- Phase One
-
- Software Status of 360/65
-
1) Our software is currently being changed to reflect the new NCP
- protocol delineated in RFC #107. These changes will be completed
-
- before the end of May.
-
2) We are implementing a logger that, after an automatic ICP
- dialog, can be driven from a local console. Any desirable messages
-
- can be sent or received in EBCDIC, ASCII (8), or as binary streams.
-
- The purpose of the logger is to allow sites to checkout remote log in
-
- procedures. Since no production-oriented services will be offered on
-
- the 360/65, the logger is for experimental purposes only. It will be
-
- completed before the end of May.
-
3) We have not planned a TELNET. We will, however, implement both
- server and user TELNETs once a specification is generally accepted.
-
- Implementation time will be on the order of two weeks.
-
- Transition from 360/65 to PDP-10
-
1) We plan to move from our 360/65 to a PDP-10. Rand will offer
- Network services on the PDP-10. The hardware and software status of
-
- the PDP-10 will be reported later.
-
2) The 360/65 Network connection will remain for some time due to
- its production use by another ARPA-sponsored project at Rand.
-
- Maintenance of the 360/65 Network software will be provided for the
-
- lifetime of the connection but no new programs will be developed on
-
- the 360/65 after September.
-
[Page 1]
-
1) The UCSB/Rand Network activities were recently reported in RFC
- #113 and earlier in RFC #78. The Climate Dynamics Project (CDP) at
-
- Rand will continue to use this facility (more heavily) in the future.
-
2) In conjunction with the above facility, the Rand Network team
- has planned and implemented a front-end graphics program to allow the
-
- reduced data from UCSB to be displayed and interacted with locally as
-
- graphs, contours, plots, and lists. This will be used in about three
-
- months after an intermediate program, being written by the CDP
-
- personnel, is completed.
-
- Phase Two
-
- Experimental Data Reconfiguration Service (Form Machine)
-
1) A working session was held recently at Rand on the Data
- reconfiguration Service (DRS), the results of which have been drafted
-
- and are being edited by the participants. These data will be
-
- published soon as an RFC. Eric Harslem will be prepared to make an
-
- oral report at the NWG meeting on the DRS.
-
- Protocol Manager
-
1) We plan to submit a positional paper on a proposed Protocol
- Manager, which will allow flexibility in both experimental and
-
- production use of connection protocols. This will be presented as a
-
- Request for Comments on a software package that Rand intends to
-
- implement for its use on the PDP-10. For example, it should obviate a
-
- fixed logger on our forthcoming PDP-10.
-
[Page 2]
-
- Comments on Goals and Organization of the NWG
-
1) We have been proponents of the collective NWG as a forum to
- raise issues and as a general information transfer mechanism of what
-
- sites are doing and thinking. More recently small working groups and
-
- committees have been formed to generate particular specifications such
-
- as TELNET, the new NCP protocol, etc. We favor continuance of these
-
- methods as long as any site with a willingness, an interest, and
-
- contribution is not excluded from any group or committee. We feel
-
- that these groups will limit themselves to a small functional size a
-
- priori because they are directed toward special interests.
-
The long lead time between the formation of such a group and
- their final output (and subsequent implementation of the plan) has
-
- been accepted by the NWG Technical Chairman and is rather
-
- disconcerting. The NCP glitch cleaning committee is an example of
-
- expedient work. UTAH, for example, has already implemented the new NCP
-
- protocol. Other groups (including the DRS) have not been as
-
- responsive. Perhaps the technical problems addressed by other groups
-
- are more complex and the needs for their solutions are not as
-
- immediate as the NCP glitches. We offer no nice solution except that
-
- perhaps some guidelines should be established concerning timely
-
- publication of reports.
-
2) Regarding long range goals of the NWG, we do not think that
- the NWG is the right body to establish the long range goals. By long
-
- range goals of the NWG, we are really concerned (in part) with long
-
- range goals of the Network. We feel that the Principal Investigators
-
- are in a position to have a better perspective of long range Network
-
- goals than the NWG members. As a suggestion, one way of converting
-
- their views into NWG tasks is to have the NWG Technical Chairman host
-
- a one day opinion session of the Principal Investigators, then report
-
- these views to the NWG for the generation of their implied tasks.
-
[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
[ into the online RFC archives by Jim Thompson 4/97 ]
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-