Advanced Network & Services

Advanced Network & Services. It was a pioneering non-profit research and development corporation instrumental in creating the technological and collaborative foundations for the modern Internet. Founded in 1990 by Al Weis and Ellen Hancock, the organization played a decisive role in the transition from the government-run NSFNET to a commercially operated Internet backbone. Its most celebrated achievement was conceiving and managing the very high performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS), a groundbreaking network that enabled revolutionary advancements in high-performance computing and Internet2.

History and development

The genesis of the organization is deeply intertwined with the pivotal era of the early 1990s, when the future governance and infrastructure of the Internet were being determined. Key figures from IBM, including Al Weis and Ellen Hancock, recognized the need for a new entity to steward the evolution of the NSFNET following the National Science Foundation's decision to decommission it. With initial funding and support from IBM, MCI, and the State of Michigan, the corporation was established to foster collaboration among academia, industry, and government. A seminal early project was the Blanca testbed, part of the National Science Foundation's Gigabit Testbed Initiative, which explored the limits of gigabit networking. This work directly informed its landmark partnership with the National Science Foundation in 1995 to create the vBNS, a contract that positioned the organization at the forefront of national research and development efforts.

Core technologies and architecture

The technological vision was centered on deploying and proving cutting-edge Internet Protocol-based networking at unprecedented scales and speeds. The cornerstone, the vBNS, was engineered as a nationwide asynchronous transfer mode and Internet Protocol hybrid network, utilizing SONET fiber-optic circuits provided by MCI. It implemented advanced Quality of Service mechanisms and supported early Multiprotocol Label Switching concepts to guarantee bandwidth for demanding scientific applications. The network's architecture featured high-speed routers and switches from vendors like Cisco Systems and deployed OC-3 (155 Mbit/s) and later OC-12 (622 Mbit/s) connections, radically surpassing the capabilities of the contemporary commercial Internet. This infrastructure created a controlled, high-performance environment for experimenting with protocols that would later become standard, such as IPv6 and IP multicast.

Key services and applications

Beyond infrastructure, the organization operated as a vital enabling service, providing guaranteed network resources to the scientific community for computationally intensive research. It supported pioneering work in fields like computational fluid dynamics, climate modeling, and radio astronomy, connecting major supercomputing centers like the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. A flagship application was the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, which aimed to create collaborative virtual reality environments over the network. The organization also developed and distributed the Web100 software, a tool that dramatically improved Transmission Control Protocol throughput by optimizing parameters between end hosts, benefiting a vast number of Internet users. Its Abilene project, in partnership with Internet2, Cisco Systems, and Nortel, was a direct successor to its vBNS work.

Impact and significance

The impact on the evolution of the global Internet is profound and lasting. By successfully demonstrating that a secure, high-performance, national-scale Internet backbone could be operated by a non-governmental entity, it provided a crucial model for commercial Internet service providers. The vBNS directly proved the feasibility of the National Information Infrastructure vision championed by the Clinton Administration. Its work provided the essential proving ground for the technologies that enabled Internet2, fundamentally accelerating broadband adoption in academia and influencing the development of the modern commodity Internet. The culture of open collaboration it fostered among researchers at institutions like the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set a standard for public-private partnership in information technology.

Challenges and future directions

As the organization achieved its primary goals, the broader technology landscape evolved. The commercialization of high-speed networking and the maturation of Internet2's own backbone networks gradually reduced the unique necessity for a separate, specialized vBNS. The original vBNS contract with the National Science Foundation concluded in the early 2000s, though a successor network continued under MCI. The enduring challenge, which its work highlighted, remains ensuring equitable access to advanced cyberinfrastructure for all researchers, a mission continued by entities like the Energy Sciences Network. Its legacy persists in the ongoing pursuit of exascale computing and next-generation networks that continue to push the boundaries of global communication and scientific discovery.

Category:Internet organizations Category:Defunct computer organizations Category:Internet in the United States Category:Companies based in Westchester County, New York Category:1990 establishments in New York (state)