Network Management Policy (INTERIM)

The Internet2 IP network (AS 11537) generally provides best effort forwarding of all IP traffic. Exceptions to best effort forwarding are limited to the following:

• The forwarding of traffic explicitly tagged as “less than best effort” by the end user. Internet2 offers less than best effort traffic forwarding to support researchers that choose a lower class of service for transferring large datasets which are insensitive to loss or latency.
• MPLS traffic engineering is sometimes used to differentially route Internet2’s “managed high-speed service” traffic from commercial peering or commodity traffic for the purpose of load balancing traffic among backbone resources.
• Internet2 offers its network peers the option of using BGP community strings to signal to the Internet2 backbone that traffic destined for a particular prefix should be discarded at the earliest opportunity. This mechanism is provided so that Internet2 network peers are able to minimize the effects of an on-going network-based attack. In addition, network peers are provided with a range of traffic influencing BGP community values to control how their [the peer’s] traffic is treated by the backbone.

The Internet2 IP network is used exclusively for transit among regional networks and the public Internet (i.e., no users connect directly to the Internet2 IP network). The Internet2 IP network does not interfere with the transmission of content so long as the content is not harmful to the operation or security of the Internet2 IP network and the networks with which it peers. Internet2 is responsive to the lawful requests of law enforcement agencies, however given its role as a transit network, such requests are typically directed to the networks that serve end-users directly.

Internet2’s standard practice is to maintain sufficient capacity to ensure loss-free packet transmission along its backbone facilities. Since the network provides two distinct types of service (e.g., public Internet access and a high performance managed service), different capacity planning strategies are employed for each service. The managed service maintains a high level (over 50%) of headroom to accomodate bursts of traffic associated with data intensive applications (e.g., HD video conferencing, large image transfers, etc.). Backbone facilities that support public Internet access are maintained with less headroom (i.e., 10%-30%).

Questions concerning Internet2 network management policy should be directed to: network@internet2.edu