From: "Miguel A.L. Paraz" <map@iphil.net>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 19:16:01 +0800 (HKT)
Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Rob Gutierrez wrote:
> Does NSI (NASA Science Internet) qualify as one of those? Yeah, it was
> 1989 when it started (Hi Milo!), but ... 
Not really. Both NSI and ESnet backbones pre-date the NSF regionals
and received no NSF funding, being funded by NASA and the Department
of Energy, respectively. These were established as national backbones,
independent of the NSFnet though both did peer with the NSFnet at
FIX-East (at UMD and later at SURAnet) and FIX-West (at
NASA-Ames). Milo was largely responsible for the FIX design which was
the pre-cursor in many ways to the current MAE design and both
locations were connected to the MAEs.
It might be noted that both NASA and ESnet were originally primarily
DECnet networks as they pre-date IP development by a little bit. They
also, in there early forms (SPAN, HEPnet, and MFEnet) predate the
NSFnet.
FIX-West is still in business while FIX-East is being dismantled as I
type as BBN Planet is moving out of the old SURAnet facility.
Where is Milo Medin nowadays.. ?
Milo is busily trying to engineer the network of is dreams at @home. I
believe he is VP of Network Engineering or some such. He was one of
@home's original executives.
It's also worth noting that DECNET was a leading contender for the NSFNET.
Sid Karin, director of SDSC, tells the story that he was leaning toward
DECNET until he met a taciturn Teutonic network engineer from Ann Arbor who
convinced Sid among others that a TCP/IP backbone would work.
--Kent
It might be noted that both NASA and ESnet were originally primarily
DECnet networks as they pre-date IP development by a little bit. They
also, in there early forms (SPAN, HEPnet, and MFEnet) predate the
NSFnet.
Yes, just like users of smoke signals and telegraphs eventually converted
to using the telephone. Only a question of how far you want to go back.
Not to discredit SPAN, HEPnet, and MFEnet (or Bitnet or UUnet for
that matter), but at that time when actually GOSIP (TP4/CLNP) was the
officially mandated way to go, it was actually pretty gutsy of Dennis
Jennings at NSF and then Steve Wolff to go for and continue to use IP. If
it weren't for them, chances are that CLNP would have won (with us having
as much lesser control as we would have lesser addressing issues now).
Even DECNET Phase V was heading towards a CLNP solution.
It's also worth noting that DECNET was a leading contender for the NSFNET.
Sid Karin, director of SDSC, tells the story that he was leaning toward
DECNET until he met a taciturn Teutonic network engineer from Ann Arbor who
convinced Sid among others that a TCP/IP backbone would work.
You actually do not quite have your story right. Sid used MFENET
(Magnetic Fusion Energy) protocols for the SDSCnet (SDSC consortium)
satellite network initially. I was also the networking person at the
University of Michigan responsible for the UMichigan-SDSCnet connection
(with MFENET protocols) at that time (besides other responsibilities).
It did work, and SDSC continued to use it despite the NSFNET using IP.
Over time SDSC phased MFENET out and IP in, but besides the reponsibility
of the taciturn Teutonic network engineer from Ann Arbor for the NSFNET,
I don't think he had much to do with the phaseout of the MFENET usage
at SDSC. Sid still claims that he is proud of both his MFENET decision
as well as the decision to phase it out, as time moved on.