NLR Project Meeting Update: Key Developments from January 14, 2004 in Tempe, AZ

1. NLR Update Peter O’Neil Westnet Meeting January 14, 2004 Tempe, AZ

2. Topical Outline • Current Members • Build Out Schedule • NOC/Engineering Selection • Director Project Management • Contracts and Funds Flow • IRS Application for 501c3 • Network Research Aspects • SURA Initiative

3. Members • CENIC, PNWGP, Duke, Georgia Tech, Florida, PSC/CMU, Virginia Tech, CIC, Internet2, Texas, Cisco • Prospective Members: • CMU joining PSC to move to full member status rather than service member as originally signed • Oak Ridge National Lab • Cornell in conjunction with NYSERnet and NOX • FRGP & Utah (WRL)

4. Board Organization • Tracey Futhey, Chair (Duke) • Tom West, CEO (CENIC) • Steve Corbato, Secretary (I2) • Election of Executive Committee of Board postponed until additional members join

5. Project Management • Search started for Director of Engineering • Sense was that David Richardson, Dave Reese, Steve Corbato, and Cisco contributing lots of technical effort. • Feeling was that the project program management concerns more important right now. • About 10-12 people interviewed and 2-3 on short list as position changed from engineering to project management • Debbie Montano accepted position starting January 1st • Director Development & Operations

6. Contracts & Funds Flow • Agreements signed with Level 3 for fiber, collocation, and “remote hands” support • Agreements signed with Cisco for optical equipment, install, and maintenance services • Member payments sent so NLR cash positive going forward

7. IRS Ruling • NLR, Inc, as a not-for-profit, applied for IRS ruling to be considered a tax-exempt 501c3 organization • Original “expedited” ruling turned down • Appeal for expedited ruling approved, with determination expected late February • Most NLR members who had tax exemption “out-clause” rescinded it.

8. NOC Selection • Competitive proposal process • CENIC awarded responsibility for Layer 1 and Indiana for Layer 2/3 • MCNC (and Cisco) awarded responsibility for Experimental Research aspects • Each party is developing SoW’s and budgets that are still to be negotiated since initial input process underway with use communities to define requirements better

9. Build Schedule • PSC to Chicago path up and passing packets • Cisco optics ordered for all paths • Manufacturing and Install issues resolved • Test & Turn-up Crew now bottleneck • Seattle to Denver path underway • Equipment delivery late Feb 04 • Install by late March 04 • Test and Turn-up July 04 • Denver to Chicago path • Equipment delivery March • Install by late April • Test and Turn-up late August

10. Network Research Focus • Remember, 20 of the 40 optical waves, reserved for “experimental” use • Cisco appointed 2 faculty to the NLR Board • Paul Barford, University of Wisconsin • Dan Blumenthal, UC Santa Barbara • Leading effort to write paper on Network Research Council • Focus now on naming a senior, publicly recognized, Chief Scientist • Performing “outreach” to researchers as to NLR’s capabilities • Planning an NLR Research Workshop to solicit input • Will follow "researcher model" as on federal grant proposals with set of categories for use of NLR infrastructure at different networking layers. • Based on notion of NSF 1 year "exploratory" grant funds to better specify piece of work to be done. Help leverage additional grant requests from other agencies.

11. SURA Initiative • December 16th, AT&T and SURA announced agreement – terms very sketchy even to SURA technical committee • Claim is 10 year IRU for 6K miles of fiber “at no cost” • SURA wants AT&T fiber to be used (at least) for Atlanta to Florida, Florida to Dallas, Dallas to San Diego • NLR Committee formed to do “due diligence” on language in agreement and routes • IRU time lengths have “revenue targets” so problematic • Fiber paths have “breaks” that need fixing • Desired SURA PoP and NLR PoP locations are different • Layer 2/layer 3 equipment, interconnect, and remote hands costs yet to be factored in to get from AT&T to Level 3 facilities

12. I2 HOPI Design Team

13. HOPI • Native American insensitivity for: • Hybrid Optical-Packet Infrastructure • How to make use of 10Gb/s λ over full NLR footprint • Abilene High Performance IP network • Meet point for Int’l collaboration (MAN LAN, IEEF, StarLight)

14. HOPI Design Team • Rick Summerhill Co-Chair, outside Co-Chair TBD • Internet2 Community • Peter O'Neil, Bill Owens, Mark Johnson, Tom Lehman, David Richardson, Chris Robb, Jerry Sobieski, Steven Wallace, Linda Winkler • Int’l Community • Cees de Laat, Rene Hatem • Internet2 Staff • Guy Almes, Heather Boyles, Steve Corbato, Chris Heermann (Facilitator), Rick Summerhill (Co-Chair), Christian Todorov (Scribe), Matt Zekauskas

15. Team Charter • Provide a technical plan for integrating the HOPI raw materials into a test-bed facility that can provide dedicated bandwidth and an experimental platform for testing future architectures. The initial plan to be written during 1Q04 (probably unrealistic).

16. Abilene-NLR Topology

17. Web100 • Kernel support through Linux 2.4.24 • Pre-built (binary) Web100 kernels (new) • ACM Computer Communications Review Article • Functionality going into Linux 2.6.x www.web100.org