Re: NSF announces GENI Project Office and no threat from P2P

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <bob37-2 () bobf frankston com>
Date: May 21, 2007 12:54:58 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Cc: dpreed () reed com, "'Craig Partridge'" <craig () aland bbn com>
Subject: RE: [IP] NSF announces GENI Project Office and no threat  
from P2P

Am I missing something but this seems to hark back to the days of  
making the network smarter and the users dumber. Why do we assume  
that the most interesting applications require dedicated resources?  
Is this about Hollywood or about sharing information? Now we want the  
network to guarantee security – are we so desperate for “peace of  
mind” that we’d rather return to the past then deal with reality?  
Reminds me of the peace of mind that people find in Intelligent Design.



I’d feel far more comfortable if GENI funded efforts to understand  
connected applications rather than trying to make a smarter network  
or “a new communications infrastructure built alongside the Internet”  
as if the Internet were a physical object not a concept.



Alas, this slicing up the substrate into predefined managed middles  
sounds like just the opposite of the defining concept of the end-to- 
end Internet. It makes the applications dependent upon highly  
valuable assured bits which is a return to the world of the center- 
defined telephone system. By assuring dependency it breaks the  
fundamental dynamic that has made the Internet work so well. In  
today’s Internet (prototype) applications are not dependent upon any  
particulars of the path and thus we've been able to take advantage of  
an abundance of "junk bits".



What is glaringly absent from all these efforts is supporting the  
Internet at the edge or, more to the point, from the edge. The  
networks in our homes must operate completely without any dependency  
on any part of the network outside -- thus you cannot rely on an IP  
address allocation or the DNS if you are to send a message from your  
light switch to your light fixture. You can then interconnect your  
network to your neighbors’ networks without depending on any network  
elements from others. And eventually you will connect the world  
without any dependency upon the benevolence of ICANN or ARIN and you  
will not depend on the DNS for stability.



Yet all this research seems to be going in just the opposite  
direction and is assuring that the applications will be fatally  
dependent upon a synthetic and sterile version of the real world. The  
real world exists, the P2P and other communities have embraced it.  
But the real Internet is far too frightening to those who want to buy  
solutions to well-defined problems. Better to defang it and assure  
that only good applications will be funded and that it will be the  
1950's again with The Internet Company assuring the proper allocation  
of resources for each application. What’s the difference between TIC  
and TPC?



Remember that a BBN spinoff Genuity bet the company on selling high  
value bits and it lost the bet. If our military thinks that this is  
good design then we have every reason to be very afraid.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 12:19
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] NSF announces GENI Project Office







Begin forwarded message:



From: Craig Partridge <craig () aland bbn com>

Date: May 21, 2007 12:07:46 PM EDT

To: dave () farber net

Subject: NSF announces GENI Project Office





Here's the NSF press release.



BBN issued a companion press release which is at

http://www.bbn.com/news_and_events/press_releases/2007_press_releases/

pr_may_21_2007_geni



There's also a preliminary web page with an introduction to the GPO

staff and presentation on what the GPO will be doing in the near future

at http://gpogeni.net



Craig



***************



Three Wishes for a Future Internet? GENI Project Will Soon Be At Your

Command

NSF awards tech firm BBN Technologies funds to establish GENI project

office





If the proverbial genie gave Internet users three wishes for an improved

network what would they ask for? Peace of mind about secure financial

transactions? Protection from hackers?  Inventive new applications that

improve the quality of life?  =20



With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers are

working together to design a bold new research platform called GENI, the

Global Environment for Network Innovations. As envisioned, GENI will

allow researchers throughout the country to build and experiment with

completely new and different designs and capabilities that will inform

the creation of a 21st Century Internet.



Today, NSF announced that BBN Technologies, under the leadership of Chip

Elliott, has been selected to serve as the GENI Project Office (GPO).

The office will work closely with the computing research community to

create and develop the GENI design.



The creation of a project office, which received an award of $2.5

million per year for up to four years, is a major step in the NSF

process to build major research facilities and marks a key step toward

making GENI a reality.



"In a little more than 25 years, the Internet has gone from an obscure

research network to a critical piece of the national communication

infrastructure," said Deborah Crawford, acting assistant director of

NSF's Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate. "But

an Internet fundamentally better than today's may require large-scale,

systematic research initiatives focused on the hardest scientific and

technical challenges, driven by overarching visions of how the future

might look."



"GENI will give scientists a clean slate on which to imagine a

completely new Internet that will likely be materially different from

that of today. We want to ensure that this next stage of transformation

will be guided by the best possible network science, design,

experimentation, and engineering," said principal investigator and

project director Chip Elliott of BBN.



BBN Technologies, an advanced technology solutions firm, has locations

in Cambridge, Mass., and Washington, D.C.  The company has been at the

forefront of technological change for more than 50 years and is known

for pioneering the development of the ARPANET, the forerunner of the

Internet.



The GENI Science Council (GSC), composed of research leaders in computer

networking, distributed systems, cybersecurity, and other related fields

will represent research-community interests by working closely with the

GSC. Together, GSC and the GPO will first carry out preconstruction

planning for the facility. =20



"This is a tremendous opportunity for the research community to define a

research platform that can enable breakthroughs as important as those

made in fields such as physics and astronomy, where large NSF-funded

experimental facilities have long played a crucial role," said GSC

representative. "We look forward to working with our GPO colleagues and

the community to examine the scientific, technical, economic and social

opportunities and implications GENI provides."=20



The idea for the GENI project dates back to an NSF workshop held in

early 2005. There, a team of researchers led by Princeton University's

Larry Peterson, envisioned that GENI would consist of a collection of

physical networking components, including links, forwarders, storage,

processor clusters, and wireless subnets. These resources are

collectively called the GENI substrate.



On top of the substrate, a software management framework will layer

network experiments on the substrate. Each experiment-there may be

thousands going on at the same time-will run in a slice of the

substrate. In concept, GENI components are programmable, which will make

it possible to embed experiments, including clean-slate designs that are

radically different from today's Internet architecture and protocols.

The virtual substrate will also allow thousands of slices to run

simultaneously, including some experimental services and architectures

that can run continuously.=20



And, GENI will include mechanisms that allow end users to participate in

and evaluate new, experimental services under real-world conditions.

Finally, GENI will be modular, with a well-defined architecture and set

of interfaces that will make it possible to extend GENI with new

networking technologies as they become available and maintain a dynamic

infrastructure that is continually renewed.



"GENI creates an opportunity for stunningly ambitious research," said

BBN's Elliott. "NSF's support of this initiative will ensure that

brilliant minds across the whole sweep of networking and

distributed-system research have the opportunity to try a wide variety

of innovations in a very large-scale, shared experimental environment."





- -NSF-







Media Contacts

Joyce Kuzmin, BBN Technologies (617) 873-8193 jkuzmin () bbn com

Leslie Fink, National Science Foundation (703) 292-5395 lfink () nsf gov





Related Websites

gpogeni.net: GENI Project Office

NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering:

http://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=3DCISE

NSF soliciation to establish a GENI Project Office:

http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=3Dnsf06601

NSF and the Internet:

http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/nsfoutreach/htm/n50_z2/pages_z3/28_pg.ht

m

BBN Technologies: www.bbn.com









The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency

that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of

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funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 1,700 universities

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requests for funding, and makes nearly 10,000 new funding awards. The

NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts

yearly.



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