I am pleased to announce an upcoming upgrade of the T3 ANSnet/NSFnet service. We are calling this the "Phase-5 upgrade" since it represents the 5th major change to network infrastructure that we have made since 1991. The infrastructure upgrade to the T3 network will begin deployment on Friday 11/6 in Seattle and Denver, and will continue at each T3 ENSS site and CNSS POP location during pre-scheduled weekend maintenance windows through 12/18. The major changes included in this upgrade are: o Upgrade of all DS3/HSSI router serial interface adapters (T3 CNSS and ENSS) to support full DS3 bandwidth. The router adapter bus interface cards will also be upgraded to double the packet switching rates per interface. o The architecture for interconnection among CNSS routers at each MCI POP location will be upgraded from point-to-point links to a common FDDI ring. o The T3 DSUs on each DS3 interface will replaced with a T3 bandwidth manager (T3Plus BMX45) to accommodate T3 CNSS-CNSS circuits and a Larscom Access-T45 DSU on each end of a T3 ENSS-CNSS circuit. o New system software and microcode will be installed (already in progress) prior to the hardware deployment to support the increased adapter performance. Routing software has already been deployed to support the new CNSS FDDI ring architecture. Deployment Schedule Summary --------------------------- The upgrade will be deployed in six steps, commencing on Friday evening November 6th, and ending on the weekend of December 18th. The upgrade will be suspended for the week of Thanksgiving. Some deployment details and the deployment schedule follow below: - The T3Plus BMX45N bandwidth managers will be installed on the first POP visit. CNSS sites will have multiple visits to upgrade the backbone links. - T3 ENSS sites are visited once and are upgraded concurrent with the adjacent DS3 linked CNSS. - The ANS NOC will create a planned maintenance trouble ticket with the ENSS site well in advance of maintenance and will confirm with the site a few days in advance. - All parts will be delivered to the ENSS site on the Thursday preceding the scheduled Friday evening upgrade. Deployment Schedule Detail -------------------------- Step Date ENSS CNSS ---- ------- ---- ---- 1 11/06/93 E143 Seattle Seattle ENSS and Seattle POP E142 Denver Salt Lake City ENSS and Denver POP E141 Denver Boulder ENSS and Denver POP 2 11/13/93 E128 San Fran Palo Alto ENSS and San Fran POP E144 San Fran FIX-W ENSS and San Fran POP E130 Chicago Argonne ENSS and Chicago POP ---- Seattle 2nd visit for Seattle-San Fran link upgrade 3 11/20/93 E135 L.A. San Diego ENSS and Los Angeles POP E179 N. Mex. Sandia Labs ENSS and Albuquerque POP E172 N. Mex. Phillips Labs ENSS and Albuquerque POP E139 Houston Houston ENSS and Houston POP ---- San Fran 2nd visit for San Fran.- L.A. link upgrade 4 12/04/93 E129 St. Louis Champaign ENSS and St. Louis POP E140 St. Louis Lincoln ENSS and St. Louis POP E138 Atlanta Atlanta ENSS and Atlanta POP ---- Greensboro Greensboro POP ---- Denver 2nd visit for Denver-St. Louis link upgrade ---- Chicago 2nd visit for Chicago-St. Louis link upgrade ---- Houston 2nd visit for Houston-St. Louis link upgrade and for Houston-Atlanta link upgrade 5 12/11/93 E131 Cleveland Ann Arbor ENSS and Cleveland POP E132 Cleveland Pittsburgh ENSS and Cleveland POP E137 New York Princeton ENSS and New York POP ---- Chicago 3rd visit for Chicago-Cleveland link upgrade 6 12/18/93 E133 Hartford Ithaca ENSS and Hartford POP E134 Hartford Boston ENSS and Hartford POP E136 Wash D.C. College Park ENSS and Wash D.C. POP E145 Wash D.C. FIX-East ENSS and Wash D.C. POP E146 Wash D.C. DARPA ENSS and Wash D.C. POP ---- Cleveland 2nd visit for Cleveland-Hartford link upgrade ---- Greensboro 2nd visit for Greensboro-D.C. link upgrade ---- New York 2nd visit for NY-Hartford link upgrade and for NY-D.C. link upgrade