community are currently dealing with the problems of data migration
within a distributed environment. This distributed environment may
or may not include a supercomputer, but it almost always includes a
high-volume storage system of some sort delineated as a "mass storage
system." This subject was not discussed long enough at the meeting to
deduce one year or three year targets - indeed these may well be set
by the relevant National working groups.
6.14.1 Recommended Actions
Convene an international workshop whose goals are:
1. An understanding of the contents of the data storage reference
model that is nearly ready to be declared an official standard
guide;
2. To continue discussion of the various system issues that have
to be developed as a result of this model;
3. To arrive at solutions to be proposed by vendors and users for
implementations of Data Systems Storage Solutions which are
modular, interconnectable, and standard.
6.15 Data Representation and Exchange
The problem of data exchange between different computer architectures
and operating systems has been existent since the deployment of the
early computers. This problem has been exacerbated by the acceptance
of the client-server paradigm as the provider of distributed
services. Distributed computer services require immediate data
exchange. In the past, data was exchanged on some medium, such as
tape, and could be examined at leisure. Ad hoc data conversion
routines were created to process the data, and were often embedded in
the programs using the data. Data exchange in the client-server
paradigm does not permit this leisurely data examination. Both the
client and the server must be able to "call" software that is
guaranteed to convert the exchanged data "on the spot." This
guarantee also implies a standard format rather than the ability to
convert all formats because it would be impossible to maintain
multiple architecture conversion software and, of course, the size of
such conversion software would be enormous.
The issue of data exchange has been addressed resulting in many data
exchange software packages. A few of the currently more popular
packages are XDR, HDF, NetCDF, PostScript and CCSDS. Each of these
packages addresses a specific type of data. Some address bitmap
data; one addresses the general encoding of "display" information.
Some of these packages address various numerical representations in
computers. It is unclear whether any existing package could or
should be extended to solve all data exchange problems. However, a
more realistic approach would be a collection of data exchange
packages formed as the "standard."
This item was discussed only briefly at the meeting, so that no one
year or three year targets were specified.
6.15.1 Recommended Actions
It is proposed that an international working group be established to
recommend a standard collection of software encompassing a variety of
data representations. This working group should address the issue of
embedding identification of the data representations in the data
stream to allow for later extensions. The working group would meet
initially to establish a work-scope and to assign the members tasks.
The group would schedule subsequent meetings (probably annually) to
finalise the current data exchange standard recommendation, and to
define new work scopes. The working group would also make their
recommendation known to other standards bodies such as X/OPEN, UI,
OSF, X Consortium, NIST, IEEE, ACM, etc.
6.16 Transatlantic Links and Continental Distribution
At present, there is inadequate transatlantic capacity to support
research collaborations involving significant amounts of computer-
mediated communication. There is also considerable room for
improvement in the distribution of capacity and enhancement of
reliability of network service in Europe. Moreover, the point was
made strongly that collaboration would be very difficult unless the
infrastructure on the two sides was broadly comparable - even if the
transatlantic capacity was per force lower. Moreover, it was sharply
emphasised that there was a large requirement for transatlantic data
flow in other fields - e.g., Space Science, Atmospheric Science and
High Energy Physics. In the US these needs are being aggregated in
the National Research and Engineering Network; such aggregation is
required also in Europe and on a transatlantic basis.
6.16.1 One Year Targets
(i) Install 2 Mb/s multi-protocol distribution facilities in Europe;
(ii) Install 1.5 Mb/s (or higher) transatlantic capacity.
6.16.2 Three Year Targets
(i) Install 2 additional 1.5 Mb/s (or higher) transatlantic links
by 1993;
(ii) Determine feasibility of sharing much higher bandwidth
intercontinental links (e.g., in the 51 Mb/s STS-1 range).
6.16.3 Recommended Actions
(i) Use existing joint US/European coordination mechanisms
(e.g., CCIRN) for planning of higher speed, transatlantic
links;
(ii) Convene a special CEC/DARPA/NSF task force to consider much
higher speed transatlantic capacity sharing options;
(iii) Ensure that there is an infrastructure in Europe, paralleling
the US one, providing the majority of relevant campuses access
at speeds approaching 1.5 Mb/s;
(iv) Encourage European user groups with high data transmission
requirements to aggregate their data transmission facilities.
Attempt to integrate European application projects (like the
RACE Applications Pilots) to assist in providing an appropriate
European distribution network with 10 - 500 Mb/s access to
appropriate campuses.
7. LONGER TERM INITIATIVES
Although these were not discussed in any detail, for lack of time,
the following areas emerged as of interest for longer term
collaborative work:
(i) Electronic Library Services (includes an important
intellectual property rights component);
(ii) Multi-media Computer Supported Collaborative Work;
(iii) Portable Computing/Communications Environments;
(iv) Distributed Computing using heterogeneous machines and unique
facilities;
(v) Compatible approaches to computer networks with Gb/s access
speeds, and appropriate systems switching, transmission and
protocols.
It was felt that some collaborative research in these areas would
have immense medium term benefits to the other communities - and
would integrate well with the ongoing research programmes on both
sides of the Atlantic.
8. OBSTACLES
The largest single obstacle to the provision of the facilities
outlined in this report are that development of the necessary
facilities do not have priority to most funding agencies. This is
exemplified by the role of our workshops in this series. Not only
network provision, but also development of appropriate infrastructure
application software and testbed activity, are essential.
There are a number of problem areas which could benefit from official
attention from CEC and US research funding agencies. For example,
there are a number of open and proprietary protocol suites which are
candidates for use in US/European collaborative research. However,
there is lack of political agreement as to how to deal with these
various suites. It would be politically valuable if the CEC and US
research agencies could issue a communique outlining common agreement
on treatment of multiple protocols (e.g., expressing serious interest
in supporting campus-to-campus communication using multiple
protocols). Within the OSI protocol suite, there are differences as
to which features ought to make up the standard profile for use by
government-sponsored groups. Handling of connection-oriented and
connectionless protocol elements within the suite is the subject of
continued debate. Agreement to support at least TCP/IP and the
connectionless network protocol in the OSI suite on an
intercontinental basis would be beneficial to both parties; many CEC
members would like connection-oriented network protocols to be
supported also.
European international tariffs are relatively high. This has
inhibited the implementation of private networks and impeded progress
on collaborative work between the US and Europe. A CEC initiative to
come to grips with this problem could be quite helpful.
There are a diversity of intra-European networking organizations
which have technical, operational and policy interests. Planning for
intercontinental networking infrastructure is sometimes confused by
the variety of interested parties. Effort towards further
coordination and rationalization of intra-European networking
activities could make intercontinental planning somewhat easier.
There is a strong interest in the use of cryptographic methods to
provide privacy, authenticity and integrity assurance for various
forms of intercontinental communication and at various levels in the
protocol hierarchies. Although there appears to be substantial
technical activity in this area, progress is now impeded by national
restrictions on the export of software which utilizes cryptographic
methods. National use policies vary and the ability to apply these
valuable and needed techniques is uncertain.
Some national privacy and data protection laws prohibit the creation
of directories containing personal information (e.g., email and
postal addresses) and other laws limit what kinds of information (and
in what form) can be transported across national borders.
Handling of cryptographic exchanges, import/export of supporting
software and exchanges of keying information are all potentially
subject to national restrictions and constraints. The government
agencies interested in promoting international collaboration may need
to seek alternative international formulations of permitted practice
to permit the required technical support.
Finally, several organizations in the US and Europe have pointed out
that the provision of networking infrastructure requires stable
funding over significant periods of time. Stability for
infrastructure support has been shaky in the US and in Europe and
this presents an obstacle to achieving widespread and reliable
network services to aid collaborative efforts.
9. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The set of proposals contained in this report provide a realistic,
staged approach to ameliorating the grave problems caused by the
disparities with respect to bandwidth provision, user services and
network protocol issues that impede widespread and close
transatlantic collaboration at present between the ESPRIT and
DARPA/NSF research workers. Their implementation will require a
considerable degree of commitment to resolve present administrative
difficulties, but the financial resources needed would, we estimate,
be relatively modest and fully commensurate with the benefits to be
gained.
APPENDIX A NIWG PARTICIPANTS
(1) and (2) indicate the Brussels and Washington meetings respectively
Co-chairmen:
Ira Richer (1),(2) Rolf Speth (1) Tom Weber (2) Rosalie Zobel (1),(2)
DARPA CEC NSF CEC
Rapporteurs:
Vint Cerf (1) Peter Kirstein (1), (2) Mike Levine (2)
CNRI UCL PSC
Other Participants:
Franco Bigi (1) Adriano Endrizzi (1), (2) Juan Riera(1)
William Bostwick (1) David Farber (1) Jack Thorpe (1)
Bill Buzbee (2) Steve Goldstein (1) Jose Torcato (1), (2)
Mike Eyre (2) Sid Karin (2) Klaus Ullmann (1)
Robert Cooper (1) Barry Leiner (1) Paul Wilson (2)
Steve Crocker(2) Jean-Pierre Peltier (2) Bill Wulf (2)
Karel De Vriendt(1) Brian Randell (1), (2)
APPENDIX B - NETWORKING AND INFRASTRUCTURE WORKING GROUP: TELEPHONE,
EMAIL AND FAX NUMBERS
Franci Bigi (1)
CEC
Rue de la Loi 2000
B-1049
Brussels
BELGIUM
Tel: +32 2 236 3493
Fax: +32 2 235 6937
William Bostwick (1)
US Dept of Energy
Tel: +1 703 276 3533
Fax: +1 703 276 2536
Email: bostwick@darpa.mil
Bill Buzbee (2)
National Center for Atmospheric Research
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307
USA
Tel +1 303 497 120?
Fax +1 303 497 1137
Email buzbee@bierstadt.ucar.edu
Vinton Cerf (1)
Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI)
1895 Preston White Drive, Suite 100
Reston, VA 22091
USA
Tel: +1 703 620 8990
Fax: +1 703 620 0913
Email: vcerf@nri.reston.va.us
Robert Cooper (1)
Rutherford and Appleton Laboratories
Didcot, Oxon, 0x11 0QX
UK
Tel: +44 23544 5459
Fax: +44 23544 5808
Email: R.Cooper@Rutherford.AC.UK
Steve Crocker (2)
Trusted Information Systems
3060 Washington Road
Glenwood, MD 21738
USA
Tel: +1 301 854 6889
Fax: +1 301 854 5363
Email: crocker@tis.com
Adriano Endrizzi (1), (2)
JRC
21020 ISPRA
ITALY
Tel: +39 332 789213
Fax: +39 332 789098
Email: a_endrizzi@cen.jrc.it
Michael Eyre (2)
Architecture Projects Management Ltd (ANSA)
Poseidon Ho
Castle Park
Cambridge
CB3ORD
UK
Tel: +44 223 323010
Fax: +44 223 359779
Email: dme@ansa.co.uk
David Farber (1)
University of Pennsylvania
200 South 33rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6389
USA
Tel: +1 215 898 9508
Fax: +1 215 274 8293
Email: farber@cis.upenn.edu
Steve Goldstein (1)
NSF
18th & G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20550
USA
Tel: +1 202 357 9717
Fax: +1 202 357 0320
Email: sgoldstein@note.nsf.gov
Sid Karin (2)
San Diego Supercomputer Center
University of California at San Diego
San Diego, CA 92186-9784
USA
Tel: +1 619 534 5075
Fax: +1 619 534 5113
Email: Karin@sdsc.edu
Peter Kirstein (1) (2)
University College London
Gower Street
London
WCIE GBT
UK
Tel: +44 71 380 7286
Fax: +44 71 387 1397
Email: kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Barry Leiner (1)
Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS)
USA
Tel: +1 415 694 6362
Fax: +1 415 962 7772
Email: leiner@riacs.edu
Michael Levine (2)
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
Tel: +1 412 268 4960
Fax: +1 412 268 5832
Email: levine @a.psc.edu
Jean-Pierre Peltier (2)
ONERA
Chatillon CEDEX
BP 72
92322
FRANCE
Tel: +33 1 4657 1160
Fax: +33 1 4746 9025
Email: Peltier@Froner81.bitnet
Brian Randell (1), (2)
Computing Laboratory
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
UK
Tel: +44 91 222 7923
Fax: +44 91 222 8232
Email: Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk
Ira Richer (1) (2)
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
1400 Wilson Bld
Arlington, VA 22209
USA
USA
Tel: +1 703 614 5800
Fax: +1 703 614 5004
Email: richer@darpa.mil
Juan Riera (1)
University of Madrid
ETSI
Ciudad Universitaria
E-28040
Madrid
ESPAGNA
Tel: +34 1 449 5762
Fax: +34 1 243 2077
Email: jriera@dit.upm.es
Rolf Speth (1)
CEC
Rue de la Loi 2000
B-1049
Brussels
BELGIUM
Tel: +32 2 236 0416
Fax: +32 2 235 0655
Email: Rolf_speth@eurokom.ie
Jack Thorpe (1)
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - Europe (DARPA-E)
GERMANY
Tel: +49 711 715 5418
Fax: +49 711 715 5448
Email: thorpe@darpa.mil
Jose Torcato (1), (2)
CEC, TR 61 0/10
Rue de la Loi 2000
B-1049
Brussels
BELGIUM
Tel: +32 2 236 3537
Fax: +32 2 235 6937
Email: --
Klaus Ullmann (1)
Deutsche Forschungsnetz
Pariserstr. 44
D-1000 Berlin 15
GERMANY
Tel: +49 30 8842 9920
Fax: +49 30 8842 9970
Email: ullmann@zpl.dfn.dbp.de
Karel De Vriendt (1)
CEC
Rue de la Loi 2000
B-1049
Brussels
BELGIUM
Tel:
Fax: +32 3 235 0655
Email: k_d_v@eurokom.ie
Thomas A. Weber (2)
NSF
18th & G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20550
USA
Tel: +1 202 357 7558
Fax: +1 202 357 0320
Email: tweber@note.nsf.gov
Paul Wilson
Computer Sciences Company Ltd.
Computer Sciences House, Brunel Way
Slough, Berkshire SL1 1XL
UK
Tel: 0753 73232
Fax: 0753 516178
Email: wilson@cs.nott.ac.uk
Bill Wulf (2)
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903-2442
USA
Tel: +1 804 982 2223
Fax: +1 804 982 2214
Email: wulf@virginia.edu
Rosalie Zobel (1) (2)
CEC
Rue de la Loi 2000
B-1049
Brussels
BELGIUM
Tel: +32 2 236 0324
Fax: +32 2 236 3031
Email: R_Zobel@eurokom.ie
APPENDIX C GLOSSARY
There is no attempt to provide a comprehensive glossary. However,
some of the participants were unfamiliar with the terms used on the
other side of the Atlantic, so some of the more parochial technical
terms are defined below.
CCITT - The international body responsible for recommendations
to the National communications authorities.
CLNP - Connectionless Network Protocol. A specific ISO/OSI
protocol analgous to the IP mentioned below.
CONS - Connection-oriented service. Another specific ISO/OSI
protocol more aligned to the X.25 protocol mentioned below.
Compound Document - Documents containing different content types
including some of the following: text (possibly with various
fonts), geometric graphics, bit-map graphics, spreadsheets,
tables, animation, voice annotation.
IAB - The Internet Activities Board. This is the body which
guides the evolution of the TCP/IP protocol suite and the
general Internet architecture. The Internet Engineering Task
Force and Internet Research Task Force are subsidiary
activities of the IAB.
IETF - The Internet Engineering Task Force. This is a working
group responsible for the specification, development and
discussion of the operation of facilities in the Internet
research networks, which are the basis of US research network
services - but also have European counterparts and
participation.
Internet - The concatenations of packet-switched networks which
comprise the research networks used by most of the contractors
of the NSF and DARPA (amonsgst other US groups). The Internet
also extends to other countries including some in Europe.
IP - The Internet Protocol. This is the lowest level protocol which
is the basis of the current Internet.
ISO - The International Standards Organisation. The international
organisation responsible for the standardisation of a broad
range of facilities including network ones.
IXI - The international packet switched network which has been
installed by the European communication authorities as part
of a European project to provide an international backbone
network linking in the West European National research (and
public) networks.
OSI - Open Systems Interconnection. An evolving set of ISO
standards which should allow services on different host
computers networks to inter-operate.
RARE - The international committee comprising representatives of
European National and international research networks.
TCP/IP - The transport protocols currently used on the Internet.
X.25 - The Network Access protocols specified by CCITT/OSI as
standard.
X.400 - The set of protocols for message services specified by
CCITT/ISO.
X.500 - The set of protocols for directory services specified by
CCITT/ISO.
Security Considerations
Security issues are discussed in Sections 6.5, 6.9, and 6.11.
Authors' Addresses
Vinton G. Cerf
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
1895 Preston White Drive, Suite 100
Reston, VA 22091
Phone: +1 703 620 8990
Email: vcerf@nri.reston.va.us
Peter Kirstein
University College London
Department of Computer Science
Gower Street
London WCIE GBT
UK
Phone: +44 71 380 7286
Email: kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Brian Randell
Computing Laboratory
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
UK
Phone: +44 91 222 7923
Email: Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk