CERNET

CERNET, the China Education and Research Network, is the National Research and Education Network (NREN) for China.

The CERNET project is funded by the Chinese government and directly managed by the Chinese Ministry of Education.

CERNET is constructed and operated by Tsinghua University and other leading universities.

Its web site is at http://www.edu.cn but this site is wholly in Chinese. There is a subsite at http://www.edu.cn/HomePage/english/cernet/ which is in English.

The following material is sourced from the Wikipedia article on CERNET.

Structure

CERNET has a four-layer hierarchy (the nation-wide backbone, regional networks, provincial networks and campus networks). The CERNET National Center is located in Tsinghua University, which is responsible for operation and management of the CERNET backbone nationwide. The ten regional network centres and main nodes are distributed in Tsinghua University, Beijing University, Beijing University of Post and Telecommunication, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Central China University of Science and Technology, South China Institute of Technology, China University of Electronic Science, Southeast University and Northeast University, which are responsible for operation, management, planning and construction of CERNET regional backbones.

CERNET provincial nodes are distributed among 38 universities in 36 cities around the country except Taiwan.

Data and statistics

By the end of 2000, bandwidth of CERNET backbone has been up to 2.5 Gbit/s. CERNET has 12 global and regional channels connected with the United States, Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong, the international gateway bandwidth over 250 Mbit/s. The transmission rate of the regional networks has reached 155 Mbit/s. More than 900 education and research institutions, 1.2 million PC's and 8 million users have connected to CERNET.

The present

CERNET has been powered to allow access by most higher education institutions nationwide with backbone upgrades and expansions having been accomplished in eight regions. The large-scale China Education Information System has been built up. Mirroring systems for discipline-specific information of famous overseas universities, and a full-text search system for higher education and key subject information will soon be set up.

CERNET is an important platform for China's distance learning initiatives. To accommodate demands of distance learning programmes (as defined in the directive Education Revitalizing Initiative Oriented to 21st Century), the CERNET high-speed backbone was started in 1999. By leveraging the existing fiber infrastructure and resources from state and local treasury, CERNET has completed 40% of the 20,000KM high-speed transmission link crossing 29 provincial capitals, and cut over the 2.5G high-speed trunks from Beijing via Wuhan to Guangzhou, and from Wuhan via Nanjing to Shanghai. Nowadays, the medium-to-high-speed regional network (155M) connecting 21 cities is just under construction. Some 40 to 50 universities and colleges have accessed to CERNET backbone at speed of 10M to 100M.

Experimentation and research

CERNET is also the experimental platform for China to proceed with study on the next generation of Internet applications. Relying on current network facilities and technical competence, CERNET has set up the IPV6, an experiment platform with nationwide coverage. In 1998, CERNET joined IPV6-6BONE, an experimental IP-based network of next generation, and became a backbone member of it in November. CERNET is the first in China that interconnects with Internet2, the next generation of Internet, providing its users with an easy access to Internet2.

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