IP: Internet II

[Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

From: mmr (Mike Roberts)
Subject: Update on Internet II meeting
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 96 21:19:40 PDT


For NTTF Members -


At the CIO meeting in Chicago earlier today, representatives of the thirty-
four universities attending agreed unanimously to endorse the goals of the 
project, committed their institutions to finding the resources necessary
to participate in the project, and pledged initial funding to enable 
current intensive planning efforts to proceed without delay. 


Five working committees were formed, and chairs appointed as noted below.
The committee chairs will comprise an interim steering committee while 
a permanent project organization is formed and staffed.  Gary Augustson
of Penn St. has agreed to chair the steering committee in order to maintain
good coordination with the NTTF, whose steering committee he also chairs.


Members of the steering committee will attend next Tuesday's NTTF meeting
in Philadelphia and make reports on their initial work.


It was agreed that charter membership in the project will remain open for
a limited time for additional institutions who are in a position to 
commit the resources necessary for participation.


The current draft of the project charter statement and list of members is
appended below.


---------------
Internet II Project working committees


Applications - Bill Graves (UNC), Chair
Engineering - Greg Jackson (Chicago), Chair
Goals & charter - Raman Khanna (Stanford), Chair
Organization - Stuart Lynn (UC), Chair
Search - Doug Van Houweling (Michigan), Chair






- Mike Roberts




------------------


                                                       Draft v.1.3  10/1/96


                             INTERNET II PROJECT


SUMMARY


Building on the tremendous success of the last ten years in generalizing 
and adapting research Internet technology to academic needs, a number of 
universities (see list at end of this document) are now joining together 
with government and industry partners to accelerate the next stage of 
Internet development in academia. The Internet II project, as it is known, 
will bring focus, energy and resources to the development of a new family 
of advanced applications to meet emerging academic requirements in 
research, teaching and learning. 


The project will address major challenges of the next generation of 
university networks.  First and most importantly, a leading edge network 
capability for the national research community will be created and
sustained. For a number of years beginning in 1987, the network services
of NSFnet were unequaled anywhere else.  But the privatization of that
network and the frequent congestion of its commercial replacement have
deprived many faculty of the network capability needed to support world
class research.  This unintended result has had a significant negative
impact on the university research community.


Second, network development efforts will be directed to enabling a new 
generation of applications that fully exploit the capabilities of broadband 
networks - media integration, interactivity, real time collaboration - to 
name a few.  This work is essential if new priorities within higher 
education for support of national research objectives, distance education, 
lifelong learning, and related efforts are to be fulfilled.


Third, the work of the Internet II project will be integrated with ongoing 
efforts to improve production Internet services for all members of the 
academic community. A major goal of the project is to rapidly transfer new 
network services and applications to all levels of educational use and to 
the broader Internet community, both nationally and internationally.




SCOPE OF INTERNET II PROJECT


The project will be conducted in phases over the next three to five years, 
with initial participation expected from fifty to one hundred universities,
a number of federal agencies, and many of the leading computer and 
telecommunications firms, including IBM, Cisco Systems, AT&T, MCI, and Sun.
The overall project technical plan and architecture is contained in a 
companion document to this statement entitled "Internet II Architecture."


In the initial project phase, end to end broadband network services will be 
established among the participating universities.  On a parallel basis, 
applications design will commence using teams of university faculty, 
researchers, and industry experts.  It is expected that within 
approximately eighteen months, "beta" versions of a number of applications 
will be in operation among the Internet II participating universities.




INTERNET II PARTNERSHIP & FUNDING ARRANGEMENTS


In most respects, the partnership and funding arrangements for the Internet 
II project will parallel those of previous joint networking efforts, of 
which the NSFnet project is a very successful example.  Industry partners 
will work with campus-based and regional university teams to create the 
advanced network services that are necessary to meet the requirements of 
broadband, networked applications.  Federal R&D agencies will provide grant 
support in their areas of program interest, such as the NSF vBNS 
meritorious high performance networking initiative.  


Funding for the Internet II project will include both financial and in kind 
services and products of various types that will be necessary for the 
project.  Since most of the project effort will occur on or near 
university campuses, it is anticipated that the majority of funding from 
government research agencies and industry partners will be in the form of 
grants to the participating universities.


---------------------------------------------------------------


Internet II Project Charter University Members (as of 10/1/96)


Arizona State University      
California State University  
Univ of California System     
Univ of California - Berkeley 
Univ of California - Davis    
Carnegie Mellon University    
Case Western Reserve          
University of Chicago         
Colorado State University     
University of Colorado        
Cornell University            
George Washington Univ       
University of Illinois-UC     
Indiana University
University of Iowa             
Harvard University             
MIT                           
Michigan State University      
University of Michigan        
University of Minnesota       
Northwestern University       
University of North Carolina  
Ohio State University          
Pennsylvania State University 
University of Pennsylvania     
Princeton University          
Purdue University             
Stanford University           
Vanderbilt University         
Virginia Tech                 
University of Virginia        
University of Washington      
University of Wisconsin       
Yale University