JISC Network committee brochure
The JISC Networking committee is charged with providing a pervasive, leading edge, network infrastructure for the education and research communities. It is supported in this work by the JISC Networking committee Development Group, the JISC Monitoring Unit and the United Kingdom Education & Research Networking Association (UKERNA).
JISC Network committee remit
The JISC Network committee is charged with providing a pervasive, leading edge, network infrastructure for the education and research communities. It is supported in this work by the JISC Networking committee Development Group, the JISC Monitoring Unit and the United Kingdom Education & Research Networking Association (UKERNA).
JISC Network committee terms of reference
The JISC Networking committee has been in existence since September 1999 and its role is to provide, in consultation with the education and research communities, the UK’s education and research network, known as JANET. JANET is funded by JISC and managed and developed by UKERNA.
An important aspect of the committee’s work is to determine network connections and monitoring policies, ensuring best value for money whilst maintaining a high and appropriate standard of service. The JISC Networking committee in partnership with UKERNA also promotes and prioritises esearch and development in network technologies with the aim of improving services, including the development of network security applications. The committee also plays an important role in liaising and collaborating with other organisations and those interested in a common network provision.
JANET development – leading the way
The JISC Networking committee and UKERNA continue to develop JANET to ensure it remains at the forefront of networking technology. A key part of this development is ensuring that SuperJANET provides the highly resilient, reliable and high bandwidth backbone of the network. This is achieved in part by regular periodic procurements of the backbone contract. The most recent of these (SuperJANET4) was procured in 2000.
The JISC Networking committee and UKERNA, after extensive consultation, developed a requirements analysis for SuperJANET5 in preparation for the procurement in late 2004.
The partnership between UKERNA, the Regional Networks and the JISC Networking committee will be an essential part of continuing to deliver high-quality end-to-end services as a result of SuperJANET5.
JANET – connecting excellence
JANET is the UK’s education and research network. The name JANET is given both to an electronic communications network and to a collection of networking services and facilities that support the education and research communities in the UK.
JANET
- Over 16 million users
- Scalable for ever-widening demand
- 99.9% reliable
- High bandwidth
- Internationally respected
- Delivering leading-edge technologies and services
- Enabling present and next-generation applications in education and research
The JANET backbone
Internationally connected
JANET forms part of the global Internet via connectivity to global transit providers and to European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) through the Gigabit European Academic Network backbone (GÉANT). JANET also has connections via GÉANT to the US research networks Abilene and ESnet, the Japanese National Institute of Informatics (NII) and a direct connection to the China Education and Research Network (CERNET).
JANET external network access provision
UKERNA – managing JANET
UKERNA delivers the JANET network and a range of operational andadvisory services under a Service Level Agreement with JISC through three main divisions:
- Production Services
- Network Development
- Customer Support
The UKERNA Production Services Division delivers a range of services including:
- IP Network Services
- Domain Name Services
- JANET Advisory Services
- JANET-Computer Emergency Response Team (JANET-CERT) which provides both ‘Response’ and ‘Advice’ on the misuse of computers and the network
- JANET Videoconferencing Service (JVCS)
- JANET Usenet News Service
The UKERNA Network Development Division is responsible for:
- The maintenance of a sustainable and adequately resourced technical development programme to ensure that advances can be made in the JANET development programme
- Strengthening links with the eScience community and developing an understanding of its needs for advanced network services along with the network infrastructure with which to develop them
- The development of JANET to serve the national connectivity needs of schools’ networks within England, Scotland and Wales and the consequent widening of JANET to serve the whole public education community
- The SuperJANET5 project, including the design, procurement and roll-out of the next-generation national network backbone, capable of meeting the demands of the learning, teaching and research communities for the second half of the decade
The UKERNA Customer Support Division delivers:
- JANET Customer Service (JCS) providing a first point of contact for all customers on all services.
- Customer interface for all connections to the network
- Domain name administration for ac.uk
- Administration of sponsored and proxy licences
- Information services
- Training and awareness services
JISC Network committee membership
The JISC Network committee comprises representatives from the further, higher and adult education sectors. In addition observers are invited from:
- British Educational Communications & Technology Agency (BECTa)
- the National Information and Learning Technologies Association (NILTA)
- University Colleges and Information Systems Association (UCISA)
- Office of Communications (Ofcom)
- the Department for Education and Skills (DfES)
- the United Kingdom Education & Research Networking Association (UKERNA)
The JISC Network committee works closely with the other JISC committees and services.