The SERC Network — Its History and Development

The Rutherford Laboratory of the UK Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) has provided computing facilities to university located scientists since the early 1960s. The facilities now offered are very varied and are provided on a large number of dissimilar computers located at many sites. To allow easy access to and from these facilities a sophisticated network now exists to interconnect them. This network has developed steadily since the early 1970s and is now a very substantial network with over 160 hosts.It is, in fact, about half the size of the UK public network PSS. This paper describes the development of this network and discusses some of the difficulties encountered and the decision taken from time to time.