Phase 5 Upgrade Announcement

Mon Nov 1 14:55:02 UTC 1993

I am pleased to announce an upcoming upgrade of the T3 ANSnet/NSFnet
service.  We are calling this the "Phase-5 upgrade" since it
represents the 5th major change to network infrastructure that we have
made since 1991.  The infrastructure upgrade to the T3 network will
begin deployment on Friday 11/6 in Seattle and Denver, and will
continue at each T3 ENSS site and CNSS POP location during
pre-scheduled weekend maintenance windows through 12/18.  The major
changes included in this upgrade are:

o     Upgrade of all DS3/HSSI router serial interface adapters (T3
      CNSS and ENSS) to support full DS3 bandwidth.  The router
      adapter bus interface cards will also be upgraded to double the
      packet switching rates per interface.

o     The architecture for interconnection among CNSS routers at
      each MCI POP location will be upgraded from point-to-point
      links to a common FDDI ring.

o     The T3 DSUs on each DS3 interface will replaced with a T3 
      bandwidth manager (T3Plus BMX45) to accommodate T3 CNSS-CNSS
      circuits and a Larscom Access-T45 DSU on each end of a T3
      ENSS-CNSS circuit.

o     New system software and microcode will be installed (already
      in progress) prior to the hardware deployment to support the
      increased adapter performance.  Routing software has already
      been deployed to support the new CNSS FDDI ring architecture.

Deployment Schedule Summary
---------------------------
The upgrade will be deployed in six steps, commencing on Friday
evening November 6th, and ending on the weekend of December
18th.  The upgrade will be suspended for the week of Thanksgiving. 
Some deployment details and the deployment schedule follow below:

-     The T3Plus BMX45N bandwidth managers will be installed on the
      first POP visit.  CNSS sites will have multiple visits to
      upgrade the backbone links.

-     T3 ENSS sites are visited once and are upgraded concurrent
      with the adjacent DS3 linked CNSS. 

-     The ANS NOC will create a planned maintenance trouble ticket
      with the ENSS site well in advance of maintenance and will
      confirm with the site a few days in advance.

-     All parts will be delivered to the ENSS site on the Thursday
      preceding the scheduled Friday evening upgrade. 

Deployment Schedule Detail
--------------------------

Step    Date   ENSS  CNSS 
----  -------  ----  ---- 
1    11/06/93  E143  Seattle    Seattle ENSS and Seattle POP 
               E142  Denver     Salt Lake City ENSS and Denver POP 
               E141  Denver     Boulder ENSS and Denver POP 

2    11/13/93  E128  San Fran   Palo Alto ENSS and San Fran POP 
               E144  San Fran   FIX-W ENSS and San Fran POP 
               E130  Chicago    Argonne ENSS and Chicago POP 
               ----  Seattle    2nd visit for Seattle-San Fran link upgrade 

3    11/20/93  E135  L.A.       San Diego ENSS and Los Angeles POP 
               E179  N. Mex.    Sandia Labs ENSS and Albuquerque POP 
               E172  N. Mex.    Phillips Labs ENSS and Albuquerque POP 
               E139  Houston    Houston ENSS and Houston POP 
               ----  San Fran   2nd visit for San Fran.- L.A. link upgrade 

4    12/04/93  E129  St. Louis  Champaign ENSS and St. Louis POP 
               E140  St. Louis  Lincoln ENSS and St. Louis POP 
               E138  Atlanta    Atlanta ENSS and Atlanta POP 
               ----  Greensboro Greensboro POP
               ----  Denver     2nd visit for Denver-St. Louis link upgrade 
               ----  Chicago    2nd visit for Chicago-St. Louis link upgrade 
               ----  Houston    2nd visit for Houston-St. Louis link upgrade 
                                      and for Houston-Atlanta link upgrade 

5    12/11/93  E131  Cleveland  Ann Arbor ENSS and Cleveland POP 
               E132  Cleveland  Pittsburgh ENSS and Cleveland POP 
               E137  New York   Princeton ENSS and New York POP 
               ----  Chicago    3rd visit for Chicago-Cleveland link upgrade 

6    12/18/93  E133  Hartford   Ithaca ENSS and Hartford POP 
               E134  Hartford   Boston ENSS and Hartford POP 
               E136  Wash D.C.  College Park ENSS and Wash D.C. POP 
               E145  Wash D.C.  FIX-East ENSS and Wash D.C. POP 
               E146  Wash D.C.  DARPA ENSS and Wash D.C. POP 
               ----  Cleveland  2nd visit for Cleveland-Hartford link upgrade 
               ----  Greensboro 2nd visit for Greensboro-D.C. link upgrade 
               ----  New York   2nd visit for NY-Hartford link upgrade 
                                  and for NY-D.C. link upgrade 