Think-tank techs - Interval Research Corp.'s corporate network - Company Operations

You're looking to the future of networking, but how long will the solutions you implement last?

Interval Research Corp. in Palo Alto, Calif., is an independent organization dedicated to inventing and developing the technology that will shape the future. This technology think-tank strives to create an ideal research environment where ideas are free-flowing and without limits. It seems logical, then, that Interval's corporate network reflects that dedication to innovation and advanced ideas.

Interval was founded in 1992 by two of my colleagues, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft Corp., and David Liddle, a Silicon Valley veteran. The company is at work framing issues, mapping out concepts, and creating technology that will matter to people in the future. We pursue breakthroughs in seedling technologies and work to build industries around them.

Our corporate organization is free-form, and most research team members are assigned two or more projects at a time. We also collaborate with other research groups and universities such as Stanford, the MIT Media Lab, the Royal College of Art, and the Santa Fe Institute. Depending on one's perspective, Interval is either one big workgroup or a lot of overlapping workgroups. As a result, interactions between team members, file servers, and computers are highly dynamic, requiring many communications across group boundaries.

Our campus network is more than 500 nodes dispersed across two buildings. We currently have 250 users, each with two or more computers on their desks. In addition, the company employs numerous contractors, so there's a steady stream of temporary users needing network connections. The result is a large network without the traditional workgroups found at other companies. With such unpredictable traffic patterns, it's critical that the networking equipment is capable of wire-speed routing on all ports simultaneously to maintain a high quality of service (QoS) to the users.

As the company grew over the years, our network evolved from shared Ethernet to switched Ethernet, but we began running out of ports to support our ever-increasing number of users. The original equipment, which had served us well up to that point, posed some issues with proprietary technology that wouldn't allow us to take the network to the next level.

It no longer made sense to put money into the old network. As a member of the research staff and the network guru responsible for the enterprise, I needed to install a communications infrastructure that would simplify my job, provide faster connections, and provide enough ports to support our dynamic population of scientists.

In the fall of 1996, I began to think about what our next-generation network would look like. Since Interval is a long-range research organization, I was looking for new networking technology to support our enterprise and research now and into the future. I envisioned a network providing switched 100 Mbps to the desktop and gigabit-speed interconnections across the backbone. I figured that by early 1998 we would need a new network, and I projected that vendors would have the necessary products about that time.

I considered a number of vendors. Each company had or promised equipment that could meet some of my needs, but their solutions added layers of complexity to the network.

I had asked my long-standing partner, Western Data Group, a value added reseller in Walnut Creek, Calif., to keep an eye out for a high-speed, high-density solution that would make my life easier. Western Data Group came back with the PowerRail 5200 Enterprise Routing Switch from Packet Engines, in Spokane, Wash.

The PowerRail 5200 hit my target points with its gigabit performance, enterprise reliability, and its unique Parallel Access Shared Memory architecture. I needed four big routing switches, each with 200 switched Fast Ethernet ports and Gigabit Ethernet interconnects.

The switch also guaranteed best-of-class QoS for mission-critical applications and ensured the scalability and flexibility I would need in the future to handle ever-increasing traffic.

The new Interval network is divided into four logical quadrants--two buildings with two wiring closets per building. Each closet has one PowerRail 5200 switch with 200 Fast Ethernet ports and five Gigabit Ethernet ports, providing the enterprise with exceptional switching and routing performance. The switch interoperated with our existing equipment from 3Com, Lannet, and Cisco during the painless transition. A Cisco 7010 router with a 100 Mbps connection to the new switch supports one offsite location and a few affiliate companies through a wide area network (WAN).

Applications running on the network include e-mail, Internet, and intranet connectivity. Users make use of filesharing as well as large multimedia databases for tasks like video editing. This results in many large audio and video files traveling over the network and across group boundaries.

I don't expect to have any issues with the Packet Engines box, since it's designed to be robust and highly reliable. I'm already enjoying the benefits of its resiliency. Within a few days of implementation, I was able to add more 10/100 Mbps interface modules without powering down the switch. I inserted the modules, the switch recognized them, and I began plugging in connections.

My new network is more intelligent, looks and feels flat, and supports 800 nodes. The research scientists reap the benefits, with the ability to plug into any network connection at Interval any time, and they receive the same level of reliable 100 Mbps service.

The next step for the network may include Gigabit Ethernet connections between servers--and ultimately out to individual computers on the desktops if the need arises. I feel confident knowing that I've installed a network that will scale when we need to go with advanced VLANs or extensive Layer 3 switching.

Things move fast in the networking industry, but I've built a network that I think will satisfy our users for at least one or two years: dedicated 100 Mbps to individual computers on the desktops with Gigabit Ethernet interconnections.

Johnsson is a member of the research staff at Interval Research Corp.

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