Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Ownership
Networks are often characterized by the way they are funded. Private networks are owned and
managed by private corporations. For example, many of the major pharmaceutical corporations have
internal bioinformatics R&D groups that manage workflow and data with the help of privately owned
and highly secure networks. These private networks may be completely isolated, connect to the
Internet through a secure firewall, or communicate with academic and commercial collaborators
through dedicated, secure lines. Private networks may also be open to researchers and other
companies—for a fee.
In contrast, public networks such as the Internet and the public telephone network are at least
partially funded by public coffers. They are also freely open to anyone who is capable of paying for
their services. Cooperative networks are supported and managed by their users. One of the best-
known cooperative networks was BITNET (Because It's Time Network), started by universities in the
early 1980s. Before it was replaced by NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) in the early
1990s, it connected about 3,000 mainframe computers at universities in the U.S., Canada, South
America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
