Education and Research Network (ERNET) is an autonomous scientific society of the

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITy) is an executive agency of the Government of India, Union Government of the India, Republic of India. It was carved out of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (I ...

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

. ERNET has made a significant contribution to the emergence of networking in the country. It practically brought the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and has built up national capabilities in the area of net-working, especially in protocol software engineering. It is the first internet service in India. It has not only succeeded in building a large network that provides various facilities to the intellectual segment of Indian society—the research and education community, it has over the years become a trendsetter in the field of networking.

Focus

ERNET is largest nationwide terrestrial and satellite network with point of presence located at the premiere educational and research institutions in major cities of the country. Focus of ERNET is not limited to just providing connectivity, but to meet the entire needs of the educational and research institutions by hosting and providing relevant information to their users. Research and Development and Training are integral parts of ERNET activities. The activities at ERNET India are organised around five technology focus areas: *National Academic and Research Network *Research and Development in the area of Data Communication and its Application *Human Resource Development in the area of High-end Networking *Educational Content *Campus-wide High Speed Local Area Network

Beginning

ERNET was initiated in 1986 by the Department of Electronics (DoE), with funding support from the Government of India and

United Nations Development Program The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries Poverty reduction, eliminate poverty and achieve Sustainable development, sustainable economic growth and Human development (economics), hu ...

(UNDP), involving eight premier institutions as participating agencies— NCST (National Centre for Software Technology) CDAC">Centre for Development of Advanced Computing">CDACBombay, IISc (Indian Institute of Science) Bangalore, five IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) at Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Madras, and the DoE, New Delhi. ERNET began as a multi protocol network with both the

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

and the OSI-IP protocol stacks running over the leased-line portion of the backbone. Since 1995, however, almost all traffic is carried over TCP/IP.

History of ERNET

* ERNET started with Dial-up network in 1986–87. * Initially UUCP mail was only service started by ERNET. * First leased line of 9.6 kbit/s was installed in Jan’1991 between Delhi and

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

. * ERNET was allotted Class B IP address 144.16.0.0 by

InterNIC InterNIC, known as the Network Information Center (NIC) until 1993, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until October 1, 1991 ...

in 1990. Subsequently, Class C addresses were allotted to ERNET by APNIC. * All IITs, IISc Bangalore, DOE Delhi and NCST Mumbai were connected by 9.6 kbit/s leased line by 1992. * In 1992, 64 kbit/s Internet gateway link was commissioned from NCST Mumbai to

UUNet UUNET Technologies, Inc., formerly UUNET Communications Services, was an American commercial Internet service provider. Founded in 1987, it was one of the first and largest commercial ISPs and one of the early Tier 1 networks. It was based in ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

near

Washington DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. * In 1998 ERNET India was registered as Autonomous Society. * In 1999-2000 new terrestrial high speed backbone was set up. * In 2000 POP infrastructure was upgraded. * Satellite WAN was set up in 1993. * Today, 1100 institutes are ERNET users under different schemes.

ERNET backbone

ERNET backbone is a sophisticated link of terrestrial and satellite-based

wide area network A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area. Wide area networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits. Businesses, as well as schools and government entities, use ...

s. The satellite WAN, using

VSAT A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station with a satellite dish, dish antenna that is smaller than 3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates, in most cases, range from 4 ...

technology. The VSAT network acts as an overlay for the terrestrial WAN by providing backup links between the backbone sites. International connectivity is achieved through gateways at

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

and

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, with a total capacity of 6.64 Mb. Daily traffic over ERNET exceeds 200 GB. ERNET architecture is based on industry standard TCP/IP protocol. This network had undergone a major upgrade during year 2000–2001 in association with CMC Ltd. (A Govt. of India Undertaking, then). ERNET backbone is being enabled to support IPv6.IPv6 ERNET
ernet.in

ERNET international gateway and PoP sites

The ERNET is supported by the following backbone sites which enable organizations located at different geographical locations to access various services. *ERNET Headquarters, New Delhi *

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is an Indian autonomous scientific society, operating under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. History C-DAC was created in November 1987, initially as the Centr ...

, Mumbai *

Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a Public university, public, Deemed university, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The ...

, Bangalore * Indian Institute of Technology, Madras * Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur * Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune * Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata * Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur * Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee * University of Hyderabad * Center for Advanced Technology, Indore * Odisha Computer Application Centre, Bhubaneswar *

Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, also known as Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, is an institute of national importance and premiere higher-education institute located in G ...

, Thiruvananthapuram * National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology, Gorakhpur * Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati *ERNET VSAT HUB, Bangalore * Tezpur University, Tezpur * APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University, Thiruvananthapuram

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ernet National Knowledge Network Academic computer network organizations Wide area networks Internet in India Companies based in New Delhi Research institutes in Delhi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (India) National research and education networks Science and technology in India Telecommunications in India