Page 137 - DLIS408_INFORMATION_TECHNOLOGY-APPLICATIONSL SCIENCES

Information Technology and Application

Notes

Did u know? Education and Research Network (ERNET), India is an autonomous scientific
society of Ministry of Communication & information technology (Govt. of
India).
ERNET has made a significant contribution to the emergence of networking in the country. It
practically brought the Internet to India and has built up national capabilities in the area of net-
working, especially in protocol software engineering. 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.

Task Define functions of INFLIBNET.

12.4 ERNET

ERNET (Education and Research Network) has made a significant contribution to the emergence of
networking in the country. It practically brought the Internet to India and has built up national
capabilities in the area of net-working, especially in protocol software engineering. 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. UNDP has lauded ERNET as one of the most successful programmers it
has funded. The Govt, of India has committed itself to further strengthen the project by including
it in the 9th Plan with the allocation of funds and by creation of a new organizational set-up in the
form of a Society. The Science community of the country has also recognized ERNET’s contribution—
both for infrastructure services as well as for R&D. The Scientific Advisory Committee to the
Cabinet has adopted ERNET as the platform for launching an S&T network in the country.
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.

Notes 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 organized 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 (UNDP), involving eight premier
institutions as participating agencies-NCST (National Centre for Software Technology) Bombay,
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 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.
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