Anhui Provincial Education and Research Computer Network

I. Preliminary Construction of the Provincial Education and Research Network (1995-1999)

As early as November 1995, the leaders of the Higher Education Department of the Provincial Education Commission led representatives of some colleges and universities in the province to Nanjing to participate in the campus network construction seminar, and began to deploy campus network construction to colleges and universities in the province, and commissioned the China University of Science and Technology Network Center to plan the construction of the provincial education and research network. In March 1996, the Anhui Provincial Network was officially connected to Southeast University through the China University of Science and Technology campus network and joined the China Education and Research Network. In September 1996, the Provincial Education Commission made it clear that the Anhui Provincial Education and Research Computer Network Center was located at the University of Science and Technology of China. In 1997, many colleges and universities in the province began to actively plan and build campus networks. The construction plan of the provincial education and scientific research network planned by the Network Center of USTC was submitted to the Provincial Education Commission for approval.

In February 1998, a work meeting on campus network construction of colleges and universities in our province was held at USTC. The then leaders, Director Chen Xianzhong and Deputy Director Xu Genying, attended the meeting and delivered speeches. The meeting announced the formal establishment of the Anhui Provincial Education and Scientific Research Network Management Committee, Expert Committee and Network Center, and required all colleges and universities to vigorously promote campus network construction and contribute to the development of provincial education and the development of Anhui through science and education. The Provincial Network Center's network connection with Southeast University was successfully realized by borrowing an optical cable line from USTC to Hefei Telecommunications Bureau. Since then, the network construction of colleges and universities in our province has entered a new stage. With the assistance and support of USTC, the computer room of the Provincial Network Center was completed and officially put into operation in December 1998. The Provincial Network Center has become a base for the network construction of colleges and universities in our province.

In March 1999, Deputy Director Xu Genying presided over the meeting and officially launched the networking project of the four western schools in Hefei. The Provincial Network Center was responsible for design and planning. At the same time, the provincial network center also proposed the idea and plan of building a high-speed metropolitan area network for colleges and universities in Hefei. Therefore, the networking of the four western colleges and the construction of the metropolitan area network for colleges and universities in Hefei became one of the important tasks of the provincial network center. At the same time, many colleges and universities stepped up the pace of campus network construction.

2. Mid-term construction of the provincial education and scientific research network (2000-2010)

In April 2000, the Anhui provincial network realized the access to the national education network with optical cables. And the export of the provincial education network to the China Education and Scientific Research Network was expanded from the original 512K DDN dedicated line to 2M. Then, it was upgraded to 4M in May. After the continued efforts of the provincial network center, on December 21, 2000, the export capacity was expanded to 155M, and the education network was directly connected with the optical cable high-speed channel. The opening of this channel has increased the export bandwidth of our province by 312 times compared with the original 512K, greatly accelerating the external access speed of our province's education network and greatly improving the congestion of our province's education network export. It marks a big step forward in the construction of our province's education network.

In September 2000, after the optical cable line connecting the four western universities was completed through the School of Electronic Engineering, Anhui University, Anhui Medical University, Anhui College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Anhui Agricultural University were directly connected to the Anhui Provincial Network through optical cables, and passed the acceptance of the Provincial Department of Education in late September. At the same time, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei University, PLA Electronic Engineering College, etc. also entered the Anhui Provincial Network through optical cables, thus initially forming a high-speed metropolitan area network for colleges and universities in Hefei. In the same year, the campus networks of Anqing Normal University, Huaibei Normal University, Wannan Medical College, Anhui University of Science and Technology and other campuses were connected to the Anhui Provincial Network and entered the China Education and Research Network.

At the end of 2002, the Department of Education issued the "Three-Year Implementation Opinions on Education Informatization in Anhui Province", which clearly stated that the Anhui Provincial Education and Research Computer Network Center was responsible for implementing the provincial backbone network construction project, expanding the Hefei Education Metropolitan Area Network, and setting up provincial network master nodes in 16 provincial cities outside Hefei, forming a ring network interconnection with the provincial network center in Hefei through two 155M optical fiber channels in the north and south, realizing a backbone network covering 17 cities in the province. The provincial backbone network was built and put into use in 2004. It has achieved interconnection and resource sharing between university networks, and promoted scientific research and teaching in various schools.

III. Recent construction of the provincial education and scientific research network (2011-2014)

With the continuous growth of the co-construction and sharing of various higher education resources such as digital libraries and high-quality higher education courses, the bandwidth of the provincial backbone network has been unable to meet the growth of data traffic, so the bandwidth expansion of the provincial network backbone line is imminent. In 2013, the Provincial Department of Education and the Provincial Department of Finance attached great importance to the construction of the provincial network, included the sub-project of the construction of the provincial education and scientific research network information platform in the "Anhui Higher Education Revitalization Plan", and provided funds for the upgrading and transformation of the Anhui Provincial Education and Scientific Research Network. On October 10, 2013, the Provincial Department of Education organized a provincial expert committee to hold a plan demonstration meeting. After the plan was approved, the project implementation and construction began according to the instructions of the Education Department. By April 2014, the overall architecture of the provincial network backbone had been successfully upgraded from the original north-south 155M SDH ring network architecture to a hierarchical star MSTP network architecture. In December 2014, the Anhui Provincial University Research Collaboration High-Performance Computing Public Platform was put into operation.

So far, all colleges and universities above the undergraduate level in the province have been connected to the education network. In addition, including higher vocational colleges in the province, there are 55 connected units, with more than 500,000 users, and the network operation is stable and good.