The Janet Network is a private community network serving UK education and research, providing essential digital utility by connecting even the most remote locations. It enables various significant activities, such as international radio astronomy, disease research, academic broadcasting, and weather modeling, illustrating its critical role in enhancing educational and research capabilities. Over the past 30 months, the network has seen substantial growth in customer connections and bandwidth, driven by increased collaboration and the demand for high-speed connectivity.

1. The Janet Network
Your Digital Utility

2. A two minute introduction to the Janet Network - or -
“let’s get the glossy corporate video out of the way”
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3. The Janet Network
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Impressive stuff!
but is it really
“Your Digital Utility?”

4. ……Your Digital Utility?
Is it really Yours?
Yes, the Janet Network is a private community network that exists
to serve UK Education and Research
Is it totally Digital?
Yes, even our most remote customer site* is connected digitally
Is it a true Utility?
Well, let’s take a look…….
*A tiny atmospheric monitoring station on a Scottish mountain connected
via an ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) circuit at 128 kbit/s
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5. What is a Utility?
1 : fitness for some purpose or worth to some end
2: something useful or designed for use
3a: a public utility: a company (such as an electricity company) that provides a public
service and must follow rules laid down by the government
3b (1): a service (such as light, power, or water) provided by a public utility
3b (2): equipment or a piece of equipment to provide such a service or a
comparable service
A dictionary definition of Utility:
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6. Traditional Public Utilities
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Electricity
Useless without
lightbulbs,
fridges, mobiles,
MRI scanners…….
Gas
Just a bit smelly
without fires, ovens,
boilers, turbines,
furnaces……
Water
Can kill you if it’s not
properly treated…….
Waste Disposal
Yuck!
But can you image
life without it?

7. Traditional Public Utilities
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It’s not about the Utilities themselves
It’s about what they enable us to do!
Lighting, heating, cooling, entertaining, keeping us
in touch, keeping us safe, keeping us clean and
healthy, making life more comfortable and giving us
the leisure to study and develop

8. A Working Definition
ATrue Utility
Is useful and fit for purpose
working unobtrusively and reliably behind the scenes
Tends to be taken pretty much for granted
but would be sorely missed if it was taken away
not because of what it is
but through the great things it enables us to achieve
without us having to worry too much about the details!
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9. Your Digital Utility In Action
»We’ve seen the glossy promotional video
»I’ve proposed a working definition of a true Utility
»I can tell you that the Janet Network is a true utility until
I’m blue in the face
»Instead, let’s see what our community has to say on the subject
»Let’s see the great things they are doing that they couldn’t do
without the Janet network
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10. Broadening our understanding of the universe
Fighting disease and pioneering new medicine
Broadcasting academic excellence
Understanding weather and climate control
Building skills and inspiring learning
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Your Digital Utility In Action

11. Broadening our understanding of the universe
International radio astronomy at the
University of Manchester Jodrell Bank observatory

12. Broadening our understanding of the universe
»University of Manchester
»Astrophysics department
»4 connections
»~8,000 Mbit/s
»Using the Janet Network
increased the sensitivity of a
radio telescope array by 30 fold
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CC BY-SA 4.0 Mike Peel; University of Manchester

13. Broadening our understanding of the universe
“It’s only with networks with the
strength and reliability ofJanet
that we can do this sort of
astronomy……”
“….we’re completely reliant on
theJanet network”
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14. Fighting disease and pioneering new medicine
The European Bioinformatics Institute sharing knowledge worldwide
EMBL-EBI

15. Fighting disease and pioneering new medicine
»European Bioinformatics
Institute
»4 x 10,000 Mbit/s
»Massive genome data capture,
storage and sharing
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CC BY-SA 3.0 Magnus Manske

16. Fighting disease and pioneering new medicine
“The network is absolutely crucial
for what we do……”
“……it’s absolutely critical that we
have good Internet connectivity,
low latency, plus high bandwidth
and that’s what Janet provides”
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17. Broadcasting academic excellence
Encouraging greater exploitation of digital technology at Ravensbourne

18. Broadcasting academic excellence
»Ravensbourne
»An innovative, industry-focused
university sector college
»Excellence in digital media
»2 x 1,000 Mbit/s
»Pioneering content streaming in
conjunction with e.g. the BBC,
and the RSC
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CC BY 2.0 Tom Morris

19. Broadcasting academic excellence
“Janet is going to be really
important for Ravensbourne’s
future because it allows us to
fulfil our promises on streaming
more media, especially high
definition and ultra-high
definition content”
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20. Better understanding weather and climate control
Weather and Climate modelling – NCAS,The University of Reading and RAL

21. Better understanding weather and climate control
»Distributed consortium
»Multiple high speed
connections
»Interconnecting education and
research with high performance
computing and data storage
facilities
»Enabling weather and climate
simulations
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22. Better understanding weather and climate control
“The UK academic community,
the climate community and
NCAS….all depend onJanet……”
“……TheJanet network is
fundamental to moving the data,
to interrogating the data, to
everything we do”
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23. Building skills and inspiring learning
Barking and DagenhamCollege going beyond great by exploiting technology

24. Building skills and inspiring learning
»Barking and Dagenham
College
»12,500 16+ students
»2 x 1,000 Mbit/s connections
»Highly progressive and
passionate about optimising
the student experience
through technology
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25. Building skills and inspiring learning
“Janet is central to the college’s
future plans and goals because
technology is central to our
business….”
“…..helps us to be future-proof,
supports us, keeps us connected,
keeps us online”
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26. I hope you’ll agree that all of these
organisations are doing great things thanks
to their Digital Utility
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27. 03/03/2016 The Janet Network - Your Digital Utility 27
I’d like to finish off with a few statistics on
how the Janet Network has grown since
I’ve been with Jisc…..
…..and then show you one more video, in its
entirety this time, because it really does sum things
up nicely.

28. Janet Network Connection Growth
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29. Janet Network Connection Growth
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30. Janet Network Connection Growth
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31. Janet Network Connection Growth
Over the last 30 months:
» We have increased the number of customer connections by a third
» The average speed† of a customer connection has more than doubled
» The total bandwidth of all of our customer connections has almost tripled
Every month, on average, we add the bandwidth equivalent
of more* than 772 BT Infinity 2 connections to the Janet network!
Since I joined Jisc in May 2013 the Janet Network has grown a bit!
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*Almost certainly much more, as almost no-one gets the full 76 Mbit/s that Infinity 2 offers,
there is effectively no guaranteed minimum speed and the service is limited to 19 Mbit/s upstream.
productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband-packages

32. Janet Network Connection Growth
»
»
»
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productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband-packages

33. Janet Network Connection Growth
Over the last 30 months:
» We have increased the number of customer connections by a third
» The average speed† of a customer connection has more than doubled
» The total bandwidth of all of our customer connections has almost tripled
Every month, on average, we add the bandwidth equivalent
of more* than 772 BT Infinity 2 connections to the Janet network!
Since I joined Jisc in May 2013 the Janet Network has grown a bit!
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*Almost certainly much more, as almost no-one gets the full 76 Mbit/s that Infinity 2 offers,
there is effectively no guaranteed minimum speed and the service is limited to 19 Mbit/s upstream.
productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband-packages
†These are not “Up to”
speeds, they are based on the
uncontended technology that
delivers connectivity to your
premises and are not slower
at peak times. The speed you
get does not depend on your
location, or your phone line.

34. What is driving this relentless growth?
»Greater Collaboration
› More teams, more dispersed
»Big Data, Big Storage, Analytics and HPC
› Huge datasets being mined for nuggets of information
»High definition (4k and 8k) video
› Multimedia communication, lecture capture and streaming
»Cloud Services
› Moving to early majority uptake and requiring enhanced resilience
»Demanding Students
› Wanting value for their tuition fees
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35. What is driving this relentless growth?
»Greater Collaboration
› More teams, more dispersed
»Big Data, Big Storage, Analytics and HPC
› Huge datasets being mined for nuggets of information
»High definition (4k and 8k) video
› Multimedia communication, lecture capture and streaming
»Cloud Services
› Moving to early majority uptake and requiring enhanced resilience
»Demanding Students
› Wanting value for their tuition fees
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More everything!

36. And finally……..
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37. Allowing the Learner toTake Control of Study
Bedford College using technology in a pedagogically sophisticated way

38. Allowing the Learner toTake Ownership of Study
»Bedford College
»Combined 6th form and FE
college, ~9,000 full and part
time students
»From apprenticeships to
foundation degrees
»Single 500 Mbit/s connection
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Bedford College Shuttleworth Campus, CC BY-SA 2.0, Giles Keen

39. Allowing the Learner toTake Ownership of Study
“The Janet Network is the fastest,
most efficient, secure and cost
effective solution we could have”
“Without that solid reliable
connectivity we wouldn’t have
been able to develop our curriculum
in the way that we have”
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40. I hope you enjoyed this look at
the Janet Network in practice
If you would like to see what’s
on the horizon then don’t miss
Jeremy Sharp’s plenary session
tomorrow.
Wed. 14:45-15:45, Hall 3

41. jisc.ac.uk
The Janet Network –Your Digital Utility
ThankYou
Ian Shepherd
Product Manager, Janet Connectivity
Ian.shepherd@jisc.ac.uk
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