Final transition steps

[Elise Gerich <]

We are approaching the last weeks of the NSFNET Backbone Service.
Despite good intentions, only seven (7) organizations have 
completely severed their relationship with the NSFNET Backbone
service.  Those seven (7) are:
 
 Argonne National Laboratory
 CA*net
 Cornell Supercomputer Center
 DARPA
 Michnet
 NYSERnet
 SURAnet
 
Many other organizations depend on a new service provider and
they continue to maintain the NSFNET connectivity for backup
purposes.
 
Merit has encouraged organizations who maintain redundant connectivity
to voluntarily discontinue connectivity to the NSFNET service in
advance of April 30,1995.  The reason prompting this request is that
it is difficult to identify outstanding reachability issues as long
as there are still dependencies on the NSFNET Backbone service.
If an organization can confirm reachability to all destinations that 
are currently reachable, the chances for an uneventful changing of the 
guard on April 30 increase.
 
To this aim, Merit is encouraging all organizations which will lose
direct access to AS 690 on April 30, 1995 to decommission their 
peering sessions with AS 690 before April 21, 1995.
 
On April 21, 1995 at 09:00 EDT, Merit will terminate peering 
sessions with all organizations still attached to the NSFNET Backbone
service.  The goal of this action is to identify where there are pockets
of unreachable destinations. At the NSFNET Executive Committee meeting
which took place on April 12, 1995, the committee expressed concern
over the large amount of traffic still traversing the NSFNET service.
Based on this concern, the committee requested that Merit take the
actions described in this message.
 
If an organization identifies a reachability problem between April 21
and April 28, it should send a message to merit-ie@localhost.  We
will work with the organization to resolve the problem and will reestablish
temporary access to the NSFNET service as necessary.  On April 28, 1995, all
sessions with the NSFNET service will be permanently terminated and
ANS will terminate operation of the NSFNET Backbone service on
April 30, 1995.

The following locations where access to the NSFNET service
is provided will be impacted by this discontinuation
of service on April 21, 1995:

Ann Arbor, MI
Argonne, IL
Boston, MA
Boulder, CO
Champaign, IL
College Park, MD (FIX-East)
Houston, TX
Ithaca, NY
Lincoln, NE
Palo Alto, CA
Pittsburgh, PA
Princeton, NJ
Salt Lake City, UT
Seattle, WA 
San Diego, CA
 
Please send any questions regarding this plan to merit-ie@localhost.
Thank you.
 


         --Elise Gerich
           Manager, Internet Engineers
           Merit Network Inc.