Dr Ian Hoyle
BHP Researchianh@resmel.bhp.com.au
Up front it should be said that this paper is being written from a BHP Research perspective, particularly from events as they have occurred at the Melbourne Laboratories over the past 5 or so years. As such it can't take into account events that happened at other BHP sites during that period[1].
The precursor to AARNet as we know it now was ACSnet, a store/forward based network based on the SUN III protocols (and now commercialised as MHSnet). Several BHP sites all had ACSnet connectivity in the mid to late 80's. These included[2]
bhpmrl.oz.au BHP Research Melbourne Labs
bhpcrl.oz.au BHP Research Newcastle Labs
bhpese.oz.au BHP Rod and Bar Products Division
bhpmex.oz.au BHP Minerals Exploration
bhpcpd.oz.au BHP Sheet and Coil Products Division
Email and the store/foreward mechanisms provided by ACSnet to send and retrieve files were the primary motivators behind establishing these connections. It is remarkable that just a few years ago we were able to put up with file retrieval requests that could take longer than 24 hours, but now we demand the immediacy of ftp and quickly cry foul if transfers take too long due to network congestion!!
At that time BHP did not have any semblance of an internal network and the development work on these links were done independently of each other. This made some sense in hindsight, since internal BHP connectivity using STD based phone calls would probably have been deemed to be too expensive when stacked up against the option of a local connection.
Those of us in the computing services area watched the creation of AARNet with keen interest since it was obvious to us that BHP Research would fulfil the requirements of the affiliate program, thus enabling us to join the Internet community as a peer member.
Email and ACSnet file retrieval statistics were collected, and a case was put together to get the monies needed for the hardware and a management committment to fund the ongoing operating expense of the annual AARNet charge.
So we connected (and still are, sigh) using a 48K DDS line into the Melbourne AARNet hub just over three years ago.
The spirit of mutual cooperation between member AARNet sites (at least amongst the designated AARNet contacts) was in evidence from the outset. I could not have put together our initial DNS and email configurations without the very patient efforts of Robert Elz from Melbourne University (in fact I know that kre would be way too busy these days to repeat the same degree of handholding!!).
Since that time, our usage of the link has steadily grown as shown in the graph below and we have long outgrown our link capacity.
In an increasingly paranoid regime of management wishing to ensure that our corporate network is safe, several security initiatives were undertaken including the creation of
* A security policy (which is still being developed)
* An Internet firewall (to protect us from the bad guys :-)
The following quote from the Firewalls FAQ[3] aptly summarises why Internet connected sites often mandate the installation of a firewall:
"The Internet, like any other society, is plagued with the kind of jerks who enjoy the electronic equivalent of writing on other people's walls with spraypaint, tearing their mailboxes off, or just sitting in the street blowing their car horns. Some people try to get real work done over the Internet, and others have sensitive or proprietary data they must protect. A firewall's purpose is to keep the jerks out of your network while still letting you get your job done."
BHP IT, as `owners' of the corporate network are endeavouring to develop suitable security standards and practices to encompass the "Brave New World" of Internet connectivity, with all of the potential threats that may bring with it.
There are several areas of Internet usage that stand out right now. These `traditional' services include:
Email is without a doubt the heaviest used of all the Internet services. It is interesting to note that a lot of email users send out email to addresses without ever realising the message transits the Internet. The perception is that they simply have a richer service, able to access far more people than simply those within the company.A significant effort has been expended in tying together disparate Email systems including Lotus CC: Mail, Microsoft Mail (both PC & Mac), native X.400 and supporting the gatewaying messages to the Internet with enclosures being transported in standard MIME format.A lot of people have discovered email lists. These subject area specific discussion forums have been set up with local exploders, often administered through the majordomo list management system.
USEnet news
USEnet news usage is steadily increasing. Internally news is distributed to (at present) five other news servers in differing BHP divisions. Great use is made of it in terms of supporting information technologies, both hardware and software.
Archive mirrors
To provide a rich service for BHP users (and also one that might attact some funding!!), several large Internet archive sites are mirrored internally. Using a combination of public and proprietary software, the archives are served up using ftp, appleshare, DEC PathWorks and Lan Manager protocols, providing a rich suite of access methods.This project has been one of the most visible and successful projects resulting from our Internet connection.
Anonymous ftp
Initially an anonymous ftp service was provided by using the alex software (as may be found using archie.au). This is now supported using an application gateway from the TIS[4] toolkit.
Telnet
Telnet to the Internet is supported using an application gateway again from the TIS toolkit.
Following the lead of the new services being deployed on the Internet, the next big growth area is expected to be use of World Wide Web. A WWW server has been installed from CERN[5] which supports proxying, thus enabling people to use proxy-capable clients to access the `Web' from BHP's firewalled network.
As an example of how easy this is to set up, the most recent version of the X-windows client Mosaic from NCSA is capable of using the CERN proxy server. A simple shell wrapper script like the following will allow the mode of operation:
#!/bin/sh http_proxy=http://www.bhp.com.au/ ftp_proxy=http://www.bhp.com.au/ wais_proxy=http://www.bhp.com.au/ gopher_proxy=http://www.bhp.com.au/ export http_proxy export ftp_proxy export wais_proxy export gopher_proxy xmosaic
Proxy ability is also built into the Mac and PC versions of NCSA Mosaic.
Following this conference work will commence on developing a BHP Research WWW server so that we too can present information to the Internet through this medium.
It should be pointed out, that in order to present a simple, easy to remember name for these services, simple canonical names have been created as follows.
anonymous ftp archive mirror server archive.bhp.com.au TIS ftp and telnet proxys gw.bhp.com.au socks proxy server socks.bhp.com.au mailhub for BHP mailhub.bhp.com.au archie udprelay archie.bhp.com.au WWW proxy server www.bhp.com.au primary BHP USEnet news server news.bhp.com.au primary BHP ntp server ntp.bhp.com.au UIUC qi nameserver ns.bhp.com.au
It is certainly tough in some instances convincing BHP information managers of the worth of an Internet connection, especially when what they read in the popular press is full of doom and gloom stories, security risks and vague promises of information at the click of a button - the used and abused "Information Superhighway" media hyperbolae.
The question always being asked is:
"Where is the business value in it?"
However, it has been my experience that BHP staff, both computer literate and relatively illiterate are `jumping on the Internet bandwagon' and once they find out we are connected wish to partake of this resource.
Particularly effective has been the notion of developing Internet evangelists within differing divisions so that the push for Internet services has been driven from the bottom up.
In recent months this has been supplanted by a thorough study by BHP IT of our Internet connection so that its true worth may be assessed in terms of business benefit. This top down approach, where the connection has true high-level management blessing and understanding, should be just the thing needed to accelerate Internet usage within BHP.
[2]The current business unit names are given.
[3]Available from ftp.greatcircle.com:/pub/firewalls/FAQ
[4]Trusted Information Systems toolkit, available from ftp.tis.com
[5]The code for the CERN server may be retreived from ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/src/cern_httpd.tar.Z