An overview of ISAR's informatics system and the need for it's development

Károly Balogh

(balogh@katki.hu)

In the last decade the Internet has become a leading method for communication, on line publication and search for information to the scientists at Isar (Institute for Small Animal Research).

With the help of niif in 1994 Isar was among the first few of Hungarian agricultural research institutes to join the Internet. It has connected to the regional centre of HBONE at Gödöllő via an X.25 endpoint (9600 bps). Some of the computers were linked to this endpoint across the local network built by the Institute from its own resources.

In 1995 the lower performance PC server was replaced by a more powerful SUN SPARCStation 20. In the same year more workstations joined the local network. Using our extended resources we started a web service (URL: http://www.katki.hu/) providing research information for the public.

These investments were enough to put us on the right track, but the ever growing domestic and international traffic required an increased bandwidth. This was achieved in 1997 by upgrading our connection to a digital leased line (64 Kbps) provided by MATÁV.

In 2002 we have successfully upgraded our connection with a more advanced microwave data transfer unit (11 Mbps). At the same time the local network had also been updated.