Transcript HiSeasNet-Inmartech08

HiSeasNet:
Internet on the High Seas for
6 years and counting
Inmartech 2008
Steve Foley
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Overview
 HiSeasNet: The system
 What it is
 Coverage areas
 Equipment
 HiSeasNet: The platform
 What it can do
 HiSeasNet: The project
 Project organization and costs
 Lessons learned so far
 Future work
Overview
 HiSeasNet: The system
 What it is
 Coverage areas
 Equipment
 HiSeasNet: The platform
 What it can do
 HiSeasNet: The project
 Project organization and costs
 Lessons learned so far
 Future work
What is HiSeasNet?
 Satellite network extending the Internet to
research platforms at sea
 Connects University-National Oceanographic
Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet of US-based
research vessels
 Internet Protocol (IP) based for flexibility
 “Always on”, fixed cost
 Uses C-band (global coverage) and Ku-band
(coastal coverage) antennas
 RF gear is Codan, networking is Cisco,
antennas are SeaTel, Prodelin, and Vertex
This is network infrastructure!
HiSeasNet Services
 Satellite bandwidth
 Ship-to-shore: 96kbps (C-Band), 64kbps (Ku)
 Shore-to-ship:
 256kbps for 5 slots on both AOR and POR C-Band
satellites (~50kbps per ship, but shared)
 192 kbps for 3 slots on North Ku-Band, 256kbps for 4
slots on Gulf Ku-Band Beam 2 (~64kbps/ship but shared)
 Earth station connection to Internet in San
Diego at SIO
 Direct routing through to home institution
 Run your own IP services however you want
(email, web browsing, VoIP, video
teleconferencing, file transfers, campus services,
data exchange, remote control, etc.)
 Ship and shore equipment maintenance 2x/yr
Pacific C-band Coverage
Atlantic/Eastern Pacific C-band
Ku-Band Coverage (SatMex5)
 Beam 1
 R/V New Horizon
 R/V Point Sur
 R/V Wecoma
 Beam 2
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R/V
R/V
R/V
R/V
Endeavor
Oceanus
Pelican
Walton Smith
Current setup
 Now at 15 (8 C-band, 7 Ku-band) ships and 1 fixed
station
 Station is BAS on South Georgia Island on its own 128kbs Cband link through the AOR satellite.
 Ship slots
 5 C-band POR, 5 C-band AOR (10 slots for 8 ships adds
mobility between ocean regions)
 4 Gulf Ku-band, 3 North Ku-band
 Earth station is 3 antennas:
 7m Vertex POR C-Band (using Intelsat 701)
 7m Vertex AOR C-Band (using Intelsat 707)
 3.8m Prodelin Ku-Band on 2 beams (using SatMex5 beams 1
and 2)
 C-band ships use 2.4m SeaTel antennas
 Ku-band ships use 1.5m, 1.2m, or 0.95 SeaTel
antennas
What does it look like?
Current HiSeasNet Fleet
 C-Band (2.4m dish,
Global coverage)
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Atlantis
Kilo Moana
Knorr
Melville
Revelle
Seward Johnson
Thompson
Langseth
 Ku-Band (North
America coastal
coverage)
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Endeavor (1.2m)
New Horizon (1.2m)
Oceanus (1.5m)
Pelican (1m)
Point Sur (1m)
Walton Smith (1m)
Wecoma (1.5m)
Antenna/Radome Comparisons
C-Band (9797)
Ku-Band (6006)
Small Ku-band
(4006)
144 in
2.4m dish
72 in
1.5m dish
400 lbs
Pedestal mount
Rx gain: 42.5dB
48 in
1m dish
250 lbs
Pedestal mount
Rx gain: 40.1 dB
Typical Ship
Network
Setup
Purple: RF
Teal: Sync serial
Orange: Public IP space
Blue: Ethernet
High Level Network View
Brief history of over 7 years
 Started in with one C-band ship and commercial
teleport (Feb ‘02)
 Added two C-band ships and our own earth station
with 7m POR antenna (Late ‘03)
 Added more C-Band ships (‘04 - ‘07)
 Added 7m C-band AOR antenna (Apr ‘05)
 Added 3.8m Ku-Band antenna for coastal and Gulf of
Mexico coverage (Sep ‘05)
 Added fixed BAS station South Georgia Island (Oct
‘05)
 Added more Ku-band ships (‘05-present)
 Temporary operation of one ship in IOR through
commercial teleport (‘07) 88kbps/96kbps (down/up)
 Added 3.8m Ku-band antenna for northern coastal
coverage (Sep ‘07)
Indian Ocean C-band (2007)
Overview
 HiSeasNet: The system
 What it is
 Coverage areas
 Equipment
 HiSeasNet: The platform
 What it can do
 HiSeasNet: The project
 Project organization and costs
 Lessons learned so far
 Future work
What HiSeasNet Can Do
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Email exchanges (bigger/longer than before)
Web browsing
Video streaming/conferencing
VoIP
Bulk file transfers
Instant messaging
Remote control of equipment
Software updating, patching
License server access for large programs
 Plenty more! What can you think of?
Applications
 Science outreach
 Video conferencing, blogs, website updates,
collaborations, images, videos
 Science
 Literature searches, web-based funding
paperwork, results to shore, analysis/datasets
from shore
 Technical troubleshooting
 Images, phone calls, video snippits, remote
control/monitoring, instant messaging, Google
 Ship operations
 Weather updates, parts orders, inventory updates,
clearance documents, agent communications
 Ship life
 News, emails, blogs, online banking/shopping/etc.
Recent Projects
 ROADNet (ongoing)
 Data (weather, position, images) from ships
streaming back in real-time
 Shallow Water 2006
 Multi-ship, mooring, and glider coordination
between 5 ships with wireless links, then off to
shore via HiSeasNet
 Newfoundland 2008
 Temporary (1 month) increase to 256kbps off Kuband ship for video streaming back to shore,
broadcast over web
May be able to “burst” short term bandwidth more
in the future if conditions are right.
How life is different with
HiSeasNet
 More accessibility at sea
 But harder to get away from the office
 Easier to bring students out to sea
 Lectures and notes can be recorded and sent to sea
 More reliance on communications systems and higher
expectations for being online
 HiSeasNet is a critical system now
 NOT as much demand for new services as expected
 But reliability of email and web is paramount
What more can HiSeasNet do?
 IP based, so just about anything is
possible
 Large delay, high jitter, so real-time
applications (like VoIP) can be tricky to
do well. Buffering helps.
 The sky is the limit…suggestions on
what to try?
Overview
 HiSeasNet: The system
 What it is
 Coverage areas
 Equipment
 HiSeasNet: The platform
 What it can do
 HiSeasNet: The project
 Project organization and costs
 Lessons learned so far
 Future work
Cost
 Equipment cost (including spares)
 $185,000 for C-band gear
 $85,000 to $120,000 for Ku-band gear
 Bandwidth
 $750/mo/ship Ku-band
 $3000/mo/ship C-band
 Prices for 1 year, pre-emptible contracts
 Operating cost per ship
 $250/day C-band, $150/day Ku-band
 Includes bandwidth, maintenance, earth station
operation
 Funding provided by the National Science
Foundation
HiSeasNet Staffing
 Operations are handled by 1 person,
part time at SIO
 Maintenance work is contracted out to
CommSystems, roughly 1 person fulltime
 Office/administrative work is 1 person
part time at SIO
Lessons Learned
 We have regular outages (ship structure,
equipment failures, etc.)
 Need spares on board
 Training for techs is helping during equipment
problems
 Raising antennas above structures is helpful, but
not always possible
 Coverage is not global from San Diego earth
station
 Can contract with commercial stations for IOR or
Mediterranean areas
 Ku-band ships are sometimes out of range
 Are trying short term contracts on other satellites
More Lessons Learned
 Bandwidth is always available, but with delay
and jitter. Conservation still helps.
 Web proxies
 Cache pages and limit useless data (ie ads)
 Control user access and is network choke point
 Limiting simultaneous users
 Policies are as useful as technology. Includes:
 Who gets priority? Science use, usually.
 Who can use the web and for how long?
 What traffic is allowed? Not allowed?
 Common use policies among ships is not
viable… too many differences between ships
 Viruses, spam, worms, malware, hackers, and
security practices still apply at sea now!
Failures and Spares
 Most problems are user or ship related
 Power outage, antenna repoints, gyro failure,
unfamiliarity with gear, etc.
 Solution: Presented 4-day training program and
techs are more capable of tracking down their
own problems (and finding out what is normal)
 Antennas still have tracking problems
sometimes, but failures are somewhat
uncommon
 RF gear failures are major cause of
catastrophic ship outages
 Solution:
 Have expanded spares kit on board including RF gear for
troubleshooting needs. Allows for repairs at sea.
 Still have depot/earth station RF spares in SD
Recent Improvements
 Installed gear on some new ships. Almost all
UNOLS ships capable of HiSeasNet are
outfitted with HiSeasNet antennas.
 Improved current satellite beam services
 Remote control, added bandwidth, extra slots
 Web site (http://www.hiseasnet.net)
improvements
 Added slot schedule and network diagram
 Added file repository (drivers, guides, etc.)
 Launched wiki with growing FAQ and additional
resources for scientists and operators
 Breakdown for each ship’s bandwidth usage
 Presented technician training class at WHOI
Future Work
 Focus is now on maintenance and operations,
infrastructure improvement
 Possibly expand Ku-band carriers to cover
more of POR. Possibly GE-23 over N. Pacific.
Requires another antenna at the earth station
 More training classes (multi-day, hands-on,
theoretical and practical)
 More documentation, troubleshooting guides,
discussion online
 Continue routine (2x/yr)
maintenance/upgrades of all equipment
 Figure out how to get scientists to exploit it!
How do we get the best service with the least
shore support?
Questions? Comments?