The Internet network is a hierachical network of more than 20,000 networks involving over 2 million host computers and 20 million users from over 100 countries (end of 1993). ONet and CA*net (CA*net is to be replaced by CANARIE - Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education - in the mid 1990's) are only two of such networks.
NRC's network is connected to ONet, the Ontario regional network, via a CISCO router in the M-60 machine room. Most Ottawa Internet sites (Carleton University, Health and Welfare Canada, University of Ottawa, Gandalf Canada, etc.) are connected to ONet using that same router.
NRC, University of Toronto, Queen's University, University of Western Ontario, University of Waterloo, Gandalf Canada are all members of the ONet regional network.
Figure 13.1 (courtesy of the ONet staff) shows the topology of the ONet network.
Figure 13.1: Structure of the ONet network
From Ottawa, the signal is sent to Toronto at the speed of 1.5Mbs (also known as ``T1" speed). It then uses another CISCO router to transfer the signal to CA*net, the Canadian national network. CA*net connects all the canadian regional networks together: BCnet in British Columbia; ARnet in Alberta; SASK*net in Saskatchewan; MBnet is Manitoba; ONet in Ontario; RISC in Québec; AccessNB in New Brunswick; NSTN in Nova Scotia; NLnet in Newfoundland; PEInet in Prince Edward Island.
By March 1995 all the lines connecting the regional networks together should be running at a speed of 1.5Mbs (T1).
Figure 13.2 (courtesy of the ONet staff) shows the topology of CA*net.
Figure 13.2: Structure of CA*net
CA*net is in turn connected to the American national backbone, NSFnet, through connections in Vancouver (BCnet), Montreal (RISC) and Toronto (ONet). NSFnet is currently running at a speed of 45Mbs (T3 speed).
NSFnet connects to the national backbones of Europe and Asia using trans-Atlantic cables.
In summary, smaller networks (NRC's) are connected to bigger networks (ONet) which in turn are connected to still bigger networks (CA*net) which are inter-connected with similar networks (NSFnet).
Each node on the network is assigned a name (and, transparently, an IP address).
Tools to access the information distributed on the Internet are gaining in popularity. Such tools include xmosaic, gopher and USENET News Readers. The goal of these tools is to provide assitance to the users in searching and collecting the wide range of information available on the Internet.