• What is MCNC?
  • MCNC is a private, not-for-profit company based in the Research Triangle Park, NC.  Its mission it to provide network based resources and services to all levels of education in North Carolina.  MCNC operates NCREN.
• What is NCREN?
  • NCREN stands for the North Carolina Research and Education Network.  It’s a private network that currently serves mainly the university system of North Carolina with advanced video and high performance data network services.   In addition NCREN provides service to state government ITS, Winstonet, and ERC.  In addition NCREN has started serving some LEA’s including Chapel Hill-Carrboro City, Hertford County, Northampton County, Washington County, Craven County, Camden County, Tyrell County, Nash County, and Winston-Salem Forsyth County schools.
• What will MCNC/NCREN do for my schools?
  • As part of the North Carolina Schools connectivity initiative MCNC has been contracted to provide a direct connection from every LEA central office to the NCREN backbone by DPI and the State of North Carolina Information Technology Services.  As part of this, we will work to insure that all traffic local to North Carolina based education entities routes directly to NCREN. 
• Why should I have a connection to NCREN?
  • A direct connection to NCREN will greatly improve the performance and reliability of applications residing at key locations of importance to the students and faculty of every LEA.  This includes but is not limited to applications such as Learn and Earn, NC Wise, and the North Carolina Virtual Schools Project.  If every school has direct connectivity to NCREN, delivery of this traffic will be optimized.  Instead of traffic having to go to the internet and route through such locations as Atlanta, Ga., Washington, DC, the traffic will stay local to North Carolina and these applications will perform better.  In addition, money will be saved on reduced connectivity needs both by NCREN and your LEA for generic internet access.
• How do you know they will work better?
  • Applications perform better as latency between the client and the host is reduced.  Latency is reduced by removing unnecessary paths in the delivery of service between the endpoints.  By connecting your LEA directly to NCREN, as many as 20-30 hops of extra internet hops can be reduced.
• Can you show me how this would work?
  • Here is a trace route from an unconnected LEA to NCREN at the interface point of NC Wise.  The route begins to fail per NC Wise latency requirements at hop 8:
    • rlgh7600-gw#trace 70.150.174.1
      Tracing the route to 70.150.174.1
      
      1 rlgh1-gw-to-rlgh7600-gw.ncren.net7 0 msec  0 msec   0 msec
      2           ISP1                                              8 msec 8 msec 8 msec
      3           ISP1                                              8 msec 8 msec 8 msec
      4           ISP1                                              8 msec 12 msec 8 msec
      5           ISP1                                              8 msec 12 msec 8 msec
      6           ISP2                                             12 msec 8 msec 8 msec
      7           ISP2                                             12 msec 8 msec 8 msec
      8           ISP2                                             64 msec 60 msec 64 msec
      9           ISP2                                             60 msec 64 msec 60 msec
      10         ISP2                                            56 msec 56 msec 60 msec
      11         ISP3                                            60 msec 60 msec 60 msec
      12         ISP3                                            48 msec 52 msec 60 msec
      13         ISP3                                            48 msec 52 msec 48 msec
      14         ISP3                                            60 msec 60 msec 60 msec
      15         ISP3                                            60 msec 72 msec 80 msec
      16         ISP3                                            60 msec 60 msec 60 msec
      17         ISP3                                            56 msec 56 msec 60 msec
      18         ISP3                                            56 msec   220 msec   204 msec
      19         ISP3                                            60 msec 60 msec 60 msec
      20         ISP3                                            60 msec 60 msec 60 msec
      21         LEA Site                                     60 msec *  60 msec
  • Here is a traceroute from a connected LEA to NCREN at the interface point of NC Wise, delivered below the latency requirement for NC Wise:
    • Tracing the route to craven-co-schools-to-ecu7600-gw.ncren.net
      
      1 rtp11-gw-to-rtp7600-gw.ncren.net                         0 msec 0 msec 0 msec
      2 ecugsr-gw-to-rtp11-gw.ncren.net                          4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
      3 ecu7600-gw-to-ecugsr-gw-pri.ncren.net             4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
      4 craven-co-schools-to-ecu7600-gw.ncren.net     8 msec *  4 msec
• What are you proposing relative to my existing Internet service?
  • We are not going to impact your existing internet service delivery arrangement.  Our goal is to keep traffic destined for resources in North Carolina inside of North Carolina.  We would like to place a piece of networking equipment at the edge of your network to prioritize this traffic toward NCREN, and not affect your other internet traffic.
• Why can’t this connection just terminate in to a device that I manage at the edge of my network or at my firewall?
  • This connection will need to terminate in to a router that has the capability of running the BGP routing protocol, and hold many more routes relative to NCREN and our national R&E partners.  Most firewalls do not have this capability.  We want to make this experience a positive one for you, and as such will work with you to craft a solution that makes the most sense for you. 
• What is BGP?
  • BGP stands for Border Gateway Protocol.  It’s the routing protocol that ISP’s such as NCREN use to communicate network destinations and to move traffic around the Internet.
• Are you planning to take over the operation of my wide and local area networks?
  • Absolutely not.  The operation and management of your network continues to reside with you.  We’re here to help the user side of applications work better and provide technical assistance to you.  As the North Carolina School Connectivity continues to mature, more services and functions such as firewall support, mail support, etc., may come about.  In all cases, these will be services that you can opt to have or not to have.
• How are you planning on terminating this connection and routing local traffic?
  • NCREN will place a router at the edge of your network, outside of your firewall.  We will administer a connection back to NCREN and run BGP to tell the rest of NCREN that your network now exists directly on NCREN as opposed to one of our upstream providers.  We would like to place your existing internet connection in this same device to reduce the complexities associated with BGP and make intelligent routing decisions at the edge in this single device for you.  We would hand an Ethernet connection to you for tying in to your local infrastructure within your LEA.  We have received feedback from a small number of LEA’s that they may not wish for NCREN to handle your existing connections.  In this case NCREN  would tie the router we manage to your existing, and work with you to integrate the necessary routing changes to make the local traffic stay local.  In both cases, we want you to feel comfortable with the final solution.
• Why should I allow you to place a piece of equipment at the edge of my network and administer my routing policy to NCREN and my current internet service provider?
  • BGP is a fairly complex protocol to administer.  We have experience doing this arrangement for most of the universities within North Carolina that we serve.  By overseeing the routing policy for you, we provide an extra level of support for you in working through issues related to performance on both connections.  In addition, if you allow us to provide this service it will give you more time to work on other things related to the operation of your local area network.
• What experience do you have operating a major network?
  • MCNC has operated NCREN for almost 23 years.  We were involved in the development of the internet, and were the first internet service provide in North Carolina.
• Why does this extra connection matter?  Why can’t I just get more money for my existing connection and make it faster and bigger instead of adding another connection?
  • In most cases, simply creating a bigger link to the internet will not reduce latency.  A larger pipe that ultimately takes traffic outside the state does not address the real problems associated with the delivery of the service.  In a closed network environment such as NCREN, our engineers and your engineers will be able to control the end to end performance characteristics of applications of importance to you.
• What are other benefits of this connection?
  • Immediately upon connection to NCREN, you’ll have instant access to Internet2 and NLR, which are national research and education networks.  In addition, as more economies of scale are obtained, it’s expected that more centralized applications such as United Streaming and Elluminate can be made available for all LEA’s within North Carolina at a more affordable price.
• What is the need for a NC Education Backbone? Why do I need to be on it?
  • The backbone is being established to provide an efficient path for local traffic ("Keeping Local Traffic Local"). Currently, this will not be the path for Internet service. The backbone connection will signficantly reduce your Internet traffic and significantly improve your connectivity to statewide content and administrative resources.
• Is MCNC affliated with DPI or ITS?
  • No. MCNC provides service to ITS and DPI.  Our contracts for service are relative to specific requirements they have of us.  MCNC is a private not for profit company.
• Can I expect this connection to improve the performance between my schools and applications such as NCWise?
  • Yes, as evidenced above in the traceroutes and the LEA’s currently on the network, latency improves dramatically when an LEA is directly connected to NCREN.  Once connected, the latency requirements of NC Wise are met.
• What do I need to do as an LEA to take advantage of this connection?  In other words, what is required of me to you to make it happen, and how much does it cost?
  • You will need to sign a MOU with the school connectivity initiative to include you in a consortium filing for e-rate funding.  You will need to work with NCREN engineers to optimize the routing of traffic relative to the edge of your network, based on whichever service delivery solution you’d desire.  At that point, all that is required is about 2RU of space to locate an NCREN managed router, and power for that device.  This service is being provided for you by funding from the North Carolina State Legislature to DPI at no cost to you.
• What is the timing for acquiring this connection?
  • Current plans call for this connectivity to happen in the first half of 2008.  Exact schedules are being worked out pending signed contracts with the state by MCNC.
• If this device breaks, who will fix or replace it?
  • MCNC and NCREN will be the sole agency responsible for fixing issues related to this device at your network edge.
• I think this new connection works great! Do you sell Internet access?
  • Yes, NCREN sells commodity Internet service at very attractive rates.

Have more questions? You can post additional questions or comments two ways listed below. Your questions will be directed to the appropriate team member, and you should receive a response in one business day.

• Connectivity Website: Contact Us
• Email: Connectivity Help