Summary       The SCinet Committee (SCinet) provides commodity Internet, research, and experimental networks for use by the exhibitors and attendees. While every practical effort shall be made to provide stable and reliable network service on each network, there is no explicit service level agreement for any SCinet network, nor are there any remedies available in the event that network services are lost.

Background   SCinet provides a series of networks each year for use by the exhibitors and attendees. Each network can be broadly categorized as Commodity Internet, Research, or Xnet infrastructure. In addition, there are significant peering relationships among these networks that allow them to communicate.

                        Commodity Internet networks include the high bandwidth connection from the convention location to one or more Internet Service Providers, and both wired and wireless networks that connect the exhibit halls, meeting rooms, ballrooms, mail rooms, and other common areas to the Internet.

                        Research networks include very high bandwidth connections to National and Agency networks including Abilene, ESnet, DREN, NREN, ATDnet, and NLR. Coupled with the extensive peering relationships that these networks have with other research networks worldwide, SCinet can engineer connectivity to virtually any public IP address in the world. Access to these networks is limited to exhibitors with network connections to the SCinet core.

                        Xnet networks are typically experimental and often fragile. These networks connect small numbers of devices at extremely high bandwidth using equipment that is pre-production, pre-standard, or research oriented. In most cases, Xnet networks do not peer with other networks to reduce potential network volatility.

Description    SCinet is responsible for the design, engineering, installation, operation, and maintenance of all Commodity, Research, and Xnet networks. These networks must be installed during the week prior to the conference, and removed in their entirety by the day after the conference. The design and engineering phase of SCinet occupies much of the year preceding the conference. In contrast, timelines for the installation, operation, and maintenance are extremely compressed, and introduce significant operational risk that would not necessarily be present in a production environment.

                        SCinet is primarily organized across functional areas. There are specific points of contact with responsibility for Wide Area Transport, Local Area Transport, Internet Services, Wireless Infrastructure, Architecture, Routing and Switching Services, and Xnet. Each of the functional area leads has an appropriate staff level to support the installation, operation, and maintenance of that area. Area leads coordinate the interaction among separate groups.

                        SCinet will make every practical effort to provide uninterrupted service on all networks that it manages. In the event that there is a disruption of service on any network, every practical effort will be made to return that network to service as quickly as possible. Efforts to correct network errors shall be prioritized across the following broad guidelines. Higher priority events are listed first.

1)    Failure of core routing services in the SCinet infrastructure.

2)    Network service disruptions related to the wide area network transport facilities.

3)    Widespread failure of the commodity Internet services.

4)    Widespread failure of routing and switching services beyond the core.

5)    Widespread failure of wireless Internet services.

6)    Disruption of service for individual connections.

                        SCinet management, at its own discretion, can modify the priority of a reported service disruption. This policy will generally be applied to support high priority scheduled events. Examples include the Internet distribution of a keynote speech, high profile initiatives such as 2004's SC Global, and featured conference programs such as the Bandwidth Challenge.

                        While every practical effort shall be made to provide stable and reliable network service on each network, there is no explicit service level agreement for any SCinet network, nor are there any remedies available in the event that network services are lost.