Networked Computing for the 21st Century Executive Summary

	Overview Program Component Areas and Organization High End Computing and Computation Large Scale Networking Next Generation Internet High Confidence Systems Human centered Systems Education, Training, and Human Resources CIC R&D Programs: A driving force in information technology Federal Information Services and Applications Council (FISAC) National Coordination Office for Computing, Information, and Communications (NCO) Presidential Advisory Committee
Overview	U.S. research and development (R&D) in computing, communications, and information technologies has enabled unprecedented scientific and engineering advances, transforming workplace products and processes, and benefiting society and individuals. Today's benefits are the result of investments made decades ago; the seeds of the Internet, for example, were planted in the 1960s. Continued investments will result in further dramatic advances, some of which may be as unpredictable and compelling as the World Wide Web. These investments include the development of increasingly powerful high performance computing systems, global-scale networking technologies with advanced capabilities, advances in software development technologies and applications software, improved reliability and safety, advances in managing and accessing vast distributed knowledge repositories, and human interface technologies that let people work -- and work together -- more effectively.
Computing, Information, and Communications (CIC) Program Component Areas (PCAs)	Federally-funded R&D in these technologies is coordinated within the Computing, Information, and Communications (CIC) R&D programs, which are successors to the highly successful, Congressionally-chartered High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Program. The application of computing, communications, and information technologies beyond their decades-long concentration on science, engineering, and education has placed additional demands on the CIC programs. Over the past two years, these programs have redefined themselves and are in the process of reorganizing their coordinated activities into five Program Component Areas (PCAs): HECC:  High End Computing and Computation LSN:  Large Scale Networking, including the Next Generation Internet Initiative HCS:  High Confidence Systems HuCS:  Human centered Systems ETHR:  Education, Training, and Human Resources plus the Federal Information Services and Applications Council (FISAC).   The first step of the reorganization is reflected in this FY 1999 Supplement to the President's Budget. The Federal investments in LSN R&D continue to be conducted, essentially, by organizations that participate in the coordinated CIC programs, and this is true, though to a lesser degree, for HECC R&D. Accordingly, the President's proposed FY 1999 budget includes the crosscuts for the HECC and LSN PCAs. However, this President's Budget does not include HCS, HuCS, or ETHR crosscuts, in recognition of the possibly multi-year process of reorganizing their R&D to include work being conducted both by CIC organizations -- but outside their historical CIC budget crosscuts -- and by other Federal organizations.   This document describes the HECC and LSN FY 1998 anticipated accomplishments and FY 1999 plans in substantial detail. It also includes descriptions of some representative HCS, HuCS, and ETHR activities and plans, primarily focusing on work by organizations that have been in the CIC programs.   The CIC R&D reporting structure changed in FY 1998. In December 1997, the White House National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) was reorganized and streamlined. Three NSTC Committees -- the Committee on Computing, Information, and Communications (CCIC), the Committee on Technological Innovation (CTI), and the Committee on Transportation R&D (CTRD) were replaced by the new Committee on Technology (CT). The Subcommittee on CIC R&D of the CCIC now reports to the CT. The five PCA Working Groups continue to report to the Subcommittee on CIC R&D, as does the FISAC, which had reported to the CCIC.
High End Computing and Computation	HECC R&D investments provide the foundation for U.S. leadership in high end computing and promote the use of high end computing and computation for government, academia, industry, and broad societal applications. HECC research explores algorithms for physical, chemical, and biological modeling and simulation in complex systems; information-intensive science and engineering applications; and the advanced concepts in quantum, biological, and optical computing that will keep the U.S. in the forefront of computing breakthroughs for years to come.   Short-term HECC development -- with anticipated payoffs in three to five years -- addresses needs for systems software for teraflops (1012 floating point operations per second) by means of investments in operating systems, languages and compilers, programming environments and libraries, debugging and performance tools, scientific visualization, data management, and developments leading to a common framework and infrastructure. FY 1998 and FY 1999 R&D areas include ease of use, performance measurement, provability, and resource reservation and guarantees.   Long-term HECC R&D -- to be useful in 10 to 15 years -- has helped establish scalable parallel processing as a standard for high performance computing, and has enabled the technology base for the $2 billion per year mid-range computing market. The next major long-term HECC milestone is a reliable, robust implementation of petaflops -- 1015 flops level performance, and exabyte -- 1018 bytes -- storage capability. Applications requiring this level of computational power include simulating complex systems in biology, business, the Earth and the environment, materials science and manufacturing, and the physical sciences. FY 1998 and FY 1999 research topics include embedded systems, intelligent systems, optical storage, optoelectronics, quantum computing, scalability, and survivability.   HECC R&D includes incorporating HECC technologies in agency mission applications. In FY 1998 and FY 1999 these applications include acoustics, aerodynamics, air and water quality modeling, biology (cellular, molecular, and biochemistry), Earth and space systems modeling, numerical analysis software, pharmaceuticals, physics, reconstructing three-dimensional information from two-dimensional biomedical images, regional-scale weather modeling, and simulating hurricane structure.   HECC investments include the infrastructure for HECC R&D, which includes the Department of Energy's (DOE) national laboratories, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) centers, and facilities at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Security Agency (NSA). In FY 1998, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) became a part of this infrastructure, succeeding the NSF supercomputing centers. PACI's goal is to prototype a national-scale computational grid for use in research and education. Currently, there are more than 101 academic and industrial PACI partners in 30 states.
Large Scale Networking	FY 1999 LSN R&D, including the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, will help assure U.S. technological leadership in high performance network communications through research that advances the leading edge of networking technologies, services, and performance. Early Federal investments in networking R&D helped build the technological foundation of today's global Internet. Development by Federal research laboratories, academia, and industry helped deploy prototype networking capabilities on a national scale and produced popular applications -- like email and World Wide Web browsers -- that transformed the way people use computer networks, paving the way for our Nation's leadership in the multi-billion dollar information technology industry. Key research areas today include advanced network components and technologies for engineering and management of large scale networks of the future.   LSN activities include coordinating the operation and select peering of advanced Federal networks, including the multiagency Washington, D.C. area Advanced Technology Demonstration network (ATDnet), the Department of Defense's (DoD) Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN), DOE's Energy Sciences network (ESnet), the NASA Research and Education Network (NREN), and NSF's very high performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS). Areas of research and support in FY 1998 and FY 1999 include global-scale communications, networking security, satellite technologies, special purpose connectivity programs, and network-based applications.
Next Generation Internet (NGI)	The primary focus of LSN activities in FY 1998 has been the Presidential NGI initiative. The investments made by this initiative and associated academic and industrial investments are creating the foundation for the networks of the 21st century -- networks that will be much more powerful and versatile than today's Internet. The NGI, in partnership with these other investment sectors, will keep the U.S. at the cutting edge of communications and information technologies. The NGI will also stimulate the introduction of new multimedia applications in our homes, schools, and businesses as the technologies designed and developed as part of the NGI are incorporated into products and services that are subsequently made available to the general public. The NGI initiative is essential to sustain U.S. technological leadership in computing and communications and to enhance U.S. economic competitiveness and commercial eminence. NGI activities are leveraged off of and tightly coupled with the base LSN network research and infrastructure support.   The NGI goals are: To conduct R&D in advanced end-to-end networking technologies, including differentiated services (including multicast and audio/video), network management (including allocation and sharing of bandwidth), reliability, robustness, and security. To prototype high performance network testbeds for systems scale testing of advanced technologies and services and for developing and testing advanced applications. One testbed will connect at least 100 sites with end-to-end performance at least 100 times faster than today's Internet; it will be built on the Federal networks in cooperation with academic campus and regional networks. The other testbed will connect more than 10 sites with end-to-end performance at least 1,000 times faster than today's Internet. This network will build on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) advanced networks. To develop revolutionary applications. These include enabling applications technologies such as collaboration technologies, digital libraries, distributed computing, privacy and security, and remote operation and simulation, as well as disciplinary applications in basic science, crisis management, education, the environment, Federal information services, health care, and manufacturing. For FY 1998, the NGI agencies are DARPA, NSF, NASA, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and NIH (National Library of Medicine [NLM], and National center for Research Resources [NCRR]). The proposed FY 1999 NGI agencies will additionally include DOE.
Netamorphosis demonstrations	Seventeen NGI applications, developed by Federal LSN programs including the NGI initiative, were demonstrated at Netamorphosis, held March 11-13, 1998, at Highway1 near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. These included: Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS): Precision storm forecasting Automating the construction site: A leap in capabilities Cave5D: A tool for collaborative immersive visualization of environmental data Collaboratory for structure-based drug design Earth data from satellite to desktop Echocardiography over the NGI Exploring the Earth system on the "Second Web" Informedia News-on-Demand Interactive video dialogues Magic: Viewing large geographic areas in 3-D Materials Microcharacterization Collaboratory (MMC): Studying state-of-the-art materials Nanotechnology research: controlling atoms from a distance Octahedral hexapod: An Information Age machine tool Real-time functional MRI: Watching the brain in action Security technology for the Next Generation Internet SF Express: Advanced battle simulation Visible Human Project
High Confidence Systems	HCS R&D focuses on the critical technologies necessary to achieve high levels of availability, reliability, restorability, protection, and security of information services. Systems that employ these technologies will be resistant to component failure and malicious manipulation and will respond to damage or perceived threat by adaptation or reconfiguration. Applications include banking, law enforcement, life- and safety-critical systems, medicine and health care, national security, power generation and distribution, telecommunications, and transportation.   FY 1998 and FY 1999 HCS R&D includes work in assurance technologies, information security, information survivability, protecting the privacy of medical records, and secure programming languages for Internet-based applications.   In August 1997 and March 1998, as part of the process of developing new CIC R&D agendas that extend beyond high levels of performance, the HCS Working Group held workshops with CIC and other agencies to identify agency needs requiring HCS research and to develop a proposed HCS R&D agenda. These agencies included DARPA, DOE, the Department of the Treasury's Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Federal Transportation Administration (FTA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), NASA, NIST, NSA, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Human centered Systems	HuCS R&D leads to increased accessibility and usability of computing systems and communications networks. Scientists, engineers, educators, students, the workforce, and the general public are all potential beneficiaries of HuCS technologies and applications.   A new Digital Libraries Phase II initiative will begin in FY 1998. This is a joint effort of NSF, DARPA, NASA, NIH/NLM, and several non-CIC agencies -- the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Smithsonian Institution. The new initiative will emphasize human and societal dimensions, including digital interoperability; electronic information life cycles; integration of information, computing, and communications technologies with human needs; and new types of content and collections.   HuCS collaboratories will allow researchers to conduct large-scale modeling and simulation, access appropriate information, share access and operation of remote facilities, and work within virtual environments to visualize scientific data and configure and control experiments, regardless of geographic and temporal separation among individual members. Other HuCS R&D includes active visualization, disability and rehabilitation research, educational technologies, finding and tracking information, knowledge networks, manufacturing applications, virtual reality, and the Visible Human project.   The February 12, 1998, issue of Business Week magazine highlighted leading-edge R&D in speech technologies funded by DARPA, NIST, and NSF, including automatic speech recognition, speech synthesis, speaker identification and authentication, and natural language understanding. Additional NSF activities include STIMULATE (the Speech, Text, Image, and MULtimedia Advanced Technology Effort), which supports fundamental research in understanding multimodal human communication and its application to computer technology.
Education, Training, and Human Resources	ETHR R&D supports computer and communications-related research to advance education and training technologies at all levels including K-12, community college, technical school, trade school, university undergraduate and graduate, and lifelong learning. The complex and technically challenging applications flowing from leading edge R&D in HECC and LSN make it increasingly important for today's students and professionals to update their education and training on an ongoing basis in order to exploit the latest technological advances. ETHR technologies improve the quality of today's science and engineering education and lead to more knowledgeable and productive citizens and Federal employees.   FY 1998 and FY 1999 activities include new NSF centers for developing innovative learning technologies, NIH/NLM and NIH/NCRR training grants, and NASA's Web-based classroom training. Beginning in FY 1999, NSF's Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence (KDI) initiative aims to achieve the next generation of human capability to generate, gather, model, and represent complex and cross-disciplinary scientific data and transform this information into knowledge by combining, classifying, and analyzing it in new ways. DoD and its Air Force Office of Scientific Research participate in ETHR through learner-centered education and automated training activities, although neither agency is part of the ETHR budget crosscut. NSF, the Department of Education (ED), and Department of Labor (not currently a CIC agency) are addressing the need for training the workforce in information technology.
CIC R&D programs	The five Program Component Areas of the CIC R&D programs are a driving force in information technologies, computing, and communications and are a key component of America's investment in its future, helping to maintain and widen the competitive lead that will keep our citizens productive well into the next century. The estimated FY 1998 HECC and LSN budgets for the participating Federal organizations was $717.4 million. For FY 1999, the President requested $860.9 million for these organizations.
Federal Information Services and Applications Council (FISAC)	FISAC, which reports to the Subcommittee on CIC R&D, succeeds the Applications Council of the CCIC. FISAC fosters the migration of technology from the information technologies R&D community to government application missions and information services communities and identifies challenges from applications to the information technologies R&D community. Multiagency teams focused on Crisis Management, Federal Statistics, Next Generation Internet, Universal Access, and Information Security report to the FISAC.
Presidential Advisory Committee	The Presidential Advisory Committee on High Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology, and the Next Generation Internet (PAC) and its Subcommittees have met eight different times between February 1997, when the Advisory Committee was established, and May 1998. The PAC held a Town Hall meeting at SC97 in San Jose in November 1997. It plans to report its findings in a report to the President, through the Director of OSTP.
National Coordination Office for Computing, Information, and Communications (NCO)	The NCO facilitates multiagency CIC R&D activities, such as the development of inter-agency CIC programs and the preparation of planning, budget, and assessment documents, and supports the activities of the Presidential Advisory Committee on High Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology, and the Next Generation Internet. The NCO Director, who reports to the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Executive Office of the President, serves as the chair of the Subcommittee on CIC R&D.   This report highlights many of the vital, ongoing efforts of the CIC R&D programs, focusing on representative FY 1998 accomplishments, key FY 1999 research and development areas, and the budget crosscut.   This report, all other CIC R&D publications, and links to related Web sites can be found at http://www.ccic.gov/ and http://www.ngi.gov/.