Technical description
Informations about C3's infrastructure and
network
Content:
Generic informations
about C3 Center for Culture and
Communication
Technical
infrastructure for in-house operations, projects
C3's in-house network
Internal
servers
Hardware and software for the staff and the
public
Hardware
and software for projects, artists
Internet service
provider infrastructure (servers, WAN and dial-up)
Core network, external
connections
Dial-up services
Public servers and services
ISP links
Generic informations about C3
Center for Culture and Communication
Address:
C3
Center for Culture and Communication - Soros
Foundation
Országház u. 9.
H-1014 Budapest
Hungary
Phone: +36 1 2146856 (3 lines), +36 1 4887070 (4
lines, ISDN)
Fax: +36 1 2146872
E-mail: info@c3.hu
WWW: http://www.c3.hu
Staff members
The
detailed program and mission statement can be found on
the official C3 home
page.
C3 is currently part of the Hungarian Soros Foundation.
We were established in 1996 for a three year experimental
period and going to be a standalone foundation from 1999
onwards.
Technical infrastructure for in house
operations, projects
C3's in-house network
1.
Structured, UTP Cat. 5 (100 Mbit/s capable) wiring for
both data and phone system
The
building had an old, many times upgraded electrical,
phone and coaxial data cabling before we moved in (in
1996), so the decision was to replace everything with
sophisticated current technology, since wiring is the
core infrastructure for all in-house equipments.
The only
solution for the requirements was a structured
universal cabling system with central distribution
(patch fields) and user connections everywhere. The
installed system consists of UTP (Unshielded Twisted
Pair) Category 5 (means cable can transfer data with
a speed of max.100 Mbit/sec) cables and UTP double
RJ45 (8 wire) connectors. Each wall connector is
cabled to the computer room, where it ends on a patch
panel in the main 19" rack. All central
equipment (Ethernet switches, hubs, phone exchange)
are connected there, so any connection can be made by
plugging in a simple patch cable. There are 150
endpoints installed. We have audio+video conversion
boxes for transferring stereo audio and composite
video signals over a single UTP cable.
The UTP
cabling was done by: Computronic
2. Active
networking components
All
computers within C3 are connected to a switched
10/100 Mbps Ethernet network.
The network is based on the UTP wiring of the
building, which is Category 5 certified. In the
server room there are Cisco Ethernet switches and
hubs to connect the various equipment:
c3-2926.c3.hu - Cisco Catalyst 2926T
switch with 2+24 10/100 ports and VLANs
The
main servers and routers are connected to this
switch, some services (like the Freemail
servers or the Encart
workstations) are separated into isolated VLANs.
The routers are connected to the ISL (Inter
Switch Link protocol) capable trunk ports, which
enable routing between the VLANs.
Cisco Catalyst 3000 (16x
10baseT + 1x 100baseT) and Cisco Catalyst 1924
switches (24x 10baseT + 2x 100baseT)
All
power workstations, hubs and 10baseT networking
devices (like the dial-up access servers) are
connected to these switches.
16 and 24
port hubs
The
lower performance workstations, office and public
Internet PCs are connected via these hubs.
Core
networking installed and supplied by: Computronic,
LNX
3. Electrical
system for the building with partial UPS protection
Together
with the data cabling the full electrical cabling of
the building was exchanged and reconstructed in 1996.
The original distribution panels were reused, they
are located on each floor at the entrance in closed
cabinets. Each floor is protected from over-voltage,
short-circuits and current-leakage. The Silicon Lab and the Computer Room
are equipped with standalone APC
Uninterruptible Power Supplies, which are good for
safe shutdown of all equipments in case of longer
power interruptions or other problems. The racks in
the Computer Room have a separate UPSs for protecting
the communication and server equipment.
Electrical cabling was done by: Jet-Vill Kft., UPS: Computronic
4.
Air-conditioning
The
lecture room, the computer room and the storage rooms
are centrally air-conditioned (heating-cooling),
which serves as ventillation as well, since these
rooms have no windows at all. The system (old system
with new air-distribution pipes) consists of an
outdoor cooling unit mounted on the roof and an
indoor ventillation and cooling unit is located on
the third floor in a separate small room. This unit
needs regular cleaning and control. The system can be
controlled from the lecture room. The Silicon Lab and the public Internet Lab on the first floor are
equipped with wall mounted cooling units, which have
outdoor units on the roof, too. The Computer Room got
an additional high capacity wall mounted unit as the
heat generated by the built-in more and more
equipment was increasing rapidly.
These are automatic units with no maintanence
requirements.
Air-conditioning was installed by: Budatech Kft.
5. Security-
and fire-alarm system
We have a
security alarm system with full sabotage protection.
The fire alarm system consists of smoke detectors in
all rooms and the central control unit is installed
in the Computer Room.
Installed
by: security - TL Vagyonvédelem, fire alarm -
Autrotrade
6. Phone
system
Phone
lines for voice, fax and dial-up communication
For
dial-up we have 16 analog lines and 2x ISDN30
(=60 lines), for normal office use we have 2x
ISDN2 (=4 lines), 3x analog lines and a dedicated
fax line.
Company: Matáv
Phone
system with 7 incoming lines and 16 extensions
We
have a Panasonic KX-TD 816 digital,
modular PBX which has 3 analog incoming lines, a
2x ISDN2 modules and max. 16 extensions with
extra device ports. We have digital phones, but
can use any phone, modem etc. in addition.
Company: Computronic
Internal servers
For the
internal activities of the C3 staff (both office and
project) and the invited guests we have a central
file- and printserver:
ntserver.c3.hu - Dual Pentium
II PC - Windows NT server
This
is the Pentium II based file and print server for
office use and for PC, Mac workstations. It has
currently 6 GB + 54 GB of RAID5 disk space with
additional external disks and a CD-ROM drive. The
stored files cannot be accessed from the
Internet, which means absolute protection for
internal documents, softwares.
Hardware: 2xPentium II CPU, 128 Mb RAM, 60 GB
HDD, CD-ROM
Software: Microsoft Windows NT Server
Additional servers which have dual roles, they serve
both the internal and the external (ISP) users:
visio.c3.hu - Silicon Graphics
Origin 200 with 45GB RAID5 storage
This
is the main Unix server, it has all user homes
with mailboxes and C3's website. Most
web projects and some virtual servers are running
on it as well. This is the main DNS server as
well.
Hardware: dual R10000-180 CPUs, 256 Mb RAM, 9
HDD, 45 GB CMD RAID5
array
Software: SGI Irix 6.5
goliat.c3.hu - Dual PentiumPro
server running Windows NT with 24GB RAID5 storage
This
is a mutlifunction server: ftp, radius, SQL, DNS,
network management, web, email, Realserver.
Hardware: dual Pentium Pro 200 CPUs, 256 Mb RAM,
2x4 + 24 GB HDD, CD, 6x4GB DDS-2 DAT changer
Software: Microsoft Windows NT Server, Cheyenne
ArcServe tape backup
trauma.c3.hu - Dual Celeron
server running FreeBSD with 160GB storage
This
is ftp.c3.hu (public ftp server with mirrors) and
RealNetworks G2 audio-video streaming server with
huge storage space thanks to cheap 8x20GB IDE
drives.
Hardware: dual Celeron 466 CPUs, 128 Mb RAM, 8x20
GB HDD
Software: FreeBSD 4.0, Realnetworks G2 server
proxy.c3.hu - Silicon Graphics
Challenge S server
Squid
proxy/cache, secondary DNS, ftp services.
fules.c3.hu - Pentium 166
based server running FreeBSD
Application server running projects and external
sites.
cube.c3.hu - Pentium 166 based
server running FreeBSD
Application server running projects and external
sites.
It hosts the Internet Lab user database as well.
Hardware and software for the staff and the
public
4x PCs for office users
These
are generic PCs for the program and
administrative tasks.
Hardware: Intel Celeron, 128MB, 4GB, Ethernet,
17" display
Software: Windows NT Workstation, Microsoft
Office 97
6x Notebooks for the program
and project staff
3x
Gericom 7200
(Pentium 233, 13.3" display, 64MB, 2GB, CD,
Ethernet, modem)
2x
IBM Thinkpad 600E
(Pentium II 3XX, 13.3" display, 128MB, 6GB,
DVD, Ethernet, modem)
1x HP
Omnibook 3000
(Pentium 233, 13.3" display, 32MB, 4GB, CD,
Ethernet, modem)
5x PC for the Auditorium
(presentations, training)
These
are generic PCs for presentation, lectures and
training.
Hardware: Intel Pentium II, 128MB, 4GB, Ethernet,
15" LCD display
Software: Windows NT Workstation, IExplorer &
Netscape, tools
5x PC for the Internet Lab
These
are public access PCs.
Hardware: Intel Pentium II, 128MB, 3GB, Ethernet,
15" LCD display
Software: Windows NT Workstation, Internet
Explorer
Printers
gp215.c3.hu - Printer-copier-fax for the office
sorter, feeder, duplex unit
hp4.c3.hu - HP Laserjet 4M laser printer (600dpi)
tek560.c3.hu - Tektronix 560 color laser printer
(1200dpi)
(all
printers are accessible over the network and
understand the Postscript language)
Hardware and software for projects,
artists
trope.c3.hu - Silicon Graphics
Onyx Infinity Reality graphics computer
This
is a high performance graphics workstation, it
has built in Infinity Reality graphics and Sirius
video digitizing and output option, 21"
screen.
Hardware: single R10000 CPU, 128 MB RAM, 6 GB
HDD, Infinity Reality graphics with 1xRM6-64,
21" display, Sirius video option
Software:
Alias|Wavefront: Maya Unlimited 2.0
(Maya Fur, Maya Cloth, Maya Live), Maya
Composer 5.5, Studiopaint 9.0
CosmoCode, CosmoWorlds,
CosmoPlayer, Developer Magic, Inventor
development toolkit
daguerre.c3.hu - Silicon Grahics O2
workstation running Jaleo video editing software
Hardware: R5000 CPU, 128 MB RAM, 2x9+4x9 GB HDD,
20" display, video in-out option, external
SDI (D1) interface
Software: Jaleo
video editing, compositing software
maya.c3.hu - Dual Pentium II
computer running Windows NT
This
is a high-performance graphics workstation for
the project staff.
Hardware: dual Pentium II 400 CPU, 384 MB RAM,
4+10 GB HDD, Diamond TNT2/32 graphics card,
21" display
Software: Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0,
Adobe Photoshop, Alias|Wavefront:
Maya, various tools
osprey.c3.hu - Dual Pentium
II computer running Windows NT
This
machine is a special purpose workstation: we use
it for live Realvideo or Netshow encoding and for
MPEG1 or 2 decoding.
Hardware: dual Pentium II 266 CPU, 64 MB RAM, 12
GB HDD, Optibase Videoplex MPEG1 and 2 decoder
card with composite and s-video out, Osprey 100
video encoder card
Software: Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0,
RealEncoder, Optibase Commotion MPEG streaming
software
panorama.c3.hu - Pentium Pro
workstation for residents, artists
Hardware: Pentium Pro 200 CPU, 64 MB RAM, 3 GB
HDD, Iomega Jaz and Zip drives, HP Scanjet 4c
color flatbed scanner
Software: Microsoft Windows 98, Agfa Fotolook,
Adobe Photoshop etc.
telehor.c3.hu, lucida.c3.hu -
2x Silicon Graphics Indy Studio computers
These
are general purpose graphics workstations.
Hardware: R5000Sc 150 Mhz CPU, 64 MB RAM, 4 GB
HDD, 24 bit graphics on 17" Trinitron
display
Software: Alias|Wavefront,
Adobe
and SGI
vibrograph.c3.hu - Apple
Macintosh 9600 computer
Hardware: Apple Powermac 9600 (64/4GB/CD) with
20" display, Digidesign sound/midi card
Software: Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia
Director 7, other tools
hekate.c3.hu - Apple Macintosh
7200 computer
Hardware: Apple Powermac 7200 (24/1GB/CD) with
17" display
Software: Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia
Director 7, other tools
mezgastation.c3.hu - video
editing workstation with Matrox Digisuite LE
Hardware: dual Pentium II 400 CPU, 256 MB RAM,
4+2x18 GB HDD, Matrox Digisuite LE card with SDI
and DV options, 21" display
Software: Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0,
Matrox Digitools, Adobe Premiere, SpeedRazor
ranagol.c3.hu, zeelith.c3.hu,
hekate.c3.hu, syl.c3.hu, andris.c3.hu,
holograph.c3.hu, phanto.c3.hu, polyphon.c3.hu
- various project and project staff PCs
These
are generic PCs for generic development purposes.
Hardware: Pentium II 233-400 CPU, 64-128 MB RAM,
3 - 9 GB HDD, CD, 17" display
Software: Microsoft Windows 98 or Windows NT
Workstation 4.0, Macromedia DreamWeaver 2,
Macromedia Flash 4, Macromedia Director 7, Adobe
Photoshop 4.0, QuarkXPress 4 and others
10x Silicon Graphics Indy computers
(terminals)
These
were the Internet terminals for public use, they
were replaced by faster PCs. Now we use them for
various projects.
Hardware: R4600PC 133Mhz CPU, 32Mb RAM, 540 Mb
HDD, 8 bit graphics on 15" display
Software: IRIX 5.3, Netscape Navigator
Peripherals
Scanners: Agfa
Duoscan, HP
Scanjet 4c
Removable drives: Iomega Jaz, Zip, Syquest 200,
DVD-RAM, DAT, DLT
Video:
Optibase MPEG1 HW en- and decoder
(Moviemaker, Videoplex)
Video
mixing:
Play Trinity video studio in a box system
Video and Audio equipment
Sony UW-1800 Beta recorder
Panasonic S-VHS recorder
Sony DHR1000VC DV recorder
Panasonic multi-format VHS recorder
various VHS players
Sony DCR VX 9000E DV camcorder
Sony DCR-PC10 mini DV camcorder
Panasonic AG-DP200 SVHS camcorder
Sony CCD-TR705E - Hi8 camcorder
2x Sony Video8 camcorders for projects
CD player
Dual casette player
Portable minidisc recorder
8 channel audio mixer
JBL mixer + 4 high-power speakers
Shure microphones
Video+audio matrix - Network V1616
Others
Olympus
C-1400XL digital camera
Software desciptions
Alias | Wavefront software:
Maya 2.0 Unlimited: Maya Unlimited
includes the award winning animation,
rendering and modeling functionality of Maya,
plus: Maya Artisan, the revolutionary new
modeling tool based on a paintbrush metaphor.
Maya F/X, industry leading Dynamation™
particles system for stunning atmospheric,
explosive, liquid and pyrotechnic effects
MayaLive to extract camera movement for
seamless bluescreen compositing.
Maya Cloth, the revolutionary cloth animation
solution.
Maya Fur, to create realistic fur and short
hair on multi-surface NURBS models with
multiple, associated, fur types.
Maya PowerModeler: Ultimate control for
building sophisticated models.
Maya Composer: Color quantizing and video
compositing (Color Quantizer, Layering and
Keying, Transitions, Inpur/Output, Audio
support
StudioPaint: 3D paint system for texture
generation (2D paint, NURBS and Polygon 3D
Painting, Multisurface multi-texture
painting, Texture generation, Shelf and
Marking menu UI)
SGI software:
IRIX 5.3 & 6.1 & 6.5, Indigo Magic
Desktop environment, C++, RapidApp Aplication
Development Environment, WebMagic Pro HTML
editor, Webspace Author VRML Editor, InPerson
videoconferencing, NFS
Other software:
Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe
Illustrator, Premier, After Effects,
Acrobat
Macromedia: Freehand,
Director, Flash 4.0, Dreamweaver 2.0
in-sync Speed Razor 4.7
Microsoft Office
Internet service provider
infrastructure (servers, WAN and dial-up)
C3
is a non-profit Internet service provider with it's own
IP network. We are members of RIPE and ISZT (the European
and Hungarian ISP associations). Our network is AS6668,
we are using the address range of 194.38.96.0/19. All
network related issues are handled by net-admin@c3.hu.
Core network, external
connections
1.
International connections
Taide
VSAT - main Internet backbone connection
Our main
Internet link is a 1536/768 Kbps (asymetric
download/upload) VSAT satellite link, which delivers
Internet content from Nittedal
and Stockholm through the Taide
backbone and connects us to the rest of the
world. The 2.4 m diameter dish is installed on the
roof, it is automatically de-iced in winter.
Backup connections
We have a
backup Internet link to Matávnet, the ISP
company of Matáv.
ENCART - ATM/MBS connections
We are part
of the ENCART
network, which connects european media centers via
dedicated high-bandwidth point-to-point links
established on demand. The ATM connections are based
on the MBS
(Managed Bandwidth Services) of the TEN-155 network.
We use 2x 2Mbps CBR ATM PVCs for various projects.
2. Local
connections
BIX - Budapest Internet
Exchange connection
We have
direct peering connections with all hungarian ISPs
who connect to the Budapest
Internet Exchange. We have extended the BIX
Ethernet segment to our location via a 10Mbps ATM PVC
and use a bridging setup within our Cisco 7204 ATM
router. BGP4 is used for the peering.
BIX backup + Computronic
connection
We have a
512Kbps backup connection which is routed via Computronic,
the company managing the network, on an alternate
telecommunication path. These creates a fault
tolerant setup.
Freemail direct link to
Matávnet
Our Freemail service was
acquired by Matávnet
and because of this the Internet connectivity for the
Freemail servers is provided via a 2Mbps ATM PVC from
Matávnet. We use a redundant policy-routing setup
here, which means our BIX and international
connections provide backup for the freemail service.
Backup for Hungarnet
We provide
limited backup connectivity for the Hungarian Academic
Network. The backup connectivity is provided via
a dedicated 2 Mbps HDSL connection, which bypasses
all major telecom routes.
3. Our
leased-line users
40 city libraries
We provide
full Internet connectivity for 40 city libraries
across Hungary (following our previous project where
we connected 40 secondary schools). All libraries are
connected via 64Kbps manaed links and Cisco routers.
Central European University and Open
Society Institute
We provide
the main Internet connection of the Central European University,
the Open Society
Institute and the Open Society Archives.
The connection is a 768Kbps managed link provided by
Matáv.
Various
NGOs, schools, partners - detailed list with links
4. Core network
elements
Cisco 7507 core router
This router
is terminating the Taide VSAT link, the backup links
and all leased lines via 8 Serial ports and 2
channelized E1 interfaces. The router connects to the
backbone network via a VLAN enabled Fast Ethernet
connection. The router holds the full Internet
routing table.
Cisco 7204 ATM router
Our ATM
links are terminated in this router: the BIX connection,
the Encart PVCs
and the experimental ADSL links. We have a Cisco
PA-A3 enhanced ATM port adapter in the router, which
connects via a VLAN enabled Fast Ethernet connection
to the Ethernet backbone. The ATM links are provided
by Matáv.
Cisco 2501 backup BIX router
This router
is hanging off the BIX EThernet segment at the Matáv
BIX node and terminates the 512Kbps backup line.
Cisco Cache Engine
The cache
engine is a transparent caching solution, which
delivers frequently accessed from its 24GB disk
storage instead of accessing the same document
several times from the far-away servers. We can reach
20-22% bandwidth saving this way. The users do not
have to set anything in their browsers, everything is
handled transparently via the WCCP (web cache control
protocol) between the Cache Engine and the core
router.
Akamai FreeFlow servers
We host an Akamai content
distribution server farm at C3, which
means we can speed up the download of huge websites,
like CNN, Apple, Discovery Channel,
NetAid, The New York
Times etc. to our users.
Dial-up services
C3
provides unrestricted dial-up Internet access to NGOs,
schools, partners and restricted dial-up access to the
Freemail users. All dial-up users are authenticated via
Radius and we collect detailed accounting data as well.
1. Cisco AS5200 with 2x
ISDN30 lines and 60 V.90 modems
This access
server provides digital ISDN and maximum 56Kbps modem
based dial-up connections for 60 simultanous users.
The built-in modems are compatible with any
client-side modem and they can handle the most
advanced V.90 modulations. ISDN connections can do
multilink-PPP with 128Kbps bandwidth.
We use the
modem pooling services of Cisco
IOS to balance the usage between normal, Freemail
and staff users.
2. Cisco 2511 with 16 PSTN
lines
The old
analog service is still working with 16 phone lines
and 16 US Robotics Courier 28.8Kbps modems. These
work with any phone line or modem and deliver stable
performance with noisy or multiplexed circuits as
well.
Public servers and services
C3
has several public services for the generic Internet
user:
www.c3.hu
This C3's
main website with thousends of pages including all
our user's homepages. There are categories, like
events, collection, grants or specific subsites:
SCCA, VRML, Demedusator, Scripta etc.
search.c3.hu
This is a
full-text search system indexing all web content
within the c3.hu domain. It has normal and advanced
search capabilities and has a huge index with daily
updates.
ftp.c3.hu
This is a
public ftp service for everyone. We host several
large mirror sites, like ftp.netscape.com,
ftp.mozilla.org,
Microsoft
Windows NT service packs, GNU softwares, Linux,
FreeBSD and SGI Irix files.
news.c3.hu
This is a
public news server for the .hu domain with most
Usenet groups, but excluding alt.binaries.
freemail.c3.hu
This is the
first hungarian free email service with a lot of
features (like WWW, POP3 and dial-up based access,
forwarding, attachments etc.), it was recently
acquired by Matávnet,
but it is still operated and developed by C3.
av.c3.hu
This pages
are dedicated to video and audio broadcast
experiments, like live and recorded Realvideo,
multicasting etc.
Akamai Freeflow
We host an
Akamai content distribution server farm at C3,
which means we can speed up the download of huge
websites, like CNN, Apple, Discovery Channel,
NetAid, The New York
Times etc. The multimedia content of these sites
is directly delivered from C3 to all
hungarian Internet users via Akamai's special Freeflow
service.
ISP links
Here we
collected a few links for ISPs:
BIX - Budapest
Internet Exchange (list of connected ISPs, their
networks, traffic statistics, contact addresses)
www.nic.hu - Home of
ISZT, the Hungarian ISP Association and all .hu
resources.
nitrous.digex.net
- Looking glass server, perfect for looking at the
Internet routing tables at various US exchange points
Dante
looking glass - a looking glass service within
TEN-155, the European Academic Network
Traceroute
from Elender - a traceroute server at a Hungarian
ISP
HBONE
- the Hungarian Academic Network
Our
supporters:
Last
updated: December 31, 1999 by András Tüdős,
C3 technical director
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