Networks - USR-net Project Information

What was the USR-net Project?

USR-net was a $15 million project to enhance the University's campus computer network to address new and expanding institutional demands. Support for the project included a $4.8 million grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), $4.8 million in matching funds from the Province of Saskatchewan's Innovation and Science Fund, and $2 million from industry partners IBM and Cisco.

First and foremost this was a research project (in fact, USR-net stands for the University of Saskatchewan Research network), but significant benefits have been provided to everyone on campus. The CFI proposal focused on research requirements for fast, reliable and secure transfer of large amounts of data, remote program execution, audio and video conferencing, and access to shared research facilities and services, and highlighted the research of 10 high-profile users who were the co-investigators on the project.

Over a three-year implementation period that began in the fall of 2002, this very large project brought wide-sweeping changes to the campus. All connected desktops and servers (over 7,200 connections in more than 40 buildings) were provided a minimum 100 Mbps network service (1 Gbps where required). Improved service is provided to both the public Internet (100 Mbps when available) and Canada's research network, CA*Net 4 (up to 10 Gbps when available). Backbone capacity has been increased to support much higher volumes of traffic. The project also brought much needed technology to provide increased security, higher reliability, and state-of-the-art network management. The work was done by Information Technology Services (ITS) in collaboration with industry partners.

Project Overview

The USR-net project was motivated by research requirements for fast, reliable and secure transfer of large amounts of data, for access to shared research facilities and services wherever they may be located, and for access to state-of-the-art collaboration technologies such as online audio and video conferencing. Although motivated by research needs, the USR-net project has benefited every user of the campus computer network-faculty, staff, and students-by improving its capacity, performance, availability, security and reliability; by enabling new and improved services; and by improving connectivity to other universities and research organizations both in Canada and abroad. This benefits not only our research, but our teaching, learning and business services as well. In short, this was not just an IT project, but rather a campus project of unparalleled scope and impact.

The following were the key elements of the project:

Every existing network connection was upgraded to current technology-over 7,200 connections in more than 40 buildings.
2,000 new connections were provided to researchers to meet current and future needs for network access.
An additional 60 high-performance servers were provided with gigabit connections to meet researchers' needs. Some of these are located in the campus computer centre, while others were delivered to research labs across campus.
A 10 Gpbs backbone will be installed to interconnect components of the network so that it could handle the increased aggregate traffic load from all desktops and servers, including gigabit-connected servers and research workstations.
Every area of the network was connected to the network backbone in two locations to provide enhanced reliability, and redundant paths were provided for all network traffic. This was to reduce the impact of equipment failures and required maintenance on the network.
A connection to CA*net 4 was provided at a speed between 2.5 and 10 Gbps as required to meet the needs of national and international high-speed and high-bandwidth network applications.

The successful CFI proposal was a team effort led by Rick Bunt, Associate Vice-President, Information and Communications Technology, who is the project's principle investigator. The other members of the proposal team were Julia Taylor, Director, Research Services, Ed Pokraka, Director, Information Technology Services, Glenn Hollinger from Information Technology Services, Dave Bocking from the Department of Computer Science, and Tony Whitworth, Vice-President, Finance and Administration.

This was a research proposal, and the research accomplishments of 10 high-profile users made the compelling case that was required in order to obtain the level of funding the University was able to obtain. The co-investigators represent both the depth and the breadth of research activity at the University. They were Derek Eager, Julita Vassileva, and Carl Gutwin from Computer Science; Katie Mitchell and Alex Moewes from Physics and Engineering Physics; Roger Pierson and Louis Delbaere from the College of Medicine; Bill Crosby from NRC/PBI; and Michael Bancroft from the CLS.

Project Timeline

Fall 2002	Project Started
Fall 2002–Fall 2004	Network Connections Replaced in WCVM, Arts and Agriculture Buildings
October 2004	10 Gbps Network Core Installed
Fall 2004–Winter 2004	Network Connections Replaced in Thorvaldson, Geology, Biology and Physics Buildings Fibre Optic Installed and Network Reliability Completed
Winter 2004–Spring 2005	Network Connections Replaced in Law, Commerce, Education and Engineering Buildings
December 2004	Network Connections Replaced in Remaining Buildings on Campus
Spring 2005–Summer 2006	Remaining Buildings and Project Clean-up Work Completed