/nsfnet/linkletter/linkletter.9103-04 Vol. 4 No. 1 March/April 1991 L I N K L E T T E R The Merit/NSFNET Backbone Project NATIONAL NET '91 CONVENES IN WASHINGTON, D.C. The challenge to convince the public of the critical need for national networking was key focus of the opening speech of Net '91 this year. Citing an example of fundraising efforts at his own institution to build a new campus network, Peter Likens, Lehigh University president noted that when it came to donors, "no one wanted to put their name on buried cables." But he also noted that through many educational efforts, the network was funded and put in place. National network linked to healthy economy At a national level, Likens suggested that it was critical "to make people understand the economic impact of what we are doing." He went on to stress that the national network was a key to a healthy national economy. With the national network in place, the U.S. will be able to demonstrate its greatest strengths by being able "to compete in a global society that values knowledge above all else." "Towards a National Information Infrastructure" was the theme at Net '91 in Washington, D.C. on March 20-22. Over 400 representatives from colleges and universities, industry and government met to hear sessions on the status and future of national educational and research networking. Sponsored by EDUCOM, this year's sessions were marked by a positive sense of accomplishment due to the success of the NSFNET programs as well as optimism for the future in the light of pending congressional legislation and budget recommendations providing new support for national networking from the Executive Branch. T-3 connectivity for demonstrations The NSFNET partnership provided T-3 connectivity to conference demonstration rooms, where five applications showcased the new high speed capabilities. (See "T3 Demos" on page 4.) With the continued growth of NSFNET, the network's high speed technologies, and the increasing numbers of attached institutions, EDUCOM's President Ken King recognized this major national network as "the Interim National Research and Education Network (NREN)" in his closing plenary address. NSF committed to national networking The future of the NREN appears promising based on speeches during two of the plenary sessions. The National Science Foundation's new director, Walter E. Massey, promised the audience that NSF will remain committed to national networking and recognizes this program as one of the highest priorities for future funding and growth. In an earlier address, Eugene Wong, associate director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, noted the commitment of the Executive Branch to national networking, and detailed the program recommendations for the High Performance Computing and Communications initiative (HPCC). This program is described in the report, Grand Challenges: High Performance Computing and Communications. $638.3 million recommended for FY 1992 For Fiscal Year 1992, the executive branch has recommended a total of $638.3 million for the HPCC, a 30 percent increase in agency spending for computer and communications research and development over FY 91. According to Wong, a primary goal of the HPCC is "pushing the technology to its limits in terms of speed, capacity, reliability and usability." Wong described the initiative as the foundation for meeting the grand challenges of science. These grand challenges include research into global climate modeling, which can lead to more accurate forecasting of severe weather events, and human genome studies that may result in understanding diseases such as cancer or AIDS. Provision for high-speed national network Included in the HPCC program is $91.9 million for provision of a high speed digital national network. This funding will be distributed among the various federal agencies. The HPCC report recommends that the NREN be implemented within this networking program and further urges that the National Science Foundation coordinate activities for NREN deployment. Wong noted that the HPCC represented a strategic investment for the nation to obtain economic gains, meet national needs, and further, to bring "spiritual" dividends to the nation. "The program will inspire the gifted and talented of a new generation," Wong said. He noted that historically, computing has been a field dominated by the young. With a national focus provided on the HPCC and meeting the grand challenges, the nation will promote a youthful enthusiasm and energy within its national culture. Other Net '91 sessions covered multiple applications that rely on national networking, gigabit networking research, international connections, user interfaces, network connections for K-12 education, the Federal Networking Council and the Internet Engineering Task Force. Congressional bills discussed In a breakout session on Legislative Activities, several House and Senate staff members described three bills now before Congressional committees. The bill which has received the most attention is Senate Bill 272, introduced by Senator Albert Gore (D-Tenn.), which authorizes the NREN. This bill is now co-sponsored by 21 Senators and is expected to be reported out of committee within the next few weeks. With Net '91 over, planning is already underway for Net '92, scheduled for March 25-27, 1992, again in Washington, D.C. The text of the Senate Bill is available on line via anonymous FTP from nis.nsf.net. The directory is nsfnet. The report, Grand Challenges, is available at no charge from: Committee on Physical, Mathematical, and Engineering Sciences c/o National Science Foundation 1800 G Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20550 -Ellen Hoffman, Merit/NSFNET MERIT TO PRESENT NETWORK SEMINAR IN MAY Following the success of last November's seminar, Merit/NSFNET Information Services continues its commitment to providing current information on national networking by sponsoring a two-day seminar in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on May 20 and 21, 1991. "Making Your NSFNET Connection Count" will focus on issues of interest to campus computing leaders, information systems and networking administrators, educational liaisons, librarians, and educators who want to learn more about national networking. K-12 applications Some of the topics to be featured include network applications at the K-12 level, ways in which university libraries are making use of the Internet, the development of the Institutional File Server at the University of Michigan, a presentation of exciting image data available from NASA, and an overview of the NSFNET and the Internet. NOC tools and procedures Participants will also have the option of touring Merit's state- of-the-art Network Operations Center after hearing presentations on NOC tools and NOC procedures. Save with early registration The seminar will be held at the Tenneco Automotive Training and Development Center in Ann Arbor. Microcomputers connected to regional and national networks will be available onsite so that attendees may access network resources discussed in the presentations. The registration fee is $395 and includes the two-day seminar, a reception on Sunday evening, lunch on Monday and Tuesday, all seminar material, and an optional tour of the Network Operations Center. For further information send an electronic message to seminar@merit.edu or telephone 1-800-66-MERIT. -Pat Smith, Merit/NSFNET USER SERVICES RESTRUCTURING A MAJOR TOPIC AT NATIONAL MEETINGS "The Internet and the NREN [National Research and Education Network] need a NIC [Network Information Center]. The new NIC must be distributed, participative, cooperative and collegial; we need new models, new tools, and above all new ideas."-Dr. Steven Wolff, Division Director, Division of Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure, National Science Foundation. The structure of NICs, as well as user services in general, and the means by which they obtain and distribute information to users of the emerging national network have become major topics of discussion in the Internet community. Developers recognize the importance of providing information to network users at all levels in a timely fashion. User services discussions at national meetings The concern with network user service issues was verified many times over at recent professional meetings such as the 20th Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the ACM/SIGUCCS Computer Services Management Symposium which met in St. Louis, and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) and National NET '91 which both convened in Washington, D.C. IETF Featured at one of the IETF plenary sessions was the presentation of initial plans for an NREN architecture and an NREN management structure. Major points put forth were five "grand challenges" of networking which include user services at all levels: local users, network information centers (NICs) and network operations centers (NOCs). The user services area of development was termed "absolutely critical" by presenters Bill Johnston of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Peter Ford of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The remaining four challenges noted were scaling (IP addressing), reliability and robustness, routing, and security. Further discussion of user service issues took place in various working groups which fall under the umbrella of the IETF User Services Area. IETF/User Services Area The initial IETF User Services Working Group was formed in January 1989 as a vehicle for helping coordinate and develop network information services activities. In the two years since its formation, the group has expanded to become one of eight major efforts within IETF, and is known as the User Services Area. An international forum "The User Services Area within IETF provides an international forum for people interested in all levels of user services to identify and initiate projects designed to improve the quality of the information available to users of the Internet," commented Joyce Reynolds, User Services Area Director. Reynolds continued, "The Internet has rapidly developed to encompass a large number of internationally dispersed networks in academic and research fields . . . this growth has placed the user services provider in the difficult position of trying to give much needed user support, while at the same time restructuring the user services system to accommodate continued expansion." Current working groups in the User Services Area are Internet User Glossary, NOC-Tools Catalogue revision, User Services, Directory Information Services Infrastructure, and Network Information Services Infrastructure. Information available online Charters for these groups and minutes of past meetings may be obtained via anonymous FTP to nnsc.nsf.net, nic.ddn.mil, munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), or nic.nordu.net (Europe) under the ietf directory. IETF/User Services Area Council In addition to the groups mentioned above, the St. Louis IETF was the site of the inaugural meeting of the User Services Area Council (USAC). The USAC charter states: "USAC was established to promote and encourage creative exchange of international user service needs and concepts. "The Internet has become international in scope and USAC intends to aid in coordination of user services in the international model. Constructive input from national and international user services organizations is encouraged in the hope of avoiding duplicate efforts by the various groups." Members of the Council, thus far, represent Israel, Australia, Japan, Canada, Europe, and the United States. ACM/SIGUCCS Networking task force The Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) is a special interest group within the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) which provides a forum for those involved in delivering computing services on a college or university campus. The SIGUCCS Networking Task Force (NETTF) is dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding of the Internet among SIGUCCS members and their constituencies. The NETTF convened most recently at the spring SIGUCCS Computer Center Management Symposium in St. Louis, MO. This group is interested in reaching the thousands of potential users who are not aware of the possibility of hooking up to a national network, and the benefits such a network can offer. Outreach and funding for smaller organizations is a main concern of NETTF. "A primary reason for creating the task force was to have it act as a stimulus to raise the consciousness of everyone involved with the NREN to become aware that the focus of this kind of networking is people, not packets," stated NETTF Chair, Martyne Halgren of Cornell. The initial goals of the NETTF, established at its inception in October 1989, were to increase awareness and understanding of the Internet; disseminate information and research on development and use of the Internet; promote innovative and appropriate use of Internet resources; and initiate and encourage cooperation between the SIGUCCS membership and other organizations with similar networking goals. Halgren continued, "I am very pleased to see the attention focused on user services in organizations such as IETF, an organization which has traditionally been centered on technical issues, and by NSF, with its upcoming solicitation, as both represent a major step in understanding that networking is more than just hooking things up." One of the concerns of the NETTF as well as other user service movements is the need for more centralized services such as a generic "help number." Dr. Wolff concurs: "Two critical services are the 'NIC of first resort' for the novice who doesn't know who else to call, and the 'NIC of last resort' for users who have exhausted all other resources without resolution." Coalition for Networked Information Information services was a topic of much discussion at the spring meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). CNI is a coalition sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and takes direction from CAUSE (association for the management of information technology in higher education) and EDUCOM (a consortium of more than 600 colleges and universities which focuses on academic and instructional computing) through their chief executives. One of its missions is to promote the creation of and access to information resources in networked environments in order to enrich scholarship and to enhance intellectual productivity. CNI has formed seven working groups to further its mission. The directories and resource information services group, co- chaired by George Brett, Assistant Director, Educational Computing Services, University of North Carolina, and Peggy Seiden, Head Librarian, Pennsylvania State University at New Kensington, met to discuss the issue of a directory of network information and services. During the meeting, working group discussion revolved around three basic questions of how to gather, store, and access the information. Strategies for attempting to answer these questions include writing a white paper to be submitted to CNI, holding a follow up meeting of the key network information stakeholders, and conducting four research studies. The identified research studies are: an examination of online resources to determine how to best describe their content/purpose, an investigation of users' needs to determine what information users need concerning online resources, a study of existing models of catalogs and directories, and a study of emerging technologies which may be applicable to online resources. Working with other information services groups In the spirit of coalition building, this group is going to work closely with existing information and user services groups such as the IETF User Services Network Information Services Infrastructure and Directory Information Services Infrastructure Working Groups as well as traditional library groups like Research Libraries Group (RLG) and Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). "It's clear from this spring meeting that there is a renewed sense of energy and interest in this area. This area is not just a directory of network information but also services, education, and resources for all network users," noted George Brett, co-chair CNI Directories and Resource Information Services Group. The surge in interest and activity in the groups described above as well as in the general Internet community, indicate that the stage is being set for development of a more user- friendly international network environment as we approach the turn of the century. -Pat Smith, Merit/NSFNET T3 DEMOS GIVE GLIMPSE INTO NOT-TOO-DISTANT FUTURE The National Net '91 conference provided a glimpse into the future with the demonstration of five applications currently under development for the network. The NSFNET partnership provided both T3 and T1 connectivity to the conference's demonstration rooms. The five demonstrators used various applications to fully utilize the high bandwidth. CONCERT The CONCERT Network, the statewide network for education, research, and technology in North Carolina, the North Carolina Supercomputer Center, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill joined efforts to develop a Shared X Windows Collaboratory workstation environment. The Shared X Windows environment, called XTV (X Terminal View), is a distributed system for sharing X Windows applications synchronously among a group of remotely located users at workstations running X and interconnected by the Internet. In effect, XTV converts familiar X clients from single-user to multi- user without modification to source code, libraries, application behavior, or X servers. At Net '91, four IBM RS6000(TM) workstations were connected to local Ethernet and then to the Internet to demonstrate a collaborative session, which illustrated how users interact with the XTV system to start sessions and client applications, and to pass control among session participants. Viewers were invited to use the XTV system with their own X applications executing on their own home machines elsewhere on the Internet. University of California at Berkeley The graphically intense demonstration by the University of California at Berkeley highlighted the benefits of the high-speed NSFNET infrastructure for image transmission and showed the utility of network-based applications for increasing the availability of unique, highly-valued information bases, including museum and library collections. The University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, and Digital Equipment Corporation used a DECstation 5000 workstation to run ImageQuery and ImageView. These two programs were developed for the Berkeley Image Database Project and are used to access online catalogs at the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to querying the catalogs and perusing textual catalog contents, high quality color images of catalogued objects were displayed. Image data were transmitted from the two California sites to the Net '91 demo room via the NSFNET. The Berkeley demonstration also illustrated the benefits gained by transmitting images at T3 versus T1. "Before operation of the high-speed T3 NSFNET, real- time network transmission of images and other large amounts of data over wide-area networks was too slow for practical use," commented Ken Lindahl of the Advanced Technology Planning group at UC Berkeley. "Thus, this demonstration highlights the tremendous benefits of the transcontinental T3 NSFNET." Cornell Theory Center The Cornell Center for Theory and Simulation in Science and Engineering provided an IBM RS6000(TM) and a Sun SparcStation as platforms to demonstrate the Scientist's Workbench, a unifying graphic user interface and an integrated set of tools designed for easy and transparent multi-system network access. From this environment, viewers were given insights into two different distributed computing applications: visualization and distributed parallel computing. Image compression techniques and supercomputer "enhancement" of geologic data from the Global Basins Research Network were used to produce a visual representation of the subsurface topology of a few square miles of the coast of Louisiana while Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines and networked computer resources were used to illustrate the capabilities of distributed parallel processes. All of these actions were controlled and monitored from the Scientist's Workbench. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center (PSC) and Sun Microsystems, provided a demonstration of an important distributed application requiring workstation access to supercomputers via a very high speed, wide area network. This demonstration was a real-time, interactive visualization of 3-D medical tomographic data (e.g. NMR). A Cray II at PSC performed the compute- intensive visualization process and then sent visual output via the new T3 NSFNET to be rendered on a Sun workstation on the demo room floor. A graphical interface on the Sun allowed a user to interactively explore the tomographic reconstruction, automatically sending new parameters to the Cray for re-rendering as the exploration proceeded. The demonstration represented one model of how scientists and physicians can benefit from the combination of local, inexpensive workstations, high-speed networking and remote supercomputer facilities. National Center for Supercomputer Applications/AT&T The National Center for Supercomputer Applications and AT&T presented a demonstration that allowed a user to interact with a remote digital library. Using a Sun SparcStation and an FDDI-connected Sun 4 they demonstrated the capabilities of an intuitive user interact able to query a remote database to discover the contents and characteristics of a multi-media digital library (residing at NCSA). Concurrently, a network analysis package allowed the user to predict the performance of the application in the currently running environment and under various simulated network environments. The Net '91 demonstrations of applications currently under development for the network help to illustrate that as NSFNET continues to provide higher and higher networking performance, many existing problems will be answered faster and more easily through the use of the national network. -Laura Kelleher, Merit/NSFNET KNOWBOTS(TM) DELIVER THE GOODS Have you ever wished for a little robotJto sit at your workstation and performJthe tedious chore of finding and retrieving information from databases distributed around the world? Well, hold onto your keyboards, because the Corporation for Network Research Initiatives (CNRI) is working on a project which is the debut of exactly that kind of tool-one which will automate the searching of multiple disparate databases. CNRI has been working with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) on a utility for database searches in the Medline databases of the NLM. All the databases are now accessed via public networks but two of them, ELHILL and TOXNET, will soon be accessible over the Internet, perhaps as soon as June of this year. The work currently being done at CNRI targets the electronic databases at the National Library of Medicine's Lister Hill Center, known as the MEDLARS system. The prototype NLM Multiple Database Access Project was demonstrated recently at the American College of Radiology conference at the Lister Hill Center. The Multiple Database Access Project is part of a larger CNRI project called Digital Library Systems and applies the Knowbot technology of the DLS to the Multiple Database Access effort. Initial project goals nearly complete At the outset of the project, a number of goals were defined which included: 1) providing parallel access to NLM's multiple databases, 2) extending the NLM's form-based user interface for Mac's and PC's (Grateful-Med) to UNIX workstations, 3) supporting non-text information retrieval, and 4) supporting Internet access to the Medline databases. Three of the four are nearly complete. The fourth, supporting non-text information retrieval, is currently under investigation. The heart of the project At the heart of the project is the "Knowbot(TM)," (KNOWledge roBOT) an active, intelligent program which acts on behalf of the user to carry out a search and retrieval task. A Knowbot exchanges messages with other Knowbots and moves from one system to another to carry out the user's wishes. When the Knowbot sets out on an assignment several processes occur: - The user interface, which is called the "user agent" contains functions such as query forms and login menus for the various databases available. The user formulates a query on the user agent and presses the "send" button. - The user agent places the query inside a Knowbot and encapsulates it with the appropriate "travel instructions" for traversing the Internet. - The Knowbot is then transmitted across the Internet to the "database server" where it is received and verified. The database server contains software which expedites access to the databases. - Next the database server runs a series of small programs to process the Knowbot: a) the Knowbot's generic syntax is translated into the appropriate syntax for the database being queried; b) the query is sent, which is equivalent to dialing-in to the appropriate database; c) when a response is received it is translated back into the generic syntax of the Knowbot, and the beginning and end of each record is marked. - A Knowbot transports the retrieved records back to the user agent where yet another small Knowbot reformats the response into a friendly syntax which is then displayed to the user. Figure 1 provides a graphic representation of this process. Additional Features An additional option to forms-based access is to open up a "transparent" window to ELHILL, TOXNET, and to a Johns Hopkins Welch Library database: On-line Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) and the Genome DataBase (GDB). This is, in effect, a telnet screen. The window offers direct access to the interactive interfaces of the standard ELHILL, TOXNET, OMIM and GDB systems. (See Figure 1.) It is possible to have multiple Knowbot queries running while simultaneously doing manual interactive searches in this transparent window. In addition, since the user agent stores an encrypted form of the logins for each database, the user only needs to provide login information once for each database accessed. Flexible design The general design of the CNRI system is very flexible with the user agent and database server separable across the Internet. In the present experimental implementation, the user agent typically runs on a SUN 4/110 workstation at CNRI, the database server on a SUN 3/160 at the National Library of Medicine, the two NLM database systems on Telenet (but ELHILL is soon to be accessible on the Internet) and the OMIM and GDB systems via the Internet. Demonstrations using Network Computing Devices X-display stations as well as the SUN 4/110 workstations have been conducted for NLM and for NSF. Looking to the future - short term In the next few months Knowbots will be written to perform multiple searches from a single request. For example, the user will complete one Knowbot search form and the single Knowbot will locate and access multiple Medline databases until it finds the information requested. The current Knowbot-based system will be extended to support queries to databases other than ELHILL and TOXNET. The database server will be enhanced to support queries which are not database specific by making use of information about the contents of the various MEDLARS databases. For the long term Knowbots are general tools for implementing complex, distributed computations, processes and services. Researchers at CNRI and elsewhere are exploring applications of Knowbots as part of a more general examination of a national information infrastructure. Looking further into the future, two of many possibilities are: - Resident Knowbot. A Knowbot is instructed to remain resident at a gateway and to query a given database at the time when new citations are posted. The Knowbot is programmed to search for topics of interest to the user; when appropriate citations are located a message is sent to the user listing the citations and their locations. - Image Processing. If a user's personal workstation does not have enough power to quickly process needed calculations, a Knowbot is written to launch the data to a supercomputer where the calculations are completed and returns the results to the user via the Knowbot. Additional CNRI Projects The Corporation for National Research Initiatives is involved in a number of networking research projects in areas of High Speed Digital Networking ("Gigabits"), Digital Library Systems, Inter-Organizational Messaging, and Internet Research. For more information about Knowbots or other CNRI projects, contact: Corp. for National Research Initiatives 1895 Preston White Drive Suite 100 Reston, VA 22091 703/620-8990 -Susan Calcari, Merit/NSFNET SENATE TRANSCRIPTS AVAILABLE The latest version of S. 272, sponsored by Sen. Albert Gore (D-Tenn.), is now available for anonymous FTP from nis.nsf.net (35.1.1.48); the directory is nsfnet. During the past month Merit/NSFNET Information Services provided pertinent statistical information for EDUCOM personnel to include in testimony regarding S. 272. Transcripts of the testimony are also available for FTP from nis.nsf.net. -Merit/NSFNET Information Services REGIONALS EXCHANGE PURE OSI STACK TRAFFIC ON NSFNET On April 10, two U.S. regional networks exchanged pure OSI stack traffic over the NSFNET using commercially-available products for the first time. The stacked protocol was full OSI with Connectionless Network Protocol (CLNP) at the network layer and File Transfer, Access, and Management (FTAM) at the application layer. This event will be fully described in the next issue of the Link Letter. -Merit/NSFNET Information Services