As per Relevance of the word services, we have this rfc below:
Network Working Group V.
Request for Comments: 1167
July 1990
THOUGHTS ON THE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Status of this
The memo provides a brief outline of a National Research
Education Network (NREN). This memo provides information for
Internet community. It does not specify any standard. It is not
statement of IAB policy or recommendations
Distribution of this memo is unlimited
This contribution seeks to outline and call attention to some of
major factors which will influence the form and structure of
National Research and Education Network (NREN). It is
assumed that the system will emerge from the existing Internet
The author gratefully acknowledges support from the National
Foundation, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and
Administration through cooperative agreement NCR-8820945. The
also acknowledges helpful comments from colleagues Ira Richer,
Leiner, Hans-Werner Braun and Robert Kahn. The opinions expressed
this paper are the personal opinions of the author and do
represent positions of the U.S. Government, the Corporation
National Research Initiatives or of the Internet Activities Board
In fact, the author isn't sure he agrees with everything in
paper, either
A WORD ON
The expression "national research and education network" is taken
mean "the U.S. National Research and Education Network" in
material which follows. It is implicitly assumed that
initiatives may arise in other countries and that a kind of
Research and Education Network may arise out of the
international Internet system. However, the primary focus of
paper is on developments in the U.S
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RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
1. The NREN in the U.S. will evolve from the existing Internet base
By implication, the U.S. NREN will have to fit into an
environment consisting of a good many networks sponsored or owned
operated by non-U.S. organizations around the world
2. There will continue to be special-purpose and mission-
networks sponsored by the U.S. Government which will need to
with, if not directly support, the NREN
3. The basic technical networking architecture of the system
include local area networks, metropolitan, regional and wide-
networks. Some nets will be organized to support transit traffic
others will be strictly parasitic
4. Looking towards the end of the decade, some of the networks may
mobile (digital, cellular). A variety of technologies may be used
including, but not limited to, high speed Fiber Data
Interface (FDDI) nets, Distributed-Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) nets
Broadband Integrated Services Digital Networks (B-ISDN)
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching fabrics as well
conventional Token Ring, Ethernet and other IEEE 802.X technology
Narrowband ISDN and X.25 packet switching technology network
are also likely play a role along with Switched Multi-megabit
Service (SMDS) provided by telecommunications carriers. It
would be fair to ask what role FTS-2000 might play in the system,
least in support of government access to the NREN, and possibly
support of national agency network facilities
5. The protocol architecture of the system will continue to exhibit
layered structure although the layering may vary from the present-
Internet and planned Open Systems Interconnection structures in
respects
6. The system will include servers of varying kinds required
support the general operation of the system (for example,
management facilities, name servers of various types, email,
and other kinds of information servers, multicast routers
cryptographic certificate servers) and collaboration support
including video/teleconferencing systems and other "groupware
facilities. Accounting and access control mechanisms will
required
7. The system will support multiple protocols on an end to end basis
At the least, full TCP/IP and OSI protocol stacks will be supported
Dealing with Connectionless and Connection-Oriented Network
in the OSI area is an open issue (transport service bridges
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RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
application level gateways are two possibilities).
8. Provision must be made for experimental research in networking
support the continued technical evolution of the system. The
can no more be a static, rigid system than the Internet has
since its inception. Interconnection of experimental facilities
the operational NREN must be supported
9. The architecture must accommodate the use of commercial services
private and Government-sponsored networks in the NREN system
Apart from the considerations listed above, it is also helpful
consider the constituencies and stakeholders who have a role to
in the use of, provision of and evolution of NREN services.
interests will affect the architecture of the NREN and the course
its creation and evolution
NREN
The
Extrapolating from the present Internet, the users of the
will be diverse. By legislative intent, it will include
and universities, government research organizations (e.g.,
research laboratories of the Departments of Defense, Energy
Health and Human Services, National Aeronautics and
Administration), non-profit and for-profit research
development organizations, federally funded research
development centers (FFRDCs), R&D activities of
enterprise, library facilities of all kinds, and primary
secondary schools. The system is not intended to be discipline
specific
It is critical to recognize that even in the present Internet,
has been possible to accommodate a remarkable amalgam of
enterprise, academic institutions, government and
facilities. Indeed, the very ability to accept such a
constituency turns on the increasing freedom of the so-
intermediate-level networks to accept an unrestricted set
users. The growth in the size and diversity of Internet users,
it can be said to have been constrained at all, has been
in part by usage constraints placed on the federally-
national agency networks (e.g., NSFNET, NASA Science Internet
Energy Sciences Net, High Energy Physics Net, the
deceased ARPANET, Defense Research Internet, etc.). Given
purposes of these networks and the fiduciary responsibilities
the agencies that have created them, such usage constraints
highly appropriate. It may be beneficial to search for
Cerf [Page 3]
RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
constraining architectural paradigms, perhaps through the use
backbone facilities which are not federally-sponsored
The Internet does not quite serve the public in the same
that the telephone network(s) do (i.e., the Internet is not
common carrier), although the linkages between the Internet
public electronic mail systems, private bulletin board
such as FIDONET and commercial network services such as UUNET
ALTERNET and PSI, for example, make the system
accessible to a very wide variety of users
It will be important to keep in mind that, over time,
increasing number of institutional users will support local
networks and will want to gain access to NREN by that means
Individual use will continue to rely on dial-up access and, as
is deployed, narrow-band ISDN. Eventually, metropolitan
networks and broadband ISDN facilities may be used to
access to NREN. Cellular radio or other mobile
technologies may also become increasingly popular as access tools
The Service
In its earliest stages, the Internet consisted solely
government-sponsored networks such as the Defense Department'
ARPANET, Packet Radio Networks and Packet Satellite Networks
With the introduction of Xerox PARC's Ethernet, however,
began to change and privately owned and operated networks
an integral part of the Internet architecture
For a time, there was a mixture of government-sponsored
facilities and private local area networks. With the
of the National Science Foundation NSFNET, however,
architecture changed again to include intermediate-level
consisting of collections of commercially-produced routers
trunk or access lines which connected local area
facilities to the government-sponsored backbones.
government-sponsored supercomputer centers (such as the
Aerospace Simulator at NASA/AMES, the Magnetic Fusion
Computing Center at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the half
dozen or so NSF-sponsored supercomputer centers) fostered
growth of communications networks specifically to
supercomputer access although, over time, these have tended
look more and more like general-purpose intermediate-
networks
Many, but not all, of the intermediate-level networks applied
and received seed funding from the National Science Foundation
It was and continues to be NSF's position, however, that
Cerf [Page 4]
RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
direct subsidies should diminish over time and that
intermediate networks should become self-sustaining.
accomplish this objective, the intermediate-level networks
been turning to an increasingly diverse user constituency (
section above).
The basic model of government backbones, consortium
level nets and private local area networks has served
well during the 1980's but it would appear that
telecommunications technologies may suggest another
paradigm. As the NSFNET moves towards higher speed
operation in the 45 Mb/s range, the importance of
participation in the enterprise has increased. The provision
backbone capacity at attractive rates by the inter-
carrier (in this case, MCI Communications Corporation) has
crucial to the feasibility of deploying such a high speed system
As the third phase of the NREN effort gets underway, it
becoming increasingly apparent that the "federally-
backbone" model may and perhaps even should or must give way to
vision of commercially operated, gigabit speed systems to
the users of the NREN have access. If there is federal subsidy
the new paradigm, it might come through direct provision
support for networking at the level of individual research
or possibly through a system of institutional vouchers
and perhaps even mandating institution-wide network planning
provision. This differs from the present model in which
backbone networks are essentially federally owned and operated
enjoy significant, direct federal support to the provider of
service
The importance of such a shift in service provision
cannot be over-emphasized. In the long run, it
unnecessary restrictions on the use and application of
backbone facilities, opening up possibilities for true ubiquity
access and use without the need for federal control, except to
extent that any such services are considered in need
regulation, perhaps. The same arguments might be made for
intermediate level systems (metropolitan and regional area
networks). This does NOT mean that private networks ranging
local consortia to inter-continental systems will be ruled out
The economics of private networking may still be favorable
sufficiently heavy usage. It does suggest, however,
achieving scale and ubiquity may largely rely on
accessible facilities
Cerf [Page 5]
RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
The
Apart from service provision, the technology available to
users and the service providers will come largely from
sources. A possible exception to this may be the switches used
the gigabit testbed effort, but ultimately, even this
will have to be provided commercially if the system is to
the scale necessary to serve as the backbone of the NREN
An important consequence of this observation is that the
architecture should be fashioned in such a way that it can
constructed from technology compatible with carrier plans
available from commercial telecommunications equipment suppliers
Examples include the use of SONET (Synchronous Optical Network
optical transmission technology, Switched Multimegabit
Services offerings (metropolitan area networks),
Transmission Mode (ATM) switches, frame relays, high speed
multi-protocol routers, and so on. It is somewhat unclear
role the public X.25 networks will play, especially where
and broadband ISDN services are available, but it is also
obvious that they ought to be written off at this point.
there is still research and development activity (such as
network management), the network R&D community can
through experimental efforts and through participation
standards-making activities (e.g., ANSI, NIST, IAB/IETF,
NMF).
It seems clear that the current Internet and the anticipated
will have to function in a highly distributed fashion. Given
diversity of service providers and the richness of the
networks (as to technology and ownership), there will have to be
good deal of collaboration and cooperation to make the system work
One can see the necessity for this, based on the existing
network in the U.S. with its local and inter-exchange carrier (IEC
structure. It should be noted that in the presence of the local
IEC structure, it has proven possible to support private and
private networking as well. The same needs to be true of the NREN
A critical element of any commercial service is accounting
billing. It must be possible to identify users (billable parties
anyway) and to compute usage charges. This is not to say that
NREN component networks must necessarily bill on the basis of usage
It may prove preferable to have fixed access charges which might
modulated by access data rate, as some of the intermediate-
networks have found. It would not be surprising to find a mixture
charging policies in which usage charges are preferable for
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RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
amounts of use and flat rate charges are preferred for high
use
It will be critical to establish a forum in which operational
can be debated and methods established to allow cooperative
of the entire system. A number of possibilities present themselves
use of the Internet Engineering Task Force as a basis, use
existing telecommunication carrier organizations, or possibly
consortium of all service providers (and private network operators?).
Even if such an activity is initiated through federal action, it
be helpful, in the long run, if it eventually embraces a much
community
Agreements are needed on the technical foundations for
monitoring and management, for internetwork accounting and
payments, for problem identification, tracking, escalation
resolution. A framework is needed for the support of users of
aggregate NREN. This suggests cooperative agreements among
information centers, user service and support organizations to
with. Eventually, the cost of such operations will have to
incorporated into the general cost of service provision. The
role, even if it acts as catalyst in the initial stages,
ultimately focus on the direct support of the users of the
which it finds it appropriate to support and subsidize (e.g.,
research and educational users of the NREN).
A voucher system has been proposed, in the case of the NREN,
would permit users to choose which NREN service provider(s)
engage. The vouchers might be redeemed by the service providers
the same sort of way that food stamps are redeemed by supermarkets
Over time, the cost of the vouchers could change so that an
high subsidy from the federal government would diminish until
utility of the vouchers vanished and decisions would be made
purchase telecommunications services on a pure cost/benefit basis
IMPORTANCE OF COMMERCIAL
The initial technical architecture should incorporate
service provision where possible so as to avoid the creation of
system which is solely reliant on the federal government for
support and operation. It is anticipated that a hybrid system
develop but, for example, it is possible that the gigabit
components of the system might be strictly commercial from the start
even if the lower speed components of the NREN vary from private,
public to federally subsidized or owned and operated
Cerf [Page 7]
RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
The idea of creating a National Research and Education Network
captured the attention and enthusiasm of an extraordinarily
collection of interested parties. I believe this is in part
consequence of the remarkable range of new services and
which could be provided once the network infrastructure is in place
If the technology of the NREN is commercially viable, one can
imagine that an economic engine of considerable proportions
result from the widespread accessibility of NREN-like facilities
business sector
Security
Security issues are not discussed in this memo
Author's
Vinton G.
Corporation for National Research
1895 Preston White Drive, Suite 100
Reston, VA 22091
EMail: vcerf@NRI.Reston.VA.
Phone: (703) 620-8990
Cerf [Page 8]
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