[CAnet - news] NSF Preps New, Improved Internet

For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 4 Optical
Internet program web site at http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/list.html
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[This is exciting new initiative. It is rumoured to have $100m budget,
subject to congressional approval. It will most likely use NLR as its
experimental testbed.  Many of the research concepts are similar to those
outlined in CANARIE's UCLPv2 program and projects like X-Bone
http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/uclp/UCLP_Roadmap.doc.  Some excerpts from
Wired article -- BSA]

NSF Preps New, Improved Internet
By Mark Baard
Story location: <http://www.wired.com/news/technology/ 
0,1282,68667,00.html>


The National Science Foundation is backing a major initiative that  
could lead to a completely new internet architecture, with built-in  
security measures and support for ubiquitous sensors and wireless  
communications devices, among other things.

The Global Environment for Networking Investigations, or GENI, will  
include a research grant program to fund new architectures and an  
experimental facility, which has not yet been planned in detail.

The little-noticed initiative was announced Wednesday at a meeting of  
the Special Interest Group on Data Communication in Philadelphia.

The GENI experimental facility will be "designed to explore new  
(network) architectures at scale," according to the SIGCOMM  
announcement.

GENI (pronounced "genie") will "enable the vision of pervasive  
computing and bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds  
by including mobile, wireless and sensor networks," the NSF  
announcement read.

GENI came out of an idea for a "clean slate" internet, which has been  
discussed by NSF Networking Technology and Systems program director  
Guru Parulkar, MIT senior research scientist David Clark and other  
network architects in recent years.

Clark served as chief protocol architect for the government's  
internet development initiative in the 1980s. He believes that new  
network designs are needed to overcome the viruses, identity theft  
and other threats plaguing the internet's decades-old infrastructure.

The original internet was not designed for security from targeted  
attacks, said University of California at Los Angeles professor  
Leonard Kleinrock, who led the development and installation of the  
internet in the late 1960s.

"Security is one of those stepsisters of our field," said Kleinrock.  
"It was not built in to the original internet. We had a philosophy  
and culture of trust. Everything we do now (for security) is  
patchwork, which makes it much harder."

The initiative will promote network architectures that balance  
"privacy and accountability and vary protections for individuals  
based on "difference and local values," the announcement read.

A new internet could also be made to support the privacy choices of  
individuals and communities as sensors and communications devices  
become more ubiquitous, GENI organizers hope.

People already lack privacy and security on the internet, said  
Princeton University professor and SIGCOMM chairwoman Jennifer  
Rexford, one of the GENI organizers.

"(Security) is an incredibly important problem today," Rexford said.  
"And if you don't solve that problem, you haven't solved anything."

Princeton is one of three universities that manages the PlanetLab  
experimental network, which provided some of the inspiration for  
GENI. Princeton professor Larry Peterson, a member of the PlanetLab  
steering committee, is also working on GENI.

Too little privacy on the internet will further erode confidence in e- 
commerce, said Rexford. But too much privacy could make it difficult  
to detect attacks on the network. Rexford envisions a network that  
could strike a balance between the two "by offering a vast spectrum  
of opting-in and opting-out."

The GENI experimental facility will likely be connected to the  
National LambdaRail and Internet2 experimental networks.

But GENI will be a unique facility, with experimental hardware, "new  
classes of platforms and networks" and "new computing paradigms  
enabled by pervasive devices," according to the announcement.

GENI will also bridge the gap between current high-speed research  
networks and ordinary internet users. The program will invite large- 
scale participation from individuals drawn by exciting new  
applications running on the network.

[...]

[From the NSF fact sheet]

The GENI Initiative

The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering  
(CISE) is developing an Initiative called Global Environment for  
Networking Investigations or GENI to explore new networking  
capabilities that will advance science and stimulate innovation and  
economic growth. The GENI Initiative responds to an urgent and  
important challenge of the 21st Century to advance significantly the  
capabilities provided by networking and distributed system  
architectures.

GENI comprises two components:  the GENI Research Program and the  
experimental GENI Facility.  It is intended to catalyze a broad  
community effort that will engage other agencies, other countries,  
and corporate entities.
Research that falls under the broad conceptual umbrella of this  
Initiative will focus on designing new network architectures and  
services by rethinking network functions, designing in key  
capabilities such as security, robustness and economic viability, and  
including applications and new technologies as design components. New  
technologies range from new wireless and sensor devices to customized  
routers and optical switches to control and management software.   
Research will call on multiple disciplines to explore a spectrum of  
areas from large-scale distributed services to high-level policy  
(e.g., network access).

To have significant impact, innovative research and design ideas must  
be implemented, deployed, and tested in realistic environments  
involving significant numbers of users and hosts.  The Initiative  
includes the deployment of a state-of-the-art, global experimental  
GENI Facility that will permit exploration and evaluation under  
realistic conditions.  The GENI Facility will permit a range of  
researchers, including network engineers, policy analysts, protocol  
designers, system architects, and economic modelers to contribute to  
and study innovative new capabilities for the global network of the  
future.
The GENI Initiative builds on the extensive experience of the broad  
research community and two decades of NSF-supported networking  
research.  For the past several years, CISE has supported a series of  
workshops, planning grants, and meetings with leaders in the  
networking field in preparation for this Initiative.

For more information see www.cise.nsf.gov/geni or send comments to  
[email protected] (NOTE: Valid after 8/29/2005).

and

The GENI Initiative

Fact Sheet

The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)
is developing an Initiative called Global Environment for Networking
Investigations or GENI to explore new networking capabilities that will
advance science and stimulate innovation and economic growth. The GENI
Initiative responds to an urgent and important challenge of the 21st Century
to advance significantly the capabilities provided by networking and
distributed system architectures. 

The GENI Initiative  envisions the creation of  new network and distributed
system architectures that, for example:

.	Build in security and robustness; 
.	Enable the vision of pervasive computing and bridge the gap between
the physical and virtual worlds by including mobile, wireless and sensor
networks;
.	Enable control and management of other critical infrastructures;
.	Include ease of operation and usability; and
.	Enable new classes of societal-level services and applications.

The GENI Initiative includes:

.	A research program; and
.	A global experimental facility designed to explore new architectures
at scale.

CISE is encouraging a broad community effort that engages other agencies,
other countries, and corporate entities.

 

The GENI Research Program


The GENI Initiative will support research, design, and development of new
networking and distributed systems capabilities by:

.	Creating new core functionality: Going beyond existing paradigms of
datagram, packet and circuit switching; designing new naming, addressing,
and overall identity architectures, and new paradigms of network management;

.	Developing enhanced capabilities: Building security into the
architecture; designing for high availability; balancing privacy and
accountability; designing for regional difference and local values; 
.	Deploying and validating new architectures: Designing new
architectures that incorporate emerging technologies (e.g., new wireless and
optical technologies) and new computing paradigms enabled by pervasive
devices; 
.	Building higher-level service abstractions: Using, for example,
information objects, location-based services, and identity frameworks; 
.	Building new services and applications: Making large-scale
distributed applications secure, robust and manageable; developing
principles and patterns for distributed applications; and
.	Developing new network architecture theories: Investigating network
complexity, scalability, and economic incentives. 

The GENI Research Program will build on many years of knowledge and
experience, encouraging researchers and designers to: reexamine all
networking assumptions; reinvent where needed; design for intended
capabilities; deploy and validate architectures; build new services and
applications; encourage users to participate in experimentation; and take a
system-wide approach to the synthesis of new architectures.



 
The GENI Facility

As envisioned, the GENI Facility will enable:

.	Shared use through slicing and virtualization in time and space
domains (i.e., where "slice" denotes the subset of resources bound to a
particular experiment);
.	Access to physical facilities through programmable platforms (e.g.,
via customized protocol stacks);
.	Large-scale user participation by "user opt-in" and IP tunnels;
.	Protection and collaboration among researchers by controlled
isolation and connection among slices;
.	A broad range of investigations using new classes of platforms and
networks, a variety of access circuits and technologies, and global control
and management software; and 
.	Interconnection of independent facilities via federated design.

The GENI Facility will leverage the best ideas and capabilities from
existing network testbeds such as PlanetLab, ORBIT, WHYNET, Emulab, X-Bone,
DETER and others.   However, the GENI Facilty will need to extend beyond
these testbeds to create an experimental infrastructure capable of
supporting the ambitious research goals of the GENI Initiative. 

In planning for GENI,

.	CISE has supported numerous community workshops and is supporting
on-going planning efforts, including needs assessment and requirements for
the GENI Facility. 
.	CISE will hold town meetings and continue to support future
workshops to broaden community participation. CISE will work with industry,
other US agencies, and international groups to broaden participation in GENI
beyond NSF and the US government.


For more information see www.cise.nsf.gov/geni or send comments to
[email protected] (NOTE: Valid after 8/29/2005).





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