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Top-Tier
Connectivity
NEW REGIONAL
EXCHANGE POINT ENGINEERING FEASIBILITY STUDY COULD LEAD TO PIONEERING
OF A NEXT GENERATION REGION-WIDE COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE.
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By C.B. Adams
In 2001, the RCGA released a commissioned study entitled “Information
Technology Strategies for the St. Louis Region: Building Upon the
Region’s Hidden Talents and Capacities.” The report concluded, “Rising
productivity, high quality jobs, and new products and services depend
upon developing and deploying technology. For metropolitan regions
like the St. Louis region, the difference between vibrant, robust
economies and struggling ones often comes down to having the presence
of technology drivers.”
The Battelle IT study also identified seven “success factors,” including
the need for the St. Louis region to “maintain flexibility and adaptability
to ever-changing industrial needs. The IT sector is fast-paced and
ever changing, therefore the economic development intermediaries
that serve the industry must be as well. In order to be successful,
technology-based economic development initiatives must be flexible
and adaptable to change.”
Now more than a year later, the City of St. Louis, in cooperation
with St. Clair and St. Charles counties, RCGA, and the Greater St.
Louis Economic Development Council have identified the development
of a regional exchange point (REP) as a key component of the area’s
Internet connectivity. The city commissioned a four-month-long feasibility
study, beginning in December 2002, to examine a network engineering
architecture and business model for a REP that would service the
business and economic interests of the Bi-State region.
St. Louis-based NetLabs, Inc., a leading provider of network infrastructure
and engineering services, is conducting the feasibility study with
World Wide Technology, Inc. NetLabs designs and deploys high-bandwidth
metropolitan and wide-area networks and provides advanced product
development and engineering services for the design and implementation
of those networks to businesses, state and local governments, and
universities.
“During the four-month-long study, we will do a technical assessment,
develop the architecture of the REP and also develop a business
model that will address how the REP functions, how it is staffed
and whether it should be a for-profit or not-for-profit enterprise,”
says Dave Sandel, chief technical officer of NetLabs. “We will be
interviewing people who will use the REP, including small, medium
and large companies, Internet service providers, governments and
municipalities, to find out what their needs are.”
NetLabs’ partner in the feasibility study is World Wide Technology,
Inc., (WWT) a St. Louis-based, certified minority-owned company
that is a leading electronic Procurement and Logistics (ePL) provider
in the IT industry and will be acting in a project management roll
for the regional exchange study. Out of nine million firms nationwide,
Div2000.com recently ranked WWT second among all minority-owned
businesses.
The REP that NetLabs is exploring is on the cutting edge of the
global architecture of the Internet. Currently, the architecture
of the Internet is generally ad-hoc, which often limits the quality
of the service that can be delivered within and between metropolitan
areas. A REP builds upon the concept of Metropolitan Area Ethernets,
or MAEs, first created by Metropolitan Fiber Systems (now a part
of WorldCom). Originally, MAEs were constructed to facilitate the
delivery of services for carriers and service providers in major
metropolitan areas.
“We are taking the MAE concept and enhancing its capabilities. We
are making it available not only to carriers and service providers,
but also to enterprises, universities and governments. The REP will
provide regional Internet connectivity across an economic community,
and therefore improve the delivery of communication services, including
high bandwidth applications that are currently difficult to deploy,”
says Tyler Pace, general manager of NetLabs.
“We are saying that just because you are New York or Chicago or
any tier-one market, doesn’t mean you should have a better communications
infrastructure than St. Louis or another tier-two region,” he says.
Chris Dornfeld, chief information officer for the City of St. Louis,
concurs. “As a result of this innovative approach, it is possible
that a regional exchange point may become as integral to regional
IT infrastructure as a port authority is to shipping or a regional,
international airport is to air passenger and freight traffic,”
he says.
JERRY
COX
senior professor of computer science, Washington University |
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“In addition, a REP would also provide several features that address
post-9/11 security requirements, including fully redundant and survivable
switching nodes. Public archival storage also will enable the entire
region to pursue a public disaster recovery model. Moreover, region-wide
services, such as virus protection, are possible with a REP architecture,”
says Jerry Cox, the highly respected senior professor of computer
science at Washington University.
The REP will have two unique characteristics. First, it will be
the first peering facility to allow universities, government and
other enterprises to directly attach to it. Second, “The architecture
of the REP, which emphasizes service delivery, will provide enough
speed and regional connectivity to offer a number of new services,
including shared regional storage and disaster recovery, video distribution
and regional virus protection, among others,” Pace says.
The feasibility study will conclude in April. The city and its partners
will review the study and determine whether to continue the process
and begin to create the new REP. Sandel estimates the REP could
be in place within the year.
“What is amazing about this project is that it is something that
is very easy and inexpensive to create. It can be completely done
with existing off-the-shelf technology and be implemented quickly.
Once in place, St. Louis will be able to tout itself as having the
most beefed-up IT infrastructure in the U.S. St. Louis will be the
first region to announce this capability,” Sandel says.
DAVE
SANDEL
chief technical officer, NetLabs |
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C.B. Adams is a St. Louis-based writer and adjunct faculty member
at University of Missouri–St. Louis and St. Charles Community College.
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