Within the last year, a Campus Research Network (CRN) has been put in place within the University of Hawaii System. The network currently connects computers in the Department of Information and Computer Sciences, the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Mathematics, the Department of Physics, the Institute for Astronomy, the Hawaii Institute for Geophysics and the University of Hawaii Computing Center. The network is organized as a collection of subnets connected together through a common Ethernet backbone. The CRN is based on the DARPA/DOD protocols suite although there are provisions to also handle some DECNET traffic through parts of the network. The intent is to develop the CRN into a full scale research network that is accessible to all researchers within the State of Hawaii. The University of Hawaii proposes to connect the CRN to the NSFnet through a satellite based link between the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) where the West Coast portion of the NSFnet backbone terminates. This link is intended to replace the current link into SDSC. A replacement is needed since the link that now exists was designed primarily as a terminal concentrator providing access to SDSC only and not as a network connection for the University of Hawaii.
