School Projects For The Fourth Grader

A number of the industry's best and brightest network technologies have come out of this country's colleges and universities. As 2010approaches, more computer vendors will be looking to graduate these networks from the environs of academia to the fast pace of the business world. The relationship between U.S. universities and computer companies has always been a close one.

Rex Krueger, vice-president of Higher Education Marketing at Control Data Corp. in Minneapolis, for example, says that his company has been working with colleges on Fourth Grade Science Projects dating from the 1950s, starting with the computer-based education and, more recently, with the creation of an extensive engineering network linking various universities such as Purdue and MIT.

This kind of research has resulted, Krueger says, in Fourth Grade Science Projects such as the Metaphor user interface system being incorporated into Control Data's recently introduced Transparent Computing Environment. Krueger's company is not alone.

"It's typical of companies to go to universities and develop products," Krueger explains. "The risks seem a little lower than in the private sector, and if you do fail, it's not necessarily with a crash," he continues, alluding to the harsher glare of publicity that can dog product development in the private sector.

Whatever the reasons, the interaction between the private sector and universities seems to be heating up, with networking research and development making up a big chunk of this relationship.

IBM, for example, is now working with Merit, Inc., a networking consortium of Michigan schools, on a large-scale project to revamp the National Science Foundation's (NSF) NSFnet national backbone network, which links super-computer facilities at research centers across the U.S. Prior to the IBM deal, Merit was awarded $ 14 million late in 1987 by the NSF to upgrade and supervise the operation of NSFnet for five years.

The original NSFnet, based on 56K bit/sec. dedicated AT&T Dataphone Digital Service links, was thought to be too limited for NSFnet's expanding user base, which the NSF says increased by approximately 200% in 1987 alone. The upgraded network will clip along at 1.54M bit/sec. and will also provide access to seven regional research networks as well as the six current supercomputing centers.

To handle the increased volume, NSFnet will run over T1 fiber-optic networks and microwave links, and upgraded T3 technology of up to 45M bit/sec. might also be used in the future.