Pioneering the Internet in North Dakota

A history of North Dakota’s dedication to supporting its campuses in their efforts to ensure advanced and stable connectivity among institutions in the state, as well as connections across the country and around the world is evidenced by a consistent vision and actions toward these purposes across almost five decades. 

1970s thru 1999

Dedicated technology support for North Dakota’s 11 higher education campuses claims its beginnings in a 1969-70 interim legislative study. The North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network (HECN) was funded at three institutions and later extended to all institutions of higher education under the State Board of Higher Education (ND Information Technology Legislative Interim Report 1999). This served to establish a host site for administrative computing at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and a host site for academic computing at North Dakota State University in Fargo. Initial responsibilities for these host sites focused on providing mainframe computing and networking for all of the higher education campuses, the North Dakota University System Chancellor’s Office, as well as distributed organizations associated with UND and NDSU, including Medical Center Rehabilitation Hospital, NDSU Extension Service, and North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station (GFA Strategic Plan, 1996, p. 10). 

In those early years HECN furnished connection to the statewide network, and in turn, the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) using T-1 connections of 1.5Mbps. Communication from the statewide network to the campus router was furnished by HECN via the North Dakota Information Network (NDIN). HECN paid for the networking bill for the statewide backbone. This was shared 50-50 between UND and NDSU. The two institutions had joint responsibility for HECN network services (GFA Strategic Plan, 1996, p. 18). 

The fiscal year of 1985-1986 will be remembered as the year the HECN joined BITNET. Predecessor to the Internet, BITNET provided electronic transfer of files, mail, and messages. The link to BITNET became a reality when a leased line was installed between Fargo and St. Paul, MN, the nearest BITNET site. BITNET served as a national network of over 500 computers at more than 200 Universities throughout the nation. Through interconnections with other networks, described as ‘bridges’ at that time, it enabled North Dakota campuses to link to other networks in Canada, Europe, and the far east. (1985-1986 NDSU University Computer Center Annual Report, p. 7). 

By 1988, the link to Northwest Net (NWNET) was complete and North Dakota was added to the list of charter members of this new consortium. NWNET was a regional data communications network that was developed by a consortium of six states in the upper northwest United States, including Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. The purpose of NWNET was to provide advanced scientific computing resources to its membership and other research interests in the region, facilitating better communication between universities and developing a synergy for issues such as supercomputing access and support. NWNET served as North Dakota’s first connection to the young Internet and to the National Science Foundation’s network, NSFNet. It was the hope of these early network pioneers that NWNET would contribute to the advancement of science and economic development of the region. Representatives from North Dakota’s State Board of Higher Education, NDSU and UND served on several NWNET operational committees. Continued upgrades to campus computing infrastructure combined with the establishment of a communications link to NWNET substantially increased local and remote facilities available to HECN users, opening the door for HECN to strengthen its commitment to supercomputing. (1987-1988 NDSU University Computer Center Annual Report, pp. 6, 8; 1993-1995 NDSU Computer Center Strategic Plan, p. 8)

By 1991 NODAKnet was reporting significant growth in number of network connections, rating consistently as one of the top 100 (of 3,000) networks on the NSFNET in terms of number of packets sent to the Internet (1990-1991 NDSU University Computer Center Annual Report, p. 15). HECN Biennial Budgets consistently included funding requests for network upgrades and HECN dedicated staff at NDSU and UND, both of whom served as HECN host sites for North Dakota Network. The budgets also provide evidence of continued state support for membership and network participation activities with NWNET, as indicated in the budget numbers requested for the host sites. (North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network Biennial Budgets). 

Continuing through the 1990s, efforts continued to support the growing needs of individual universities and the university system as a whole. A Strategic Plan for the North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network was completed in 1996 and provided recommendations for a model that would focus on highly reliable services based on networked resources available to all students, faculty, staff and management for all the campuses (GFA Strategic Plan, 1996). The Strategic Plan also served as a framework for development of a technology plan required by HB 1034 passed in the 55th Regular Legislative Session in 1997. Also in 1996, NDSU and UND joined the new Internet2 national research and education network. Notification was received that NDSU would become part of the Great Plains Network, a six-state consortium that received NSF/EPSCoR funds to install a high-speed network for its educational and research community. This further supported the momentum for NDSU to install a high-performance computing facility.

The Vision Continues