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Information Technology: 21st Century Revolution
Large Scale Networking |
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Overview
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Federal LSN R&D includes:
LSN programs explore long range fundamental networking research issues and transition developing LSN products into tools to support agency missions. Continuing the Federally supported R&D responsible for the core technologies that made the Internet and Internet applications possible, LSN focuses on technologies needed by the Federal agencies, infrastructure to support agency networking, and networking applications development. Since its inception in 1998, the NGI initiative has been a primary focus of LSN, building on the LSN base programs to provide the networking research, testbeds, and applications needed to assure the scalability, reliability, and services required by the Internet over the next decade. In FY 2000, with the construction of its testbeds largely completed, NGI's original three goals were refocused as two thrusts that emphasize improved network performance and functionality and revolutionary networking applications. In its 1999 report, "Information Technology Research: Investing in Our Future," the PITAC warned that Federal support for IT R&D was seriously inadequate. Research programs intended to maintain the flow of new IT ideas and train the next generation of researchers were funding only a small fraction of the necessary research. The PITAC recommended a significant new program and increased funding for IT R&D and an expanded Federal role in networking R&D that includes interoperability and usability. Federal agencies responded to this challenge with a proposed new program in IT R&D. A major component is SII, whose research goal is to develop tools and techniques enabling the Internet to grow (scale) while transparently supporting user demands. An integral part of LSN, SII R&D complements the base LSN and the NGI efforts. SII research will focus on deeply networked systems, anytime, anywhere connectivity, and network modeling and simulation. The following section of this report describes the FY 2000 accomplishments and FY 2001 plans for base LSN, NGI, and SII R&D.
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LSN networking and infrastructure support
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| Research networks |
Agencies' base LSN R&D activities include providing the networking infrastructure for scientific research that addresses the mission requirements of participating agencies and developing enabling technologies and applications to expand the global-scale capabilities of the Internet. LSN supports research networks such as NASA's Research and Education Network (NREN), DOE's Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), and others, and network management such as at NSF's National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR). LSN infrastructure support includes implementing evolutionary leading-edge technologies for Federal agency use, including coordination of:
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Measurement and network analysis |
To meet the measurement and network analysis challenges posed by the rapid
growth and expansion of the Internet, NLANR is building and operating a
network analysis infrastructure with a primary focus on NSF High Performance
Connections sites. R&D areas include active performance measurement,
data collection from network entities via Simple Network Management Protocol
(SNMP), data related to stabilities and status of Internet routing, and
passive header trace data. |
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Fundamental networking research
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| Special networking
research projects |
NSF special projects support larger and in some cases multidisciplinary
efforts, specialized hardware and software research, and networks for
networking systems research, and help develop research agendas and enhance
community development. Accomplishments include production and distribution
of a gigabit asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch kit and Internet
Protocol version 6 (IPv6) development and source distribution. Current
and anticipated projects may include all-optical networking, gigabit networking,
communications, control theory, databases, devices, distributed systems,
operating systems, research priorities in wireless and mobile communications
and networking, software, and signal processing. Proof-of-concept demonstrations
of novel networking ideas may range from laboratory experiments to national
collaborations. |
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Advanced Networking Infrastructure (ANI) |
The ANI program supports research, development, implementation, and testing of high performance network testbeds and related technologies to support the distributed IT goals of the U.S. research and education community. ANI makes the High Performance Connections awards to colleges and universities, stimulating improvements in campus research networking infrastructure and encouraging development of high performance applications requiring advanced networking services and speeds. The ANI program supports NLANR, which provides technical, engineering, and traffic analysis support for NSF High Performance Connections sites and high performance network service providers (HPNSPs) such as the NSF/MCI WorldCom vBNS. In FY 1999, the high performance network increased its speed by activating an OC-48 (2.4 Gbps) research link between Los Angeles and San Francisco to serve the CalREN-2 university research and education network. The OC-48 upgrade allows for experimentation with multicast, IPv6, and QoS classes. NSF's cooperative agreement with
MCI WorldCom to provide very high performance Backbone Network Services
(vBNS) to universities ended March 31, 2000. NSF has worked with MCI WorldCom,
its vBNS+ service, and Abilene to effect a smooth transition for the universities
being served. |
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Internet technologies program |
The Internet technologies program focus areas include complex network monitoring and problem detection and resolution mechanisms; automated and advanced network tools, networked applications tools, and network-based middleware; and usable and widely deployable networking applications that promote collaborative research and information sharing. Current research includes:
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STAR TAP
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STAR TAP facilitates the long-term
interconnection and interoperability of advanced international networking
to support applications, performance measuring, and technology evaluations,
anchoring the international vBNS connections program and allowing collaboration
with the NGI initiative and the I2 community. STAR TAP has connections
with:
Several other countries in Asia and South America have expressed their intention to connect to STAR TAP. Activities now focus on improving performance with higher level services. STAR TAP provides an integrated
approach to the management, scheduling, consumption, and performance measuring
of geographically distributed network, computing, storage, and display resources-a
collection of resources called the international Grid (iGrid). The iGrid,
with the support of STAR TAP, demonstrated international collaborations at
SC99. In FY 2000, STAR TAP is moving to a distributed architecture with points
of connectivity on both coasts and in Chicago. International STAR TAP participants
provide U.S. transit.
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Wireless standards
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Today's new markets make extensive use of low-cost, distributed, embedded devices whose architecture supports mobile and self-configuring environments with a combination of wired and wireless technologies. Further development of these markets is hindered by a lack of widely accepted standards, however. NIST is working with standards organizations on issues such as connecting portable wireless devices to traditional networks, service discovery, self-configuration and dynamic resource sharing, mobile code and data, and the software infrastructure needed to create and manage pervasive services and applications. |
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Active networks
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Active networks goals include
quantifiable improvement in network services such as fault tolerance,
multitiered mobile security, dynamic access control, andaudio/video synchronization
and full-rate video over multicast. Some of the challenges in meeting
these goals are the defining composite protocols; efficient, secure, and
survivable "smart packet" processing; new strategies for routing and service
provisioning in large networks with overlapping topologies and mobility
requirements; and upgrading services to keep pace with network complexity.
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Tolerant networking
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Fault-tolerant networks |
Denial of service attacks-which take advantage of high-cost protocol checks such as authentication in order to consume resources--can easily disrupt and cripple network operation by rapidly consuming all available network resources, rendering the network inaccessible to legitimate users. Fault-tolerant networks ensure continued availability and graceful degradation of the network infrastructure under partially successful attacks, maximizing network capacity for legitimate users. |
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Dynamic coalition management |
Traditional system designs have "central nervous systems" that, if attacked,
can react by completely disabling the system. Corrupted or malicious components
can also lead to a malfunction of the entire system. Dynamic coalition management
enables secure collaboration within dynamically established mission-specific
coalitions while minimizing potential threats from increased exposure or
compromised partners. R&D in this area will develop the capability to
dynamically manage and validate operational policy configurations across
multiple theaters, securely manage information dissemination within large
groups, and augment existing PKI technologies to accommodate rapid revocation
and cross-certification. |
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Quorum: End-to-end mission success
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Advances in networking and computing have spurred research and development in distributed computing, ranging from high performance workstation clusters to wide area information retrieval and collaboration environments. These approaches typically emphasize either integrated solutions, which are tightly bound to particular operating systems and platforms, or overlays that support portability at the expense of performance. No single approach exhibits scalability from local to wide area environments and none can provide the assured service and adaptivity necessary to support mission-critical Defense applications in the dynamic, shared, heterogeneous, wide area environments now emerging. DARPA's Quorum program is developing
technologies for an operating system to support global distributed computing
for mission-critical applications. The Quorum program premise is that
end-to-end QoS management across middleware, operating systems, and networks
is the key to providing applications with the end-to-end assurance needed
to guarantee mission success in highly dynamic, unpredictable networked
environments; scalability over heterogeneous resources whose performance
may span a range of several orders of magnitude; and evolvability to keep
pace with technological advances. The Quorum program is structured as
three interrelated technology development tasks and a fourth integration
and demonstration task. |
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| QoS architecture |
Technologies include methods to specify application-level QoS constraints
and allowable tradeoffs; protocols and assurance bounds for QoS negotiation;
algorithms for mapping application-level expectations to individual resource
and service constraints; instrumentation and analysis methods for dynamically
monitoring delivered QoS; and protocols for providing feedback to applications
and for triggering adaptation or renegotiation if necessary. |
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Translucent system layers |
In distributed computing, functional transparency describes a situation
in which implementation decisions that have an impact on mission-critical
properties are visible to the user, yet frustratingly uncontrollable. R&D
in this area will develop translucent services that preserve the benefits
of functional transparency while remaining dynamically responsive to QoS
constraints imposed by higher layers or feedback from lower layers or the
environment, adapting their behaviors through selection or specialization
of alternative implementations, policies, or mechanisms. Specific layers
addressed include virtual machine APIs, distributed shared memory, distributed
objects, communication services, and operating systems. |
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Adaptive resource manager |
Quorum will develop the resource
management technologies to dynamically discover, allocate, and schedule
resources from a global heterogeneous pool to an application in accordance
with its negotiated QoS constraints. Technologies being developed include
methods for characterizing resource capabilities and mapping them to application
requirements and profiles; technologies for collecting and maintaining a
consistent global view of resource status; and dynamic resource allocation
algorithms that yield near-optimal performance and support adaptation in
response to workload demands, failures, information warfare attacks, or
crisis modes. |
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Integration, demonstration, and validation |
Realizing the Quorum vision requires coordinated development of constituent
technologies, their integration into complete reference implementations
of successively greater capability, and their evaluation and demonstration
for realistic defense applications. The principal DoD testbed is the Navy's
21st Century Surface Combatant program, which is exploring architectures
and technologies for the next generation Aegis combat control system. |
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Sensor information technology (SensIT)
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Microfabricated sensors are the interface between the physical world and the information world of the future. Delivering massive amounts of data cheaply and in real time, these sensors will be a crucial part of decision-making in the battlefield, surveillance with minimal manpower, and maintenance of equipment. DARPA's sensor information technology (SensIT) program is dedicated to maximizing the useful information that a network of thousands of sensors can deliver to key decision-making points in a timely manner. SensIT's mission is to develop all necessary software for a networked system of inexpensive, pervasive platforms that combine multiple microsensors, embedded processors, positioning ability, and wireless communication. The resulting technology will perform as if a supercomputer were miniaturized and distributed into the environment, with each node computing and collaborating to "see" into its sensor region. Research challenges include developing large-scale sensor networks employing algorithms for self-assembly of highly dynamic ad hoc networks with minimal latency and maximal survivability, nanocryptography for security, easy to use querying and tasking languages, operating environments, distributed asynchronous algorithms for collaborative signal processing, and internetworked fixed and mobile sensors on humans, microrobots, andvehicles. (DARPA also supports software research in this area in the SDP PCA [page 113].) |
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Very high-speed networking
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Extending earlier work in signaling,
routing, addressing, and multicasting to meet NSA's addressing and bandwidth
needs, in FY 2001 the agency will conduct research in congestion control
and multidomain network management. NSA-supported researchers will examine
a peer relationship among network management centers that exchange information
in a controlled manner to enable end-to-end monitoring and fault isolation
of network connections, helping address an environment in which there
is little sharing of network management information among vendors, since
such information can be used for competitive advantage.
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DOE R&D
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| Next generation Internet Protocol (Ipv6) |
One of the biggest long-term growth and scalability problems for the Internet is the lack of sufficient address space to globally address all systems with the current Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). A new version, IPv6, has been adopted as the next generation (IPng) network layer protocol standard. In August 1999, DOE's ESnet requested and was assigned the first production IPv6 addressing prefix by the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and is using it to provide IPv6 services to ESnet users. ESnet, which provides high-speed
connectivity to thousands of scientific researchers at more than 30 DOE
sites, has established a production IPv6 network initiative called the
6REN to encourage research and education networks worldwide to provide
early production native IPv6 service. Because IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses,
it offers a theoretical maximum of about 256 trillion, trillion, trillion
addresses. This should allow sufficient addressing scalability to keep
up with the current and future growth of the Internet, allowing universal
accessibility. Other features designed into IPv6 include built-in security,
dynamic automatic configuration, multicast, mobility, QoS, and an ability
to allow routing systems to operate more efficiently. Full implementation
of IPv6 is needed to effectively deploy large numbers of future wireless
devices. |
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| EMERGE |
In FY 2000, DOE funded EMERGE, the ESnet/Midwest Research and Engineering Network (MREN) Regional Grid Experimental Testbed. EMERGE's goals are to place routers, Grid middleware, and applications test suites at DOE labs to make them differentiated service (DiffServ)- or QoS-enabled, explore interoperability of ESnet (an IP-over-ATM network) and Abilene (IP-over-SONET), and extend these QoS experiments to Europe and Asia via the NSF-funded STAR TAP. EMERGE will facilitate advanced data flows not adequately addressed by today's "best efforts only" network. The testbed is driven by DOE computational science applications--particularly climate, combustion, and high-energy physics--that may require guaranteed bandwidth and low-latency networking. Tool development focuses on remote instrument control, data mining and extremely large data sets, collaborative environments, tele-immersion, ultra-high resolution rendered imagery, and unicast/multicast digital video. Anticipated FY 2000 accomplishments include:
Led by the University of Illinois at Chicago's EVL, in cooperation with ANL and ESnet, EMERGE is establishing a testbed with the following other sites:
Follow-on efforts with NIST will
involve testing multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) to manage DiffServ
and other flows, extending the GSP and incorporating visualization into
monitoring tools, adding haptic and rendering flows to the tele-immersion
network performance tests, creating a test suite for multiresolution compressed
digital video, continuing interoperability testing and tuning with ESnet
and Abilene, and increasing international cooperation. In the latter area,
CERN, Holland, Russia, and Singapore have expressed interest in participating
in DiffServ and MPLS tests.
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| Digital Collaboration Services (DCS) |
ESnet is providing the DOE research
community with the next generation of videoconferencing capabilities. Digital
Collaboration Services (DCS) makes the audio, video, and data interactivity
of a dedicated videoconference facility available on desktop computers,
taking another step toward the virtual laboratory where scientists at distant
DOE sites can collaborate in real time. DCS 2.0 is based on communications
and applications standards adopted by the International Telecommunications
Union (ITU) that allow interoperability with other networks and users. |
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| DOE networking tools |
In coordination with DARPA, DOE has
developed Netlogger, a tool that provides real-time analysis for end-to-end
performance monitoring. An easy-to-read graphical user interface (GUI) interface
indicates bottlenecks in the network. DOE has also developed PingER, a network
monitoring tool that provides ping end-to-end reporting on Internet link
performance. PingER measures response, jitter, loss, and reachability; provides
national and international coverage of 536 remote nodes at 381 sites in
55 countries on six continents; and correlates with network performance
monitoring tools. PingER primarily supports the high-energy physics community.
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Global Observation Information Network (GOIN)
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Load balancing
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LSN applications R&D
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Next Generation Internet
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The NGI initiative has two thrusts:
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Thrust 1 accomplishments and plans
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NGI Thrust 1 programs focus on R&D and testbed deployment and demonstration of technologies to provide network growth engineering and to enable the reliable and secure provisioning, management, and end-to-end delivery of differentiated classes of service. |
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NSF
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NSF programs address network security and assurance, end-to-end security, and policy functions such as pricing and cost recovery. Specific projects include secure and robust agent technology and secure multicast.
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High performance network service providers (HPNSPs) |
NSF has designated a category
of commercial HPNSPs that offer advanced network services over broadband
networks to university and Federal agency sites to provide the high performance
services needed by the NGI. The Abilene network-the first network to receive
this designation-coordinates closely with the JET to provide connectivity
and meet other requirements of the NGI community. Additional network providers
have expressed interest in providing HPNSP services. |
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DARPA's SuperNet
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NIST
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| Advanced encryption
standard (AES) |
NIST is developing
AES, a royalty-free encryption standard to be used by government and industry
to protect information over the next 30 to 50 years. It is testing candidate
algorithms using multiple platforms and computing systems, comparing efficiency
testing results and determining the validity of cryptanalysis, and validating
conformance of COTS products. |
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Public key insfrastructure (PKI) |
NIST's PKI program will ensure
the development of commercially available PKI products and services that
are interoperable and sufficiently secure to meet the needs of Government
agencies and the general public. NIST is helping users and suppliers establish
PKI standards and specifications, interoperability, correctness, and quality,
and is publishing its analysis of PKI component security requirements and
guidance and developing pilots for automated key recovery systems and Web-based
electronic certification. |
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Internet quality of service (QoS) |
NIST is expediting commercial
deployment of standardized Internet QoS technologies, devising tools to
aid developers of adaptive Internet applications, developing techniques
and tools to test distributed multiparty QoS routing and signaling protocols,
and evaluating proposed algorithms and protocols for scalable QoS routing
and signaling. For example, NIST has deployed NISTnet, a tool that emulates
controllable Internet performance dynamics. NISTnet was demonstrated at
SC99 (page 102). |
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Hybrid-fiber coax (HFC) access |
Hybrid-fiber coax (HFC) is
a means for connecting home computing systems to commercial communications
networks. NIST is evaluating protocols for HFC media access control (MAC)
and is studying end-to-end performance to improve ATM and TCP/IP traffic
over HFC networks. NIST has incorporated HFC network protocols into its
ATM network simulator and has published results on contention resolution
algorithms, bandwidth allocation, and priority schemes for end-to-end ATM
and TCP/IP traffic over HFC networks. |
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Dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) |
NIST is accelerating the
development of dynamically reconfigurable DWDM networks and evaluating proposed
algorithms for wavelength assignment and routing in WDM networks. WDM dramatically
increases bandwidth on existing fiber. |
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Agile networking infrastructures |
NIST is developing agile
networking technologies to enable programmable and reconfigurable communication
infrastructures, middleware for adaptive, reconfigurable distributed systems,
and measurement techniques to enable resource control in active networks.
NIST is also evaluating measurement and standardization requirements for
networked pervasive computing, which allows mobile wireless network access
to the Internet. |
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Thrust 2 accomplishments and plans
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The network providers implement these capabilities, which are in turn coordinated by the JET. In FY 1999, the JET focused on interconnection points among the JETnets (vBNS, ESnet, NREN, DREN, NISN, and Abilene) at the NGIXs. NGIXs were implemented at NASA Ames Research center (NGIX-West), Chicago (NGIX-Midwest), and University of Maryland (NGIX-East), and peering arrangements are currently being developed at these exchanges. Further cooperation with the university community was provided by joint meetings among the Federal agencies, GigaPop operators, university campus representatives, and Internet2. This coordination has focused the university and Federal committees on NGI network performance measurements and upgrading campus networking capabilities and services. In FY 2000 the JETnets implemented multicast in the NGI backbone. University campus networks need to implement and tune multicast tools in their networks to enable end users to effectively use multicast services, which are particularly effective in broadcasting lectures and meetings, providing interaction among remote environments in real time. IP QoS is being deployed in a collaborative testbed. ESnet, NREN, and vBNS participate in the Qbone project that is implementing inter-domain DiffServ. vBNS has offered reserved bandwidth service using RSVP/ATM. All JETnets are part of the 6Bone project that is developing IPv6, which provides protocols for a significantly increased address space and expedites network services such as QoS. vBNS is testing a native IPv6 service over separate routers. |
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Performance measurement and improvement
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NSF applications
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Hundreds of applications are being developed by NSF-funded university researchers. While many require the high-bandwidth capabilities of the NGI, others require the advanced services being developed by the NGI initiative, such as QoS, security, multicast, collaboratory tools, and visualization software. Examples of the revolutionary applications funded by NSF include: |
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Ecology Species analyst |
The species analyst is a set of tools for simultaneous access to multiple biological collection databases that can be used to predict species distribution as a function of global climate change, species invasions, and species disturbances by humans. Led by the University of Kansas, this project is also being conducted at the University of California-Berkeley, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the University of Nebraska, SDSC, and the University of Mexico.
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Education and teaching Collaborative development of 3-D life science educational resource |
Yale University's School of Medicine and NLM are creating 3-D educational materials using NLM's life science image databases. To assess levels of acceptable video compression, Yale and NLM experimented with digital video encoding of the video records of patients suffering from neuralogic motion disorders such as Parkinson's disease. |
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Two data mining and visualization projects |
The University of Illinois at Chicago's CAVERN project is conducting research in tele-immersion and intelligent data mining for use in computational science, collaborative distance-independent education, and the Every Citizen Interface to the National Information Infrastructure. The Web TerraFly project at Florida
International University allows users to fly over and manipulate data
retrieved from a high performance semantic multimedia spatial database
that includes satellite and aerial photography data. |
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| Megaconference | With Ohio State University
as the lead institution, this pilot project has established an ongoing videoconference
collaboration linking 65 network engineers and researchers on three continents
to discuss advanced networking technology. |
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Widea area interactive teaching |
With Oregon State University
in the lead, this application has provided the first regular scheduled Internet2
video class in graduate-level plant pathology among Oregon State, Kansas
State University, and the University of Nebraska. The application uses enough
bandwidth to enable high-quality video at these institutions. |
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| Widea area interactive teaching | With Oregon State University
in the lead, this application has provided the first regular scheduled Internet2
video class in graduate-level plant pathology among Oregon State, Kansas
State University, and the University of Nebraska. The application uses enough
bandwidth to enable high-quality video at these institutions. |
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Humanities,
arts, and archaeology center for Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological S ites (CERHAS) |
CERHAS--a collaborative research project of the University of Cincinnati, Cleveland State University, and Wright State University-is building software for students and professors in the arts and humanities. CERHAS researchers are exploring real-time, networked motion capture, avatars, artificial personalities, and secure personal operating systems to enable collaborative virtual reality. Target applications will be distributed to users at participating institutions via Web-DVD. |
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| Variations digital
music library |
Variations provides
access to more than 5,000 titles of near CD-quality digital audio to computer
users in the Cook Music Library of the Simon Music Library and Recital center
at the University of Indiana-Bloomington.
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Manufacturing Scaling Internet connections to support research applications |
This NSF Science and Technology center project focuses on automated machining direct from CAD sketches. Brown University, CalTech, Cornell University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Utah are the collaborating institutions. Using the vBNS, Brown has been able to maintain its software on Utah systems, speeding research experiments and facilitating the display of 3-D graphics at remote locations to the point where applications appear to be running locally. |
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Multimedia Large-scale video network prototype |
Supported by the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) and BBN/GTE Internetworking, this advanced networking project, which involves researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and NYSERNet, is investigating and deploying model architectures for video services to support distributed video in higher education. |
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Remote science and networking Remote observing |
A new remote observing application will provide authorized scientists anywhere on an NGI network with access to the more than $1 billion in research instruments at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii, eliminating the need to travel and acclimate to the remote 15,000-foot-high facility. Institutions involved in this research include the University of Hawaii, the University of California, CalTech, the University of Washington, and others.
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Telemedicine
Distance-independent telemedical diagnosis |
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Psychological services for the hearing-impaired |
This University of Rochester
research project uses teleconferencing technology to bring deaf consumers
with mental health care needs into contact with sign language-fluent practitioners.
Directly communicating with sign-fluent psychologists and social workers
avoids problems caused by differences between American Sign Language and
English as well as the awkwardness of using a sign language interpreter
in a sensitive mental health setting. |
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Veterinary science
Virtual rounds |
Virtual rounds is an application being developed by the colleges of veterinary medicine at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Auburn University, the University of Georgia-Athens, and North Carolina State University to share animal clinical cases via live videoconferencing. Sessions will be captured and stored on a video server to be available on demand, creating a potential for digital video libraries to support veterinary medical instruction. |
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Weather, atmospheric |
ARPS is a fully automated, functionally complete numerical forecast environment that can predict weather on scales ranging from continents to cities. It was the first model of its kind in the world designed for massively parallel computers and is uniquely suited to accommodate observations from Doppler radars. NSF, NOAA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), AlliedSignal (now part of Honeywell), and American Airlines support this University of Oklahoma research. |
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Space Physics and |
Space physics researchers
at some 380 sites around the world study phenomena such as magnetic storms
on the sun that can interfere with radio and television reception, disrupt
electrical power transmission, and threaten orbiting spacecraft. They do
so by controlling and gathering data from more than a dozen instruments
located around--and above--the globe, directly accessing advanced supercomputer
models of upper atmospheric phenomena and state-of-the-art communication
tools that include "chat rooms" and a shared whiteboard. All research is
recorded for replay, annotation, or asynchronous collaboration with colleagues.
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DARPA applications
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NIH applications
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NLM awards |
NLM initiated a three-phase NGI research program to develop innovative medical projects to demonstrate application and use of NGI capabilities, including:
NLM has awarded 15 Phase 2 awards
to develop local telemedicine testbed applications. Those that prove effective
will be implemented for end users under Phase 3 awards. Phase 2 awards
under way or to be made in FY 2000 include: |
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Applications layer |
This project will evaluate
security techniques within an open security architecture. The proposed solution
is based on security shared among collaborating parties, nomadic computing,
and the privacy of medical information. |
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Biomedical tele-immersion |
By combining teleconferencing,
telepresence, and virtual reality, tele-immersion enables teachers and students
to interact with 3-D models, especially in surgical education. NGI data
privacy and security guarantees allow tele-immersive environments to be
derived from models of patient data. |
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Networked 3-D virtual |
The goal is to build an online
virtual human cadaver, based on the Visible Human data set, that students
can explore with a variety of tools. |
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Patient-centric tools
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This project will investigate the application of collaborative tools in the Seattle area Cancer Care Alliance (CCA) to:
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Radiation oncology
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This project will implement
and evaluate NGI capabilities for radiation oncology treatment planning
and care delivery, providing diagnostic support, treatment planning, and
remote verification of proper equipment operation from the Comprehensive
Cancer center to a Johns Hopkins University treatment facility. |
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Rural health science
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This project is developing
a plan to evaluate computer and interactive compressed video technologies
to support rural health science education. Such an application will enable
delivery of interactive educational programming, such as continuing medical
education, clinical information systems, library services, and consultation.
Beneficiaries include students and health care professionals. |
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DOE applications
Collaboratories |
Funded in FY 1999, DOE's work in NGI applications was largely completed in FY 2000. DOE funded five collaboratories with multiple sites including universities and national laboratories. DOE supports two testbeds to demonstrate advanced services to university sites and improve access and capabilities for university applications development researchers. |
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Distributed X-ray crystallography |
Using tools being developed
by the ANL Globus group and the DOE 2000 Common Component Architecture Forum,
this project is building NGI network-based instrumentation including high-speed
data collection, reduction, storage, and visualization, and real-time instrument
control for the acquisition of macro molecular x-ray crystallographic data
from the LBNL Advanced Light Source. |
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Integrated grid architecture and the Earth system grid |
DOE is creating an integrated
grid architecture built on a fabric of networks, archives, computers, display
devices, and other technologies and associated local services. Grid services
include protocols, authentication policy, resource management, instrumentation,
and discovery. A remote data toolkit, remote computational toolkit, visualization
toolkit, asynchronous collaboration, and remote sensors will help address
the needs of end-user applications. One such application is the Earth system
grid for climate modeling, projections, and impact assessments, in which
more than 100 universities, laboratories, and centers participate. |
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| Combustion Corridor |
Combustion of fossil fuels accounts for approximately 85 percent of the energy expended in the U.S., and modeling this process is critical to increasing efficiency and reducing pollution. Combustion modeling codes can easily generate terabytes of data that must be analyzed by researchers dispersed across the U.S. The DOE Combustion Corridor application uses grid storage API, global naming services, the Globus resource reservation system, networks, disk caches, and PC clusters to interactively and collaboratively visualize these data. Such visualizations typically represent
complex, 3-D scientific problems varying over time, such as how two gases
mix in a turbulent environment. To visualize these models, researchers
previously required access to very powerful computing systems, and moving
their large files onto local workstations was either impossible or impractical.
In image-based-rendering-assisted volume rendering (IBRAVR), developed
at LBNL, a large data set is now partially pre-rendered on a large computational
engine close to the data and the final image rendering is performed on
a workstation. |
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| Corridor One | DOE's Corridor One--visualization
at a distance-uses the grid to integrate data servers, analysis and manipulation
engines, visualization backend servers, visualization clients, display device
interfaces, and advanced networking services. |
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NASA applications
Biomedical image collaboratory |
This experiment relies on a Visible Human Viewer developed on OpenStep, an Apple API. This application can show sections of a human body so a researcher can recognize anatomical objects. Anatomical terms can be attached using NLM's Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). |
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Collaborative electron microscopy of quarantined samples |
This NGI experiment will
remotely control and observe microscope imaging of quarantined samples returned
from Mars at NASA's Ames Research center (ARC) from remote sites at ARC,
ORNL, and Oregon State University. |
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| Digital Earth/Mars/Sky | Digital Earth (DE) is an
interagency initiative to define and prototype a framework to make all U.S.
geo-referenced data available via Web-style point-and-click user interfaces
over high performance networks. NASA's DE research is a collaborative effort
with the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the Open Geographic Information
System Consortium, an organization of business, academic, and government
officials concerned with interoperability of geographic data. This work
supports NASA's goal of human telepresence throughout the Earth and solar
systems, which requires high performance remote access and visualization
of large Earth and space data sets. |
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Distributed video observation of shuttle processing and launch activities |
This project will demonstrate
the delivery of broadcast quality video streams over a high performance
IP network. Multiple video sources at the Kennedy Space center will be
transmitted to desktops at a variety of locations, and viewers will be
able to choose among available sources. The primary goals are to use COTS
technologies to provide greater video surveillance flexibility at reduced
cost. |
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Virtual collaborative clinic (VCC) |
NASA, in coordination with
NLM, the Navajo Nation, Abilene, vBNS, and the CALREN-2 GigaPoP, is developing
the virtual collaborative clinic (VCC) to demonstrate a high performance
testbed that allows medical colleagues to simultaneously review medical
images remotely in real time. This requires 30 to 50 Mbps and multicast
technology. |
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NIST applications
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NIST has developed interfaces for virtual manufacturing applications, a testbed to demonstrate real-time, multiuser, interactive simulation of manufacturing equipment control, and extensions to VRML for device behaviors. NIST is building a remote interface to a weld cell with real-time display of a data-driven VRML weld controller model and synchronized real-time video with a VRML model. In FY 2001 NIST plans to:
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New Starts |
The Scalable Information Infrastructure (SII) component of LSN R&D responds to the PITAC recommendation that the Federal government establish a high-priority focus on research seeking fundamental advances in the science and engineering of networking technologies that will enable the Internet to grow or "scale up" to meet requirements for ever-increasing numbers of users and types of devices. Begun in FY 2000, the SII R&D program is still being developed to address demands for 21st century technologies such as deeply networked systems, anytime/anywhere connectivity, and network modeling and simulation.
Federal agency SII programs Federal agency SII activities will explore fundamental aspects of networking, including the ability to depict and troubleshoot very large systems through network modeling, simulation, and emulation; underlying network technologies such as optical and wireless; and middleware enabling large-scale systems, information management, and information and service survivability. DARPA and NSF-supported researchers are developing the network architecture, middleware, and human interfaces for pervasive networking environments-systems capable of effectively and efficiently networking large numbers of very small distributed and embedded devices-including highly scalable and adaptable network protocols for evolving application requirements; QoS, such as for network control and scheduling; and network security and privacy tools. Research addressing development of on-demand wideband access in scalable mobile networking will aim for multimegabit wireless access with seamless global roaming. Agile networking infrastructures Future networking communities will consist of highly fluid groups and locations accessing the Internet through a wide variety of information services, embedded devices, and facilities. In this environment, network infrastructures must be "agile," meaning able to respond quickly to variations in connectivity and bandwidth requirements and differences among access devices, and to dynamically reorganize end-to-end network services in response to changes in the composition of collaborating teams. The agile networking infrastructures effort will support the specification, standardization, measurement, and testing of protocols and software to support these capabilities. Program goals include the development of virtual overlay networks (VONs) that can be established and readjusted on demand in minutes by distributed mobile collaborative users. Network research center NSF and NIST plan to establish a high performance distributed network research center enabling researchers to study new protocols they are developing to improve Internet performance. The center will focus on discovering and managing the limiting features of networks, providing advanced performance features not now available on large-scale networks; distributed applications and their interaction with network protocols; middleware enabling efficient computer-aided software development; and tools and expertise to enhance the Internet knowledge base, particularly for minority-serving organizations. Network security NSF- and NIST-funded researchers will explore techniques, protocols, and procedures with the potential to enhance the overall security of packet-switched telecommunications networks, including the ability to support secure tele-collaboration activities. Prototype access testbeds Researchers will develop prototype
testbeds to demonstrate very high performance campus networks that can
serve as models for upgrading campus networks nationwide to take advantage
of new backbone capabilities. The research will test potential delivery
systems ranging from wireless to all optical and capabilities for interaction
among wireless, optical, and wireline systems. |
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