CCIRN Meeting Minutes
7/22/2000
Yokohama, Japan
I.
Meeting Attendees
Asia-Pacific delegation:
Kilnam Chon (Co-Chair) KAIST KR chon@cosmos.kaist.ac.kr
Shoichiro Asano NACSIS JP asano@nii.ac.jp
Shigeki Goto Waseda
Un./ APAN JP goto@goto.info.waseda.ac.jp
Yasuichi Kitamura
APAN JP kita@jp.apan.net
Kazunori Konishi APAN JP konishi@jp.apan.net
Xing Li CERNET CN xing@cernet.edu.cn
Jong-Jin Park APAN KR park@nclab.hanyang.ac.kr
Yoshiro Yoneya APAN JP
yone@po.ntts.co.jp
European delegation:
Kees Neggers (Co-Chair) SURFnet NL
neggers@surfnet.nl
Karel Vietsch (Info. Coord.) TERENA Eur. vietsch@terena.nl
Lajos Balint
Hungarnet-NIIF Hungary H48BAL@ELLA.HU
Franck Boissiere EC EC
franck.boissiere@cec.eu.int
Jan Gruntorad
CESNET/CEENET Czech jg@cesnet.cz
Olivier Martin CERN Switz oliver.martin@cern.ch
North-American delegation:
George Strawn (Co-Chair) NSF US gstrawn@nsf.gov
Grant Miller (Info.Coord.) NCO US
miller@ccic.gov
Heather Boyles
Internet2 US heather@internet2.edu
Latin America and the Caribbean delegation:
Florencio Utreras
REUNA/ENRED Chile futreras@reuna.cl
Guests:
Ted Hanss Internet2 US hanss@internet2.edu
John Jamison
STAR-TAP/Juniper US jjamison@juniper.net
David Lassner Un of
Hawaii
US david@hawaii.edu
Joe Mambretti
NWU/MREN. US
j.mambretti@nwu.edu
Meeting Co-Chairs: Kilnam Chon (Asia-Pacific), Kees Neggers (Europe),
and George Strawn (NorthAmerica)
II. Proceedings
1. 1. Opening
The meeting was co-chaired
by the attending Continental Co-Chairs, Kilnam Chon,
Asian-Pacific Co-Chair,
Kees Neggers, European Co-Chair, and George Strawn, North-
American Co-Chair. The
attendees introduced themselves.
The observers were welcomed.
2. Working Group Reports
A discussion was held among
the CCIRN representatives on whether to disband
CCIRN working groups that are not currently functioning. It was the sense of the
meeting that working groups with an active chair, an action agenda, and
that are meeting
should be retained. Those
working groups that do not have a designated chair and are not
meeting should be disbanded.
Digital Video Working Group
(DVWG)
Joe
Mambretti reported on the activities of the Digital Video Working Group
(DVWG). This WG was
approved at the last CCIRN meeting.
It organized an
international showcase for the INET Conference using the IGRID
application. Thirty-
five researchers in ten countries successfully demonstrated the first
global video network
by connecting fifteen international networks. Working collectively across the networking
fabrics enabled solution of the technical problems. Evaluation of the demonstration
identified that there are many useful technologies and tools in
existence. Many tools and
capabilities known only at the local (network) level need to be advertised
globally to
make them available to a wider range of end users. The evaluation also identified that
there is a suite of technologies that need to be developed. Participants in the
demonstration included Sweden, CERN, Korea, Singapore, US, Canada and
others. The
participants agreed to continue to work on the demonstrated
capabilities to increase the
capabilities and speed in the future.
Near
term activities of the WG will include advertising local activities and tools
that have global use, such as multicast. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) will
be asked to consider formulating standards for digital video so users
can easily plug into
a fabric instead of hand-crafting a custom capability each time they
develop a digital
video capability.
Standards for media objects are needed for intercontinental
transactions.
The
Digital Video WG meshes very heterogeneous networking environments.
The greatest challenges are to mechanize the
current manual routing and getting
dedication of networking resources for the duration of a demonstration
using existing
networking resources.
CCIRN
representatives congratulated the Digital Video WG on their
accomplishments. It was
discussed that CCIRN can encourage coordination and
communication among researchers and identify new opportunities in IPv6
and
international DiffServ (an IETF differentiated services protocol).
The
DVWG indicated they would be willing to demonstrate IGRID at future
INET conferences if it can be done with less effort. The WG has an interest in working
on intercontinental high performance networks at greater than OC3
speeds, as they
become available. They
also have an interest in showcasing high-resolution art
applications in the future.
One
application demonstrated by the DVWG IGRID was interactive high
definition media. The
Virtual Institute for Materials Sciences participated in developing
this demonstration. It
creates an on-line virtual University for Materials Science. They
have developed a capability for identifying materials sciences
resources on-line using
artificial intelligence techniques. They are working on on-line instrumentation, access to
data bases worldwide, and networking to enable these applications. Currently three
countries are
participating in this project with plans to enlarge the number of country
participants to ten and to extend the capabilities to international
laboratories.
Measurement Working Group
(MWG)
Yasuichi
Kitamura reported on the MWG. They
planned to meet at each IETF
meeting. Last year they
met in Oslo and discussed Asian and North American activities.
Several ad hoc meetings
were also held. The MWG identified
that CCIRN members
have limited networking resources for measurement but measurement of
security
capabilities should take place.
There
is a need to reconstruct the mailing list of the MWG, to initiate email
contact, and to generate a program of activities. The CCIRN members indicated that they
should continue trying to develop an active program over the next
year. If there is no
member response over the
next year, the group should be disbanded.
It was suggested
that the CCIRN MWG could coordinate with Internet2 (I2) activities in
measurement. I2
is holding a joint technology
meeting in January. If I2 will
consider coordinating
measurement in South America and Africa, joint cooperation would be
appropriate. If I2
can not provide measurement activities for those continents, then CCIRN
will need its
own measurement activities to address those continents.
Action Item: Joe Mambretti will coordinate with the CCIRN MWG. He already provides
measurement for the IGRID applications being demonstrated. He will report to the next
CCIRN on his measurement activities.
Mbone Working Group (MbWG)
Karel
Vietsch reported on the MbWG. This
working group has no permanent
chair. TERENA organized a
July 1999 meeting in Oslo chaired by Sabatino with
approximately 12 attendees.
The meeting provided exchange of expertise and
experiences in enabling the Mbone. The group agreed to ad hoc meetings to exchange
practical information but it has not met in over a year. However, discussions were held
during the year on APAN transfers to DANTE. The opinion was expressed that the
MbWG provides a mechanism to coordinate among network operators. However,
Internet2 provides a coordination group for Mbone that has been
effective at the
operational level. It was
resolved to dissolve the MbWG.
Quality of Service Working
Group (QWG)
The
QWG was active at the launching of the Internet2 Qbone. DiffServ and
Quality of Service (QOS) have progressed to the point where this
working group has not
met in one and a half years.
Work on QOS continues in Asia and Europe on technical
development of QOS capabilities.
Ben
Teitelbaum of I2 is working on the Qbone and bandwidth brokers. Europe
directly participates in the I2 working group. The Abilene network is working with I2
to
implement DiffServ on Abilene.
In
the Asian environment there is currently little bandwidth so QOS is of greater
concern than in the US and
Europe. The CCIRN QWG could be
effective for the
exchange of information on work being done on each continent. CCIRN members asked
if the QWG could be reorganized to become more effective in the
exchange of
information. It could
provide coordination with the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)
that is working on QOS implementations.
AI: Karel Vietsch will coordinate with Heather Boyles to develop a BOF meeting
of key
international experts on QOS at the October I2 meeting.
Multi
Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is also an enabler for QOS using IP over
optics. MPLS will be used
for switching from one lambda to another and implementing
resilience on the network (self-healing). MPLS is currently implemented in a single
domain so implementing it across networks is not possible. A standard is needed. The
IETF is working on MPLS.
Network Storage Working
Group (NSWG)
The
NSWG was organized at last year’s CCIRN meeting. They were to meet at
the I2 Seattle meeting.
Micah Beck developed a proposal for the NSWG that has not
materialized. The working
group has not been coordinating.
Akamai
has been asking organizations to use the organization bandwidth in return
for access to services on the Akamai servers. Akamai controls the content. The CCIRN
members recommended developing a policy for control of content for
consistency across
the CCIRN member networks.
Action Item: Kilnam Chon
will identify a person to coordinate a BOF meeting at the
January, Hawaii APAN-Internet2 meeting to discuss the development of a
policy for
control of content for cooperation with Akamai and other organizations.
3. Regional Reports
Kees
Neggers, Franck Boissiere, Jan Gruntorad and Karel Vietsch provided the
European regional report.
DANTE is the agency of the national research networks that organizes
and manages the
European backbone. DANTE also provides to several national research
networks Trans-
Atlantic connectivity.
Additionally, several advanced
European countries have their
own links to the US (New York City, or STAR-TAP). The Geant backbone will replace
the TEN-155 backbone. It
will interconnect the national research networks of 30
countries, including Eastern European nations. It will be funded by a four-year
project to
expand the scope of European connectivity with a total budget of 250
million Euros. It
will provide a production quality network that allows for research
activities as well. It
will deploy a multigigabit infrastructure in Europe. Further plans of
the European Union
in the context of the eEurope Action Plan are to establish beyond Geant
a European
research networking infrastructure with each country as soon as possible having 100
Megabits of connectivity.
CEENet, the Central and Eastern Networking Association has 25 member
countries,
including Mongolia. It
provides for an exchange of ideas and know-how, and workshops
for technical, policy, and managerial issues. Their URL is www.ceenet.org
Collaborative innovative technical development work, with participation
of national
research networks and many universities and research institutes, is
organized by
TERENA. Current TERENA
trends and events include:
- The TERENA Web caching
activity has concluded. Commercial
companies
are offering Web caching
alternatives.
- A network storage activity
is starting up
- Testing of lower-layer
technologies has been done by a task force called TF-TANT,
which ran the test program
associated with the project that funded TEN-155. That project
coming to an end, one or
more new task forces will be established to undertake further
testing activities, also in
new areas such as optical switching.
- A task force on
streaming media has been established
- Coordination among
Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) has been established.
Both research networks and
commercial providers are involved.
- A June workshop on
middleware was held with European and US attendees. Activities in
this area will be
established.
The
primary networking activities in South America are taking place in Chile,
Mexico and Brazil. At the end
of 1998, Chile had an OC3 network implementing ATM
over fiber. They had a 32
Mbps satellite link to the US, a 20 Mbps commodity link to the
US and a 12 Mbps Internet2 link.
In December 2000 a 45 Mbps optic fiber link
implementing ATM is to be completed using the Global Crossing
fabric. In March, 2001
this connectivity is scheduled to be increased to 2 x 45 Mbps using the
Global Crossing
fabric. Bandwidth prices
in Chile have been decreasing. 32
Mbps connectivity to the US
costs $32,000 per month.
Prices are approximately 5 times US and European prices and
are likely to remain at that ratio.
The
Mexican Corporation for Internet Development (CUDI) is developing
Mexican university connectivity.
All Mexican universities are involved. It is providing a
155 Mbps ATM backbone service with 34 Mbps links to the major
universities. CUDI
will connect to San Diego and Texas at 45 Mbps.
The
Brazilian research network is RNP2, which provides Metropolitan Area
Networks of up to 622 Mbps.
They are joining the South American Internet2 project.
There are 79 organizations
in academia and government participating in Brazil.
The
AMPATH Project with Florida University is providing Internet2 connectivity
to the Miami Gigapop.
Global Crossing is donating the connectivity for a three-year
period of time. Global
Crossing is providing transit from Miami to the STAR-TAP. It is
scheduled to be running by March 2001. It will provide connectivity to Brazil at 45
Mbps. Connectivity will
also be provided to Chile, Columbia, and Argentina.
The
InterSUD collaboration among South American countries (Brazil, Bolivia,
Chile and Argentina) has been redefined. Training, coordination and collaboration
among organizations is taking place. However, the cost of network links has precluded
physical connections.
The
Gemini telescope project is talking to Chile about the possibility of
cooperating on the use of bandwidth for the Chilean networks. The Hawaiian telescope
community is also cooperating on connectivity. The Mauna Kea telescopes are all
connected through the Internet2 infrastructure to provide US
connectivity. They are
eager for completion of connectivity to the Chilean telescopes.
The
international astronomy data-processing center, which is located in the
Netherlands, is talking to SURFnet to provide international
connectivity among
telescopes and to provide international data access.
Japanese
telescopes are using high performance connections to access high
performance processing located in Tokyo.
George
Strawn provided a report on US research networking activities. The NSF
is no longer funding
domestic research connectivity.
The CANARIE network of Canada
is the world leader in dark fiber deployment. It is approximately 100 times cheaper than
commercial capacity in Canada.
The
Large Scale Networking (LSN) Program of the US Federal agencies is in a
planning phase for follow-on activities to the Next Generation Internet
(NGI) Programs
that will be discontinued in FY2002. The US Presidents Information Technology
Advisory Committee (PITAC) is also providing guidance on US Federal
network
research programs. The US
will share its networking research planning document when
it becomes available.
The
Energy and Sciences Network (ESnet) of the US Department of Energy is
changing providers from Sprint to Qwest. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has
completed its funding of the vBNS network. The NSF has approved a no-cost extension
of the vBNS service by MCI-WorldCom. A number of universities that had been on the
vBNS are switching to Abilene backbone network service.
The
US PITAC recommended a 50 percent increase in US Federal agency
funding for Information Technology (IT) research. The networking portion of the IT
programs is called Scalable Information Infrastructure (SII). The NSF will announce first
year awards for SII next month.
The US Terascale computing initiative will provide
teraflop machines on-line.
One machine will be purchased in FY 2001, and one
additional machine after that.
The
NSF has been planning its funding to networking infrastructure. It is looking
at support to applications and middleware. Success of the connectivity for the astronomy
community is providing exciting new capabilities for services and data
exchanges.
Future funding for the astronomy community connectivity may be provided
jointly by the
NSF science office and the networking office.
Supernet
has been deployed in the US. It is
a fiber optic coast to coast network
supporting research and applications development at network speeds up
to 40 Gbps and
using IP over WDM.
Approximately 20 sites on Supernet provide end user access to the
network.
CCIRN
discussion provided the concern that a lack of NSF funding for
infrastructure may result in lack of an open infrastructure,
particularly for the research
environment.
Ted
Hanss of Internet2 reported on the US activities in middleware. Ken
Klingenstein of Internet2 gave a presentation in a British workshop on
Version 9 of
Eduperson, an authentication scheme.. A dozen institutions committed to adopting best
practice middleware.
Several researchers are now engaged on identifying best practice
middleware. They are
beginning to consider the topic of authorization.
Applications
are being given a high priority at Internet2 this year. They are
focusing on discipline
areas with a view to identifying how to foster a major leap
forward in applications.
Applications of emphasis include healthcare applications such as
the Open Healthcare
project and the Visible Human Project and visual arts applications.
Internet2 is also working on crosscutting technologies such as digital
video, creating a
portal interface where a user can become aware of live events or cued
to data of particular
interest to the user. It
will enable queries across multiple repositories and information
resources.Internet2 is
considering how to raise user awareness without going to the great
xpense of supporting one-off demonstrations that require extensive
resources. One
approach is to implement a
pervasive use of digital video. A
portable GRID access node
is being constructed. This was used to support the INET GRID
demonstrations.
For education applications a
pervasive video-conferencing capability is needed.
Internet2 is pursuing the
Shiboleth project, which needs to be coded by IBM so
that people can use it.
The Japanese Prime Minister
is interested in security on the network.
This is a
igh-priority, long-term
project in Japan A. group has been
established to study security
issues in the medical
area. Japan has also established a
data library system that deals
with conventional libraries now.
It allows access to the content of published papers.
This capability will be
extended to other areas.
5. Intercontinental
connectivity
Science Technology and
Research-Transit Access Point (STAR-TAP)
John Jamison of Juniper
discussed the status of the STAR-TAP.
Over 20
networks are now attached to the STAR-TAP. Several Latin American countries are in
the process of being
connected. Most connecting
networks peer at the STAR-TAP
router, some peer directly, some both at the STAR-TAP router and directly. STAR-TAP
has implemented the 6TAP, which supports IPv6, Web cache, and an Active
Measurement Platform (AMP) device that measures network
performance. Teleglobe
and Cable and Wireless have been certified by STAR-TAP to provide
transit services to
the STAR-TAP from
international networks that land at distributed sites such as New
York City, Los Angeles, and Miami. Some networks, such as the ones that have their
transatlantic connectivity provided by DANTE, have no direct connection to the STAR-
TAP now but will also be
able to connect in the future by using the transit services.
The NSF will fund STAR-TAP
for three more years. Ten to
fifteen additional
research networks are expected to connect to the STAR-TAP over the next
year.
The IGRID demonstrations at INET were expedited by the
consistency of
the connection to the STAR-TAP.
Juniper is considering donating a new router (M20) to
the project within the next tow months. It will support MPLS.
APAN is looking for a
European connection now. A 15 Mbps
SINET connection
to Europe goes through San Jose in the US. It connects to TEN-155 and is compliant
with the TEN-155 Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). This link is contracted with KDD but
will move to NTT and be increased to 35 Mbps. On October 1, 2000 they will go to
STAR-TAP in San Jose (distributed STAR-TAP) at 50 Mbps. Most Asian connectivity
to Europe goes through North America since Trans-Asia connectivity is
very expensive
compared to Trans-Atlantic connectivity. APAN provides connectivity of Japan, Korea,
and Singapore to the US.
Other Asian participants in APAN are generally connected to
the US through Japan. The
APII project of APAN will be completed in March 2001.
AI3 is satellite based.
The Ministry of Posts and Telegraph (MPT) of Japan funds the
KU band. The C band is
funded by the satellite company.
Sri Lanka and Nepal are
planning to join AI3.
Vietnam connectivity is pending.
The Korean government has
lanced a political initiative to establish a direct link
between the research networks in Europe and Korea by early next year.
In
the next month wavelengths will be available on Trans-Atlantic cables. No
wavelengths are available
yet on Trans-Pacific cables. The
China/US cable ring will be
completed next year to provide self-healing. Australia is connecting to APAN through
Southern Crossroads at 150 Mbps.
6. Future CCIRN
Considerations
CCIRN meetings and STAR-TAP
meetings should be combined to provide
coordination if possible.
The next CCIRN meeting will
be June 9, 2001 in Stockholm, Sweden following
the co-located INET meeting of June 5-8, 2001. Kees Negers will chair this meeting.
CCIRN will consider teleconferencing at the next meeting if it is
required to enable a
presentation.
If possible, meetings in
Stockholm should be arranged such that the STAR TAP
meeting takes place on Friday afternoon June 8th, followed
by a half-day CCIRN
meeting on Saturday morning June 9th. If this combination us
not possible, then the
CCIRN meeting on June 9th may need to be a full-day event.
AI: Karel Vietsch will have responsibility for making the arrangements
for the June 9,
2001 CCIRN meeting in Stockholm
AI: Karel Vietsch will contact Tom DeFanti about possibly combining the
STAR TAP
and CCIRN meetings on Friday afternoon June 8th and Saturday
morning June 9th.
AI: Grant Miller will provide a briefing on JET activities at the next
CCIRN meeting
AI: IPv6 should be placed on the agenda of the next CCIRN meeting as a
discussion topic.
AI: John Jamison will determine the status of IPv6 activities. If an IPv6 group is
currently meeting, a representative should be invited to the CCIRN
meeting to give a
presentation.
Internet2 has an IPv6
working group that meets three times a year. This provides
a good venue for the IPv6 community to interact.
A dinner will precede the
next CCIRN meeting on Friday night for CCIRN
members wishing to attend.
The
CCIRN members give thanks to our Japanese hosts for their support of this
Yokohama meeting, especially all the local arrangements they provided.