JANET Multi-site Connectivity Advisory Service

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The Multi-site Connectivity Advisory Service (MCAS) provides free advice and guidance to JANET-connected organisations on all aspects of inter-site connectivity on the client side of the main JANET link. A wide range of information is published on this web site, including inter-site and last mile technology guides, case studies and communications provider and implementer data - see menu links above.

For further details see About MCAS.

For technical information, documentation, papers and resources - see Technology

News / Just Published: Firewall Implementation at JANET-connected Organisations (pdf) - a new technical guide by Matt Cook of Loughborough University. This paper is a comprehensive guide to firewalls and ranges from an introduction to firewalls and present-day threats to specific details of advanced implementations and a review of the various techniques that can be employed. Open source software is reviewed together with an overview of the various offerings from Cisco. Different Flavours of VPN: Technology and Applications (pdf) - a new paper by Victor Olifer published March 2007 discussing VPNs from a JANET perspective in the light of the recent VPN survey and implications for a possible central service and detailing the different types of VPN and VPN-enabling technologies; IPSec/SSL encryption, GRE/L2TP tunnelling, policy-based, MPLS and switched SDH/DWDM optical networks.

On this page:

• Enquiries
• News
• Presentations
• Associate JANET Web Pages

Enquiries

To make an enquiry, in the first instance you should contact JANET Service Desk or e-mail JANET Service Desk or contact your JISC Regional Support Centre and ask for JANET MCAS. Or e-mail the service manager directly.

Advice to the JANET community is provided free of charge. We make best endeavours to provide accurate, impartial and unbiased advice, however any information provided regarding specific products should be checked with the relevant suppliers and any cost indications are estimates only - binding quotations should be sought from the appropriate supplier.

 

News Items

BT has withdrawn LearningStream Ethernet product from new supply - Sept 2007

This service provided higher bandwidth to academic institutions sites than that available with the standard LearningStream product. The solution was based on the Megastream Ethernet service, which provides 10, 100Mbit/s or 1Gbit/s Ethernet presentation (Access Component) interconnected by the BT ATM network at rates up to 100Mbit/s, with "school" sites restricted to 10 or 30Mbit/s Ethernet at a (limited) discount to the commercial product. Both the (academic only) standard LearningStream and open-availability Megastream Ethernet products remain available to order.

Any problems, comments or suggestions regarding this page, please e-mail the MCAS service manager.