Internet Host: nic.cerf.net Directory: farnet Subdirectory: farnet_docs Filename: ccirnmay90-report Last Updated: Aug 3, 1991 Report to FARnet Executive Committee CCIRN Meeting -- 10-11 May 1990 INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis by Guy Almes 1. On May 10-11, 1990 I attended the CCIRN Meeting hosted by Christian Huitema of INRIA. Our hosts were cordial and the attendees quite professional. In the rest of this brief report I will summarize the business conducted and offer a very personal view of international networking, particularly networking between the United States and Europe. 2. Attendees: Co-Chairs Bill Bostwick FNC bostwick@vax.darpa.mil James Hutton RARE jsh@nikhef.nl Others Guy Almes FARnet almes@rice.edu Rob Blokzijl RIPE/HEPnet k13@nikhef.nl Bob Cooper RARE/JAnet R.Cooper@Rutherford.ac.uk John Curley NRC curley@vm.nrc.ca Elise Gerich FEPG epg@merit.edu Phill Gross CNRI/FEPG pgross@nri.reston.va.us Christopher Harvey CNRS, SPAN harvey@frmeu51.bitnet Christian Huitema INRIA huitema@mirsa.inria.fr Daniel Karrensberg EUUG/EUnet dfk@cwi.nl Peter Kirstein UCL kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk Barry Leiner IAB Leiner@riacs.edu Kees Neggers RARE/SURFnet neggers@surfnet.nl Torben Nielsen PACCOM torben@hawaii.edu Rebecca Nitzan NASA nitzan@nsipo.nasa.gov Jaime Perez Vidal CEC, Brussels Jaime_Perez_Vidal@eurokom.ie Ira Richer DARPA richer@darpa.mil Sven Tafvelin NORDUnet tafvelin@ce.chalmers.se Enzo Valente RARE/GARR/INFN valente@roma1.infn.it Tony Villasenor NASA/FNC villasenor@nasa.gov 3. European Developments The RIPE initiative was started in September 1989 to coordinate IP within Europe. (It will become an official part of RARE during the RARE/EARN meeting later this month.) This is a healthy effort, since it gives voice and structure to those within Europe hoping for a pragmatic well-engineered IP infrastructure. For a variety of reasons, those active in RIPE are often not from the official government-blessed networking activities, but there seems to be slow-but-steady convergence. RIPE needs our support. EASInet, funded by IBM Europe, managed by GMD-Bonn, is aimed primarily at 3090 sites within Europe. It has a T1 line to Cornell. There is considerable ambiguity about the breadth of appropriate access to EASInet. (This may be cleared up by now.) In the view of many, this T1 is the only true trans- Atlantic `fat pipe'. Ynet, funded by the EC, is aimed at making European R&D organizations more competitive in the world networking market. The Eureka COSINE Project started its 3-year implementation phase in February 1990. EARN traffic is now running over X.25, including private, public, and IXI, since about December 1989. EARN has permission to connect to East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. 4. American Developments The attendance of a representative from Mexico at the recent NACCIRN meeting was noted. CA*net is scheduled to start this June. The Federal Networking Council is formed by Bill Wulf (acting as chair for networking of FCCSET) on 4-Jan-90. Its purposes are to provide some federal direction for the NREN and to coordinate agency networks. Its members are designated by their agencies. They are concerned with several protocols, including IP, OSI, and DECnet-IV. Charles Brownstein of NSF is Chair; Bill Bostwick is Exec. Director. Members include DARPA, NSF, NASA, DoD, DoE, OSTP, GSA, NIST, HHS, OMB, DCA, NTIA, USGS, and NOAA. Tony Villasenor chairs the Engineering and Operations working group. Ira Richer chairs the Research working group. The NREN agencies (NSF, DoD, DoE, and NASA) coordinate their budgets. 5. Pacific Developments Australia: AARN becomes operational this month at 64kb/s, moving to 2 Mb/s. The hub site is in Melbourne; administration is done in Canberra. Japan: WIDE, TISN, ICOT, and ISR use four 64-kb/s circuits. Korea: SDN/KAIST operational this month. New Zealand: UNINET now connects all the universities. PACCOM is becoming a consortium and will participate in CCIRN. 6. CCIRN Terms of Reference The only difficult issue was the extent of explicit support for the EC party line on support for international standards. We moved in this direction, but not in a manner that seems to exclude IP. The full text, as revised from the early-1989 Geneva draft, is included as an appendix. 7. CCIRN Guidelines on International Leased Lines The primary difficult issue was how to articulate the widely held view that costs should be shared in a fair way. The Americans are eager to use this document as a carrot to secure European action on improving the trans-Atlantic networking situation. The Europeans are eager to get the Americans to pay for a share of whatever needs to exist. The full text, as revised, is included as an appendix. 8. Security Issues Chris Harvey briefed us on the international system of CERT. Chris runs the European CERT. Kevin Mills is the FNC CERT Representative. The CERT is now run out of NIST. 9. Status of the `Fat Pipes' This term is applied to two federal trans-Atlantic lines. The general idea is to combine a `mission' need with an `infrastructure' need to allow for better trans-Atlantic bandwidth. The American end will be an IP router at a FIX. The European end will be an IP router at some site. There are two specific instantiations. The UK fat pipe is aimed at operational status during July 1990. Its gross 512 kb/s bandwidth is MUXed into several distinct logical lines: 128 kb/s: NASA mission 64 kb/s: MoD to DARPA IP 64 kb/s: NSF to JAnet -- infrastructure 256 kb/s: such applications as conferencing over ST The utility of the infrastructure portion of this line is limited by JAnet. The German fat pipe will come later this year. Its mission channels will connect to a defense site in Germany. Its infrastructure channel will connect an ESnet site at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to DFN/WIN. The utility of this line is again limited by the nature of DFN/WIN. These two fat pipes will support both IP and connectionless OSI (CLNP). This is needed both for intrinsic reasons and to conform to the EC desire to support international standards. 10. IP Coordination in Europe RIPE began about one year ago, and became more active and structured about six months ago. It has task forces on Routing, Domain Naming, Management, Coordination, and Monitoring/Performance. There are about 500 IP networks in Europe, with about 400 system managers. They have a backbone that connects four cities. The Italians propose a 256kb/s line to the US, as part of RIPE. The RARE/EARN workshop will be a key focus for working such issues as number coordination, domain name servers, routing, and usage. The American participants expressed deep interest and encouragement for RIPE's efforts. 11. Improved Connectivity The Americans keep hoping that the official European structures will form an analog to our FEPG, but it keeps not happening. 12. Time/Place of the Next Meeting Santa Fe, New Mexico: 22-23 Oct 90: FEPG/RIPE workshop on topology engineering. Phill Gross and Bill Bostwick will write the terms of reference. 24-25 Oct 90: CCIRN meeting. 26 Oct 90: Technical workshop on High-speed Networking. France, near Paris: 21-22 May 91: CCIRN meeting. 13. Planning of Workshops Two topics seem particularly well motivated. X.500 International White-Pages Service. We are doing X.500 on both sides of the Atlantic. Coordination seems needed. Transport-level Gateways. Interoperability between CONS, CLNP, and ISODE at the application level could be improved by advanced transport-level gateways. Appendix A: CCIRN Terms of Reference Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networking (CCIRN) Revised, Sophia-Antipolis, 11 May 1990. Terms of Reference The purpose of the CCIRN is to agree and progress a set of activities to achieve interoperable networking services between participating entities (currently North America and Europe) to support open research and scholarly pursuit. Policy, management, and technical issues will be examined, based on agreed requirements. More precisely, the committee aims to: o stimulate cooperative intercontinental research by promoting enhanced interoperable networking services, specifically - promoting the evolution of an open international research network in line with official policies on the use of international standards, and - coordinating and facilitating effective use of the international networks to enhance the quality of research and scholarship. o optimize the use of resources and to coordinate international connections of the networks represented on the CCIRN o coordinate development of international network management techniques o exchange results of networking research and development Membership CCIRN members should represent an organisation with an active interest in developing a continental network with the aims described above in the `Terms of Reference'. In North America these organisations are Federal Agencies which form the Federal Internet, initially: DARPA, NASA, DHHS, DoE, NSF, and an advisor from the IAB and a representative from the Canadian Research Ministry. The North American CCIRN takes responsibility for assembling the appropriate members. In Europe these organisations are those which promote cooperative international networking, initially: RARE, COSINE, EARN, EUnet, HEP-CERN, SPAN-ESA, CEC, and the ICB. The RARE Executive Committee takes responsibility for assembling the appropriate members. Observers may be invited at the discretion of the co-chairs. Appendix B: CCIRN Guidelines on Intercontinental Leased Lines At its meeting 10/11 May 1990 in Sophia-Antipolis, the CCIRN adopted the following guidelines. 1. The CCIRN considers that improved coordination of the ordering and operation of intercontinental leased lines will have significant benefits in terms of cost saving and improved service levels for the research community. 2. It expects its members to inform and consult the CCIRN on the future plans of the organisations which they represent, in respect to the above. The CCIRN would expect proposals for new leased lines to take account of the following guidelines: a. Leased lines should be shared to the extent that this is permitted by the applicable national and international regulations and the policies of the funding organisations. b. To the extent that intercontinental links are considered infrastructural, an equitable (not necessarily equal) sharing of the costs should be negotiated, taking into account all costs involved in network connection and operation. In such negotiations, appropriate weight should be given to the benefits of international infrastructure. To the extent that links are established for specific projects, they should be funded by these projects. c. Links that are used for infrastructural purposes should be connected at the highest appropriate level in the `network hierarchy'. d. The proposal should include a technical review of the effect the link is expected to have on the interconnected networks. e. Operation of the link should be on the basis of an agreed written document. It is preferable that, if possible and appropriate, day-to-day management should be the responsibility of a single organisation. 3. The application of these guidelines to existing leased lines will be considered in the light of experience. Explanatory notes: 1. A link is a service operated over a leased line and a leased line may well carry several links. 2. For the purposes of this paper, infrastructural links are those which are available for general purposes.