CANET Introduction (By Qian, Tianbai CANET director) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 91 15:06 CHINA TIME +100 From: QIAN@xxx.beijing.canet.cn Subject: Reply To: 7911013@twnctu02.bitnet X-Organization: ICA BEIJING CHINA X-Envelope-to: 7911013@twnctu02.bitnet X-VMS-To: IN%"7911013@twnctu02.bitnet",QIAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CANET , co-initiated by ICA ( Beijing Instutute for Computer Applications ) and the University of Karlsruhe ( Germany ) began in 1986. Its purpose is to integrate chinese academic communities with the worldwide computer network, and to promote information exchange and technical cooperation with the rest of the world. The initial service provided by CANET is international E-mail delivery. The first connection with CSNET was actually set up in Sep.1987. The central machine located in ICA , Siemens 7,760/ BS2000 running PMDF/BS2000 software, was successfully connected with the E-mail systems all over the world by means of a relay machine at the Uni- versity of Karlsruhe. Since then , CANET has been operational and has provided the worldwide E-mail service for some academic communities within China. In 1990 Oct. , the top level domain ---" CN " for China was registered with DDN SRI--NIC by ICA . This is a very important step for the development of CANET. CANET is a store and forward electronic mail network . Recently,the central machine in CANET is a Micro VAXII--cluster system under VMS 4.7 running PMDF 3.1/VMS,which acts as an interna- tional gateway linking the main domain server located at Uni. Karl- sruhe by x.25 through the CHINAPAC (Chinese Packed Switching Network). For remote sites, CANET is accessible for any academic communi- ty of China through the CHINAPAC ( national x.25 PDN ) or the dial up telephone links, at 1200 bps and 2400 bps or 4800 bps (depending on the cost factor ). End--user's PC or workstations can access to local node machine by terminal emulation . CANET adopts RFC--822 formats. CHINAPAC , the first national PDN in China , was operational in the end of 1989 , it is authorized by the goverment and run by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommications of China. This network is based on x.25. At persent, it is still on the first stage and has 3 node-machines ( Package Switching Node ) and 8 package multiplexers which are located at 11 major cities in China. It has international link through the satellites. All amchines of CANET implement Internet DNS ( domain naming system ) syntax. The top level domain --- " CN " for China has been operational since Jan.1991 . Currently, the international mail delivery usually takes half a day . At present , 16 sites have been connected within CANET. It is true , many institutions and universities have estab- lished their private local network in the compus, most of them are interested in joning CANET.But, there are the financial boundaries- ---lack of the funds. If the funding is available, CANET will be growing rapidly.