Compendium 2002 Country Information

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BASIC INFORMATION

Full name of the organisation (in English:) Swiss Academic and Research Network
Full name of the organisation in the national language(s): Teleinformatikdienste fuer Lehre und Forschung
Services de teleinformatique pour l'enseignement et la recherche
Abbreviation in the national language(s): SWITCH
Visiting address: Limmatquai 138
City/postal code: CH - 8001 ZÜRICH
Postal address: Postfach
City/postal code: 8021 ZÜRICH

Switzerland
Year founded: 1987
Year operations started: 1988
Short description of the history of the NREN: www.switch.ch/about/foundation.html
Fax: +41-1-268 15 68
Phone: +41-1 268 15 15
Website: www.switch.ch
General e-mail address: info@switch.ch
Convention used for e-mail addresses: name@switch.ch


ORGANISATIONAL INFORMATION

Form of organisation: Separate legal entity /
Other non-profit organisation /
Number of organisational members, shareholders and/or owners: 30
Brief description of the governing structure: SWITCH is a foundation.
The governing structure consists of 3 bodies:
- foundation council (30 members)
- foundation committee (4-5 members of the council)
- offices (40 employees)
Involvement in cctld or domain names: We manage the ccTLDs .ch and .li

We participate in any relevant working group where the working areas of SWITCH are covered. Generally 2 engineers of SWITCH attend RIPE meetings.
Name(s) of Chief Executive Officer(s): Dr. Andreas Dudler
President
Mr. Thomas Brunner
Managing Director
Head of the Technical Staff: Mr. Thomas Brunner Managing Director
E-mail: brunner@switch.ch
Name of contact person for PR matters: Mr. Urs Eppenberger
E-mail: eppenberger@switch.ch


STAFFING

Total number of staff directly employed by the organisation: 25
Number of directly employed staff in Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs): 22.5
Number of directly employed Technical Staff in FTE: 18.5
Average number of people (in FTE) working for the organisation as subcontractors or on outsourced basis: 2.5
Number of subcontracted/outsourced technical staff in FTE: 1.5
Number of administrative and financial staff in FTE: 5
Number of user support and training staff in FTE: 3
Total amount of effort in person/months per year: 308


FINANCES, BUDGET

The budget year is equal to the calendar year.
Total budget of last financial year (in euro): 12.7 M
Total budget current financial year (in euro): 14.6 M
Source Percentage of income Restricted Free
Government/public bodies: 8 x
Users: 45 x
Other sources: 47 x


Method of client charging: We use a combination of flat fee and usage-based fee
 
Expenditure category: Percentage:
Salaries and general office costs 23
Equipment and software costs 7
Transmission (data communications) 36
Other 5
Depreciation 29
Method of obtaining national data communications capacity: We own our own network
Method of obtaining international data communications capacity: Through the GÉANT project
Remarks: Nationally and internationally we also have contracts with providers.

Expenditure: Equipment and software cost: including running cost
Expenditure: Depreciation: mainly Equipment


USER BASE

Total number of students in tertiary education (x 1000): 120, year: 1999
Percentage of University students with internet access through the NREN: 100
Percentage of further education students with Internet access through the NREN: 5
Percentage of secondary education students with internet access through the NREN: 0
External traffic per university student in 2001 (in GB/yr): 7.9
Congestion in the national network: rank from most (1) to least (5) congested; est. percentage of clients experiencing congestion
Campus LAN 3 20
Access network 2 10
NREN backbone 5
External connections 4


Manner in which institutions are connected to the network:
Directly connected to a POP on the NREN: 18
Connected via a regional or metropolitan network managed by a third party: 29
Connected via another way: 43Institutions connected "behind" directly connected institutions
Number of institutions with a permanent connection: 90
Number of connected Universities: 68
Percentage of total number of Universities that is connected via the NREN: 95
Number of connected institutes of higher or further education: very few
Percentage of all institutes of higher or further education that is connected via the NREN: 10

CAPACITY AND PLANS



Current core network capacity in Mbps: 2000 Mbps
Total volume of traffic through the network in 2001 (in TB): 905
Volume of outbound external traffic in 2001 (in TB): 552
Volume of inbound external traffic in 2001 (in TB): 393
Total traffic in January 2002 (in TB): 114
Volume of outbound external traffic in January 2002 (in TB): 67
Volume of inbound external traffic in January 2002 (in TB): 47
Core capacity in Mb/s x km: 626750
Typicial large-site access capacity (in Mbps): 155 Mbps
Expected access capacity in two years time: 6 times as much, to 1 Gb/s
Map of network topology: www.switch.ch/lan/national.html
Recent network traffic statistics: www.switch.ch/cgi-bin/lan/statistics/lansummary-public
Operational external connections in January 2002 (usable capacity in Mb/s:)
GÉANT (shared with CERN), 2488 Mb/s
CIXP CERN Internet Exchange, 1000
IX Europe Zürich Internet Exchange, 155 Mb/s
Internet Transit (Swisscom), 300
Planned additions or upgrades to the external connections in 2002:
IX Europe Zürich Internet Exchange, upgrade to 1000 Mb/s
Internet Transit, upgrade and new provider, 600 Mb/s
Expected operational external connections in January 2004:
GÉANT (dedicated for SWITCH), 2488
Internet Transit, 2488


Technology used for the core network: Dark fiber based DWDM and ATM
Planned technical changes: More dark fiber based DWDM, no ATM anymore.
Expected core capacity in two years: 4 times (to 10 Gb/s)
Involvement in Internet Exchange Point: No.
 


SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENTS

Services provided:
- Basic IP provision: Done by NREN
- User support: Done by NREN
- NOC: Done by NREN
- Directory services: Done by NREN
- Security incident response: Done by NREN
- PKI/CA: Done by NREN
- Annual Conferences: Done by NREN
Summary of or URL to Acceptable Use Policy: SWITCH provides service to higher education and research in Switzerland. Included are 'supporting organizations', like libraries, science foundation, as well as industrial partners of research projects.

www.switch.ch/about/aup.html
Current interests:
*Infrastructure /
Giga Ethernet /
Wireless LAN /
In house Certification Authority /
Directory Services /
Caching, Indexing, Mirroring /
Multicast /
*Security /
CERT services /
CERT incident coordination /
Video Conferencing /
Traffic Monitoring /
Charging / billing systems /
Essential future interests: *Infrastructure /
Giga Ethernet /
Wireless LAN /
IPv6 Development /
IPv6 Service Deployment /
*Middleware /
User authentication /
In house Certification Authority /
Video Conferencing /
Streaming Media /
Potential future interests: Lambda Testbed access /
Lambda Service Deployment /
User authentication /
In house PKI development/deployment /
In house Certification Authority /
Mobile Access (Persistence of presence) /
Teaching and learning methods /
Streaming Media /
Information Content indexing
Will follow other NRENs on: Information Content indexing
Not interested in: SDH /
Diffserv/Qos /
MPLS Service Deployment /
Teaching and learning methods /
Web Server content management /
Web Server usage analysis /