A brief Introduction to Taiwan Academic Network (TANet)

September 8, 2009

1. Foreword

The Taiwan Academic Network (TANet) is a national computer network for teaching research, jointly established by major national universities and the Ministry of Education (MOE) in July 1990. TANet's main purpose is to support teaching research activities in schools and research institutes throughout the nation by providing a medium for sharing resources and providing opportunities for cooperation. TANet has a backbone and a regional network structure as well as a research-related information infrastructure.

In July of 1999, a coordinated internal expansion began that promoted the use of ADSL in junior high and elementary schools to connect to TANet. The goal was for IT education to take root at lower levels and provide schools with network connections and a platform for IT education. In 2009, installation of fiber optic connections was begun at all levels, with the expectation that individual school network bandwidth could reach 100MB and have an IPv4/IPv6 dual stack network service environment.

2. Management Organization

Current TANet management is made up of a three-tier organizational structure that includes a TANet Management Committee, a Regional Network Center, and the City & County Network Center teams. The MOE's Computer Center has called on divisions within the MOE, Regional Network Center managers, City & County Network Center managers, and other related specialists to oversee the growth and promotion of domestic network development.

The next development step will involve linking professional staff teams with the TANet Technical team and the TANet IT Application Management Team. The MOE Computer Center oversees the TANet backbone and the international network. The connection and management of specific regions is the responsibility of the Regional Centers or the City & County Educational Network Centers. The TANet Management Committee and Technical team holds periodic meetings to jointly identify problems and determine solutions for management and technical related issues.

3. Network Protocols and Service Functionality

Current TANet backbone communication protocol uses ATM as the base to provide primary support for Internet TCP/IP series protocols. Regional Network Centers or internal campus use other protocols based on specific needs.

All the applications based on ATM or TCP/IP protocols could be delivered for services on the TANet network. Among which are the services and functions in long distance teaching, Domain Name System (DNS), E-Mail, FTP, Telnet, Netnews, and BBS at the current stage.

4. Network Structure

TANet's network structure is made up of 3 layers: (See network structure map)

(1) National Backbone Network
The MOE oversees Regional Network Centers, including domestic backbone and international circuits, connections to each Regional Network Center, and the Internet along with other domestic network connections such as domestic ISPs, government networks and individual network exchange centers, etc.


(2) Area Networks
Area network backbone lines can be established via the Regional Network Centers and National Backbone Network connections. City & County Educational Network Centers connect city and county educational networks. In principle, each city and county should be able to provide an education and research related network. Responsibility for these networks lies with the Regional Network Centers and City & County Educational Network Centers.


(3) Campus Networks
Individual research unit, school, and campus area networks mined by the size and scope of an individual unit, network use requirements, actual experience and amount of funding available to establish a basic campus area network backbone-progressive expansion is possible. Responsibility for campus networks lies with individual school computing centers or related units.