used with older technologies. The small, constant cell size allows ATM equipment to transmit video, audio, and computer data over the same network, and assure that no single type of data hogs the line. Current implementations of ATM support support data transfer rates of from 25 to 622 Mbps (megabits per second). This compares to a maximum of 100 Mbps for Ethernet, the current technology used for most LANs. Some people think that ATM holds the answer to the Internet bandwidth problem, but others are skeptical. ATM creates a fixed channel, or route, between two points whenever data transfer begins. This differs from TCP/IP, in which messages are divided into packets and each packet can take a different route from source to destination. This difference makes it easier to track and bill data usage across an ATM network, but it makes it less adaptable to sudden surges in network traffic.
Most high-level network protocols (such as the ISO Transport Protocols or TCP or UDP) only provide a unicast transmission service. That is, nodes of the network only have the ability to send to one other node at a time: All transmission with a unicast service is inherently point-to-point. If a node wants to send the same information to many destinations using a unicast transport service, it must perform a replicated unicast,and send N copies of the data to each destination in turn. A better way to transmit data from one source to many destinations is to provide a multicast transport service. With a multicast transport service, a single node can send data to many destinations by making just a single call on the transport service: For those applications which involve a single node sending to many recipients, a multicast facility is clearly a more natural programming paradigm than unicast. However, the benefits of multicast are more than just logical: Many underlying transmission media (such as Ethernet) provide support for multicast and broadcast at the hardware and media-acces level. When a multicast service is implemented over such a network, there is a huge improvement in performance: If the hardware supports multicast, A packet which is destined for N recipients can be sent as just a single packet!
A packet-switching protocol for connecting devices on a Wide Area Network (WAN). Frame Relay networks support data rates up to 1.544Mbps (1.5 milion bits per second). Most telephone companies now provide Frame Relay service for customers who want connections at T1 speeds. Although Frame Relay is quite popular today, it is gradually being replaced by faster technologies, such as ATM.
http://www.sandybay.com/pc-web/Frame_Relay.htm
Contact Information
Tad Reynales, NERO Project Manager -reynales@engr.orst.edu
David Meyer, Network Engineer -meyer@ns.uoregon.edu
David Crowe, Network Engineer -crowed@nero.net
Mark Staben, Web Coordinator -staben@nero.net