[e2e] Collaboration on Future Internet Architectures

[Fisher, Darleen L.]

Call for Research Collaboration on Future Internet Architectures
in Partnership with the US NSF FIND Program

Background
The Internet's unquestionable success at embodying a single global
architecture has also led over the decades of its operation to
unquestionable difficulties with regard to support for sound operation
and some types of functionality as well as raising issues about security
and robustness. Recently the international network research community
has focused on developing fresh perspectives on how to design and test
new architectures for coherent, global data networks that overcome these
difficulties and enable a healthy robust Future Internet. 
As a reflection of this growing community interest, there has been
international interest in rethinking the Internet to meet the needs of
the 21st century.  In the United States, the National Science Foundation
(NSF) has announced a focus area for networking research called FIND, or
Future Internet Design. The agenda of this focus area is to invite the
research community to take a long-range perspective, and to consider
what we want our global network of 10 or 15 years to be, and how to
build networks that meet the future requirements. (For further
information on the FIND program, see NSF solicitation 07-507.)  The
research funded by FIND aims to contribute to the emergence of one or
more integrated visions of a future network. (See www.nets-find.net for
information about the funded research projects.)

A vital part of this effort concerns fostering collaboration and
consensus-building among researchers working on future global network
architectures. To this end, NSF has created a FIND Planning Committee
that works with NSF to organize a series of meetings among FIND grant
recipients structured around activities to identify and refine
overarching concepts for networks of the future. As part of the research
we leave open the question of whether there will be one Internet or
several virtualized Internets.

A broader community
Because there is a broad set of efforts with similar goals supported by
other agencies, industry, and nations, NSF sees significant value in
researchers in the FIND program participating in collaboration and
consensus-building with other researchers, in academia and industry in
the US and particularly internationally, who share like-minded visions.
We believe that such visions of future global networks would greatly
benefit from global participation and that testing and deploying these
networks require global participation. 

NSF would like to do its share in helping to create a global research
community centered on working toward future global network architectures
by inviting researchers interested in such collaboration to participate
in FIND activities. We hope that other national and international groups
will invite FIND participants to work with their researchers as well.

The FIND meetings are organized for the benefit of those already
actively working in this area, or for those who have specific
intellectual contributions they are prepared to make in support of this
kind of research. These meetings are not informational meetings for
people interested in learning about the problem, or for those preparing
to submit proposals to NSF. 


Invitee Selection
Since the efficacy of FIND meetings is in part a function of their size
and coherence, we are asking researchers or individuals engaged in
activities in support of research to submit short white papers
describing themselves and how their work or intellectual contribution is
relevant to future global internet architectures. Based on the FIND
planning committee's evaluation of the described work or contribution
would contribute to a vision of the future, researchers will be invited
to join the FIND meetings and other events, as overall meeting sizes and
logistics permit.  The white papers should not focus on implementing
large-scale infrastructure projects.

The evaluation of the white papers will focus on certain criteria that
are listed below, along with expectations regarding what external
participation entails.  Naturally, interested parties should take these
considerations into account as they write their white papers, and
include information in their papers sufficient to allow the FIND
planning committee to evaluate the aptness of their participation.
Please try to limit your white paper to 2 pages.

*	In a few sentences, please describe your relevant work, and its
intended impact. When possible, include as an attachment (or a URL) a
longer description of your work, which if you wish can be something
prepared for another purpose (e.g. an original funding proposal or a
publication). It will help to limit the supporting material to 15 pages
or fewer.
*	Please summarize in the white paper the ways you see your
contributions as being compatible with the objectives of FIND (the URL
for the FIND solicitation is included above).  Contributions that accord
with the FIND program will generally be based on a long-term vision of
future networking, rather than addressing specific near-term problems,
and framed in terms of how it might contribute to an overall
architecture for a future network. 
*	Since the FIND meetings have been organized for the benefit of
researchers who have already been funded and are actively pursuing their
research, research described in white papers should already be
supported. Please describe the means you have available to cover your
FIND-related activities: the source of funds, their duration, and
(roughly) the supported level of effort. Unfortunately, NSF lacks
additional funds to financially support your participation in the
meetings, so you must be prepared to cover those costs as well. 
*	If you have submitted a FIND research proposal to the current
NeTS solicitation, you should not submit a white paper here based on
that research.  You should provisionally hold June 27-28, 2007 of the
next meeting because if selected for funding, you will be invited to
attend the June meeting.  The selection will be made in early June. 
*	As one of the goals of FIND is to develop an active community of
researchers who work increasingly together over time towards coherent,
overall architectural visions, we aim for external participants to
likewise become significantly engaged.  To this end, you should
anticipate (and have resources for) participating in FIND project
meetings (three per year) in an active, sustained fashion.
*	Invitations are for individuals, not organizations, so
individuals, not organizations should submit white papers.
*	We view the research as pre-competitive, so your research must
not be encumbered by intellectual property restrictions that prevent you
from fully discussing your work and its results with the other
participants. 
Your white paper (and the supporting description of current research or
other relevant contributions) will be read by members of the research
community, so do not submit anything that you would not reveal to your
peers. (White papers are not viewed as formal submissions to NSF.)
Timing and submission
You may submit a white paper at any time during the FIND program. The
papers we receive will be reviewed before each scheduled FIND PI
meeting. Meetings are anticipated to occur approximately three times a
year, in March, June/July and October/November. The next FIND meeting is
scheduled for June 27-28, 2007 in the Washington D.C area. Priority in
consideration for that meeting will be given to white papers that are
received by Friday, May 14th, 2007. 
Send your white paper to Darleen Fisher <dlfisher at nsf.gov> and Allison
Mankin  <amankin at nsf.gov> for coordination. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20070429/7bc3a923/attachment.html