rfc1017.txt

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         Increased processor counts and increased usage of portable
         units, mobile units and lap-top micros will make dynamic
         management of the name/address space a must.  Units must have
         fixed designations that can be re-bound to physical addresses
         as required or expedient.

4.  USER SERVICES

   The user services of the network are a key aspect of making the
   network directly useful to the scientist.  Without the right user
   services, network users separate into artificial subclasses based on
   their degree of sophistication in acquiring skill in the use of the
   network.  Flexible information dissemination equalizes the
   effectiveness of the network for different kinds of users.

Near Term Requirements

   In the near term, the focus is on providing the services that allow
   users to take advantage of the functions that the interconnected
   network provides.

Directory services

   Much of the information necessary in the use of the network is for
   directory purposes.  The user needs to access resources available on
   the network, and needs to obtain a name or address.

White Pages

   The network needs to provide mechanisms for looking up names and
   addresses of people and hosts on the network.  Flexible searches
   should be possible on multiple aspects of the directory listing.
   Some of these services are normally transparent to the user/host name
   to address translation for example.






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RFC 1017          Requirements for Scientific Research       August 1987


Yellow Pages

   Other kinds of information lookup are based on cataloging and
   classification of information about resources on the networks.

Information Sharing Services

      Bulletin Boards

         The service of the electronic bulletin board is the one-to-many
         analog of the one-to-one service of electronic mail.  A
         bulletin board provides a forum for discussion and interchange
         of information.  Accessibility is network-wide depending on the
         definition of the particular bulletin board.  Currently the
         SMTP and UUCP protocols are used in the transport of postings
         for many bulletin boards, but any similar electronic mail
         transport can be substituted without affecting the underlying
         concept.  An effectively open-ended recipient list is specified
         as the recipient of a message, which then constitutes a
         bulletin board posting.  A convention exists as to what
         transport protocols are utilized for a particular set of
         bulletin boards.  The user agent used to access the Bulletin
         Board may vary from host to host.  Some number of host
         resources on the network provide the service of progressively
         expanding the symbolic mail address of the Bulletin Board into
         its constituent parts, as well as relaying postings as a
         service to the network.  Associated with this service is the
         maintenance of the lists used in distributing the postings.
         This maintenance includes responding to requests from Bulletin
         Board readers and host Bulletin Board managers, as well as
         drawing the appropriate conclusions from recurring
         automatically generated or error messages in response to
         distribution attempts.

      Community Archiving

         Much information can be shared over the network.  At some point
         each particular information item reaches the stage where it is
         no longer appropriately kept online and accessible.  When
         moving a file of information to offline storage, a network can
         provide its hosts a considerable economy if information of
         interest to several of them need only be stored offline once.
         Procedures then exist for querying and retrieving from the set
         of offline stored files.

      Shared/distributed file system

         It should be possible for a user on the network to look at a



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         broadly defined collection of information on the network as one
         useful whole.  To this end, standards for accessing files
         remotely are necessary.  These standards should include means
         for random access to remote files, similar to the generally
         employed on a single computer system.

      Distributed Databases and Archives

         As more scientific disciplines computerize their data archives
         and catalogs, mechanisms will have to be provided to support
         distributed access to these resources.  Fundamentally new kins
         of collaborative research will become possible when such
         resources and access mechanisms are widely available.

      Resource Sharing Services

         In sharing the resources or services available on the network,
         certain ancillary services are needed depending on the
         resource.

Access Control

   Identification and authorization is needed for individuals, hosts or
   subnetworks permitted to make use of a resource available via the
   network.  There should be consistency of procedure for obtaining and
   utilizing permission for use of shared resources.  The identification
   scheme used for access to the network should be available for use by
   resources as well.  In some cases, this will serve as sufficient
   access control, and in other cases it will be a useful adjunct to
   resource-specific controls.  The information on the current network
   location of the user should be available along with information on
   user identification to permit added flexibility for resources.  For
   example, it should be possible to verify that an access attempt is
   coming from within a state.  A state agency might then grant public
   access to its services only for users within the state.  Attributes
   of individuals should be codifiable within the access control
   database, for example membership in a given professional society.

Privacy

   Users of a resource have a right to expect that they have control
   over the release of the information they generate.  Resources should
   allow classifying information according to degree of access, i.e.
   none, access to read, access according to criteria specified in the
   data itself, ability to change or add information.  The full range of
   identification information described under access control should be
   available to the user when specifying access.  Access could be
   granted to all fellow members of a professional society, for example.



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RFC 1017          Requirements for Scientific Research       August 1987


Accounting

   To permit auditing of usage, accounting information should be
   provided for those resources for which it is deemed necessary.  This
   would include identity of the user of the resource and the
   corresponding volume of resource components.

Legalities of Interagency Research Internet

   To make the multiply-sponsored internetwork feasible, the federal
   budget will have to recognize that some usage outside a particular
   budget category may occur.  This will permit the cross-utilization of
   agency funded resources.  For example, NSFnet researchers would be
   able to access supercomputers over NASnet.  In return for this, the
   total cost to the government will be significantly reduced because of
   the benefits of sharing network and other resources, rather than
   duplicating them.

Standards

   In order for the networking needs of scientific computing to be met,
   new standards are going to evolve.  It is important that they be
   tested under actual use conditions, and that feedback be used to
   refine them.  Since the standards for scientific communication and
   networking are to be experimented with, they are more dynamic than
   those in other electronic communication fields.  It is critical that
   the resources of the network be expended to promulgate experimental
   standards and maximize the range of the community utilizing them.  To
   this end, the sharing of results of the testing is important.

User-oriented Documentation

   The functionality of the network should be available widely without
   the costly need to refer requests to experts for formulation.  A
   basic information facility in the network should therefore be
   developed.  The network should be self-documenting via online help
   files, interactive tutorials, and good design.  In addition, concise,
   well-indexed and complete printed documentation should be available.

Future Goals

   The goal for the future should be to provide the advanced user
   services that allow full advantage to be taken of the interconnection
   of users, computing resources, data bases, and experimental
   facilities.  One major goal would be the creation of a national
   knowledge bank.  Such a knowledge bank would capture and organize
   computer-based knowledge in various scientific fields that is
   currently available only in written/printed form, or in the minds of



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RFC 1017          Requirements for Scientific Research       August 1987


   experts or experienced workers in the field.  This knowledge would be
   stored in knowledge banks which will be accessible over the network
   to individual researchers and their programs.  The result will be a
   codification of scientific understanding and technical know-how in a
   series of knowledge based systems which would become increasingly
   capable over time.

CONCLUSION

   In this paper, we have tried to describe the functions required of
   the interconnected national network to support scientific research.
   These functions range from basic connectivity through to the
   provision for powerful distributed user services.

   Many of the goals described in this paper are achievable with current
   technology.  They require coordination of the various networking
   activities, agreement to share costs and technologies, and agreement
   to use common protocols and standards in the provision of those
   functions.  Other goals require further research, where the
   coordination of the efforts and sharing of results will be key to
   making those results available to the scientific user.

   For these reasons, we welcome the initiative represented by this
   workshop to have the government agencies join forces in providing the
   best network facilities possible in support of scientific research.

APPENDIX

                Internet Task Force on Scientific Computing


             Rick Adrion     University of Massachusetts
             Ron Bailey      NASA Ames Research Center
             Rick Bogart     Stanford University
             Bob Brown       RIACS
             Dave Farber     University of Delaware
             Alan Katz       USC Information Science Institute
             Jim Leighton    Lawrence Livermore Laboratories
             Keith Lantz     Stanford University
             Barry Leiner    (chair) RIACS
             Milo Medin      NASA Ames Research Center
             Mike Muuss      US Army Ballistics Research Laboratory
             Harvey Newman   California Institute of Technology
             David Roode     Intellicorp
             Ari Ollikainen  General Electric
             Peter Shames    Space Telescope Science Institute
             Phil Scherrer   Stanford University




Leiner                                                         [Page 19]