The NMR Center maintains a collection of UNIX-based workstations for NMR Center users. The demand for off-line processing is increasing dramatically. In the past year, 2 dual-CPU (100 MHz) Sun4m-class workstations, along with a RAID-based Sun Sparc 20 file server, have been added. Additional workstations will be purchased as the need arises. These workstations are connected to the NMR Center network, which provides access to all the NMR instruments in the Center, as well as to the NIH backbone. The NMR Center is also responsible for the design, installation, testing, performance monitoring, and maintenance of the network (SPINet). The NMR Center also contains an internetwork consisting of thin-ethernet, FDDI, and local-talk physical media. This internetwork uses the TCP/IP, FDDI, and Appletalk protocol suites. An ALANTECH Power HUB is used to interconnect the various physical and logical networks. In addition, the Center uses a Star Command Local-talk HUB to mediate between the local-talk and ethernet parts of the network. As the NMR Center grows, the network must be adapted and modified. It is anticipated that in the next year, the current single physical ethernet segment will be split into a number of logically connected but physically separated segments. The use of FDDI will grow, and options are currently being examined to go to even faster networking protocols, e.g., ATM and Fast Ethernet.
