[e2e] Research testbeds: Report to NSF

[Jon Crowcroft]

superb report - of course i agree with all of it except that it could
be a bit more global/international (i udnerstand that the NSF Is a US
agency but) - for example, the successes of the ARPANET, DARTNET and
other testbeds included international collaboration (AND
infrastructure) as does the Internet II program (even broader, though
its more an application testbed outside the US, not strictly in the
spirit of this report - it IS however a network of networks!)

the recommednation on unlicensed testbed spectrum is especially
welcome but last time i checked,
the FCC doesnt have any jurisdiction outside the US where there's more
wireless (last time i looked) but more daft regulation, so it might be
nice if someone could find the right heads to bang together in the EU
(and i guess asia/pacific, though as far as i can see, with docomo and
other stugff, they have their act together there already) and i guess
south america (scuse my compelte lack of knowledge of wireless there -
i assume they use satellites a lot due to demographics and distance!)

so great stuff, but how do we up the ante?

In message <200301102250.WAA02640 at gra.isi.edu>, Bob Braden typed:

 >>
 >>Folks,
 >>
 >>This mailing list is intended to be primarily devoted to discussion
 >>of network research topics.  This note falls into that category.
 >>
 >>One of the enduring issues for network researchers is the need for
 >>effective testbeds to conduct experimental work.  Historically, the
 >>end-to-end Research Group played a significant role in designing and
 >>coordinating the DARPA Research Network Testbed (DARTnet), which
 >>resulted in the development of IP multicast, video teleconferencing,
 >>and Internet packet scheduling (and in particular int-serv).  We are
 >>convinced that there is a continuing need in this area and that this
 >>need is not currently being filled.  There are testbeds that primarily
 >>provide production-quality high-speed connectivity for developing
 >>advanced distributed applications or grid computing, and there are
 >>testbeds that are primarily for testing of advanced physical-layer
 >>transmission technologies.  But we also need testbeds for conducting
 >>fundamental research on network- and transport-layer issues, for
 >>example.
 >>
 >>Recently the US NSF (National Science Foundation) commissioned a small
 >>group of academic network researchers to study the issues in network
 >>research testbeds and to make recommendations to them.  The resulting
 >>report is available at http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/testbed_workshop.
 >>Some of you may find it interesting.
 >>
 >>Bob Braden
 >>
 >>
 >>
 >>
 >>

 cheers

   jon