[548] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
John Cavallini's (DOE) response to Bill Schrader's (PSI) testimony at OTA
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (AIKEN@OERV01.ER.DOE.GOV)
Fri Apr 5 03:56:44 1991
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 91 11:01:48 EST
From: AIKEN@OERV01.ER.DOE.GOV
To: COM-PRIV@psi.com
Below You will find a copy of a letter that John Cavallini (DOE) addressed
to Bill Schrader at PSI, with a cc to Gordon Cook of OTA, concerning
Bill Schrader's testimony at the February 14,1991 OTA hearing on
the privatization of the NREN. If you have any questions or comments
please direct them to either John Cavallini (cavallini@nersc.gov)
or myself (aikenrj@es.net).
Bob Aiken
Scientific Computing Staff, ER-7
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, D.C. 20585
310-353-5800
aikenRJ@es.net
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Mr. William L. Schrader
President & CEO
Performance Systems International, Inc.
11800 Sunrise Valley Drive
Suite 1100
Reston, VA 22091
Dear Mr. Schrader:
Your recent presentation to the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) had
statements in it concerning DOE's intent and capabilities vis a vis the
National Research and Education Network (NREN). The following responses
address some of the more important issues and hopefully clarify DOE's position
relative to them.
One of your statements was: "DOE and NASA will never cooperate on shared
resource networks, due to their perceived mission requirements. Nor will they
outsource to PDNS."
These statements are incorrect on both counts. DOE maintains its need to meet
mission requirements, and therefore will continue to place priority on the DOE
researchers' requirements and needs. However, the DOE has been cooperative in
all interagency network initiatives, has been a full partner in all of the
'coordinated' international links, peers with regional networks, and currently
contracts with TYMNET for supplementary access to the ESnet! DOE is also one
of the last participating members of the joint agency National Network Testbed
(NNT) which PSI/NYSERnet operated. It is also important to realize, and often
forgotten, that DOE is required to use FTS2000 services whenever possible, per
an agreement between the GSA and the Federal Network Council (FNC), with which
you probably were not familiar. This agreement restricts the DOE, NASA, and
other agencies to some extent, however, they do not and have not kept NASA and
DOE from cooperating fully in the NREN program. In addition, it certainly has
not kept DOE, NASA, and others from endorsing the NSF NREN funding for the NSF
portion of the NREN project, as witnessed by the FY92 President's budget
announcement.
Another statement was: "DARPA and NSF are the only agencies with the
willingness and wherewithal to manage an NREN."
The DOE has long been, and will continue to be, a pioneer in the High
Performance Computing and Communications area. The National Energy Research
Supercomputer Center (NERSC) and its Nationwide network constituted the first
Supercomputer Access Network 10 years before the NSF supercomputer centers
existed. ESnet was the first national multi-protocol network. In addition,
ESnet, which peers with many regionals, NSFnet, the MILnet, NASA's NSI network
and which also connects to end user sites, has demonstrated its ability to
support both end users and other networks in both a peering and hierarchical
manner. The DOE has often demonstrated its ability to manage and operate very
large research projects, particularly national scope networks, as evidenced by
the ESnet Communities' apparent satisfaction with the capabilities and
services provided by the capable ESnet staff and management. A peer review of
2
DOE's ER networking activities by an independent (non-DOE) review committee
recently validated this.
DOE has not requested, nor has it been allocated, the necessary budget for
managing the overall NREN. The DOE has fully endorsed the interagency NREN
program which states that the eight participating agencies will provide for
the creation and management of the NREN. DOE intends to do its part to make
the NREN a success and to participate in its management, per the interagency
plan.
You stated that: "DS3 services are not essential in 1991, will be marginally
used at less than 16 sites in America for many years, and only for aggregated
use on a backbone," also "Individual operational network applications
demanding DS3 or gigabits are years away, and probably limited to less than
several hundred users. The use of NREN's hundreds of millions of dollars for
only hundreds of people is inefficient BIG science."
It is important to remember that the NREN is one component of the High
Performance Computing and Communications Plan. As such, its goal is to
support science and education that will make/keep the U.S. as a technological
leader in many areas, such as materials, combustion, etc., that require vast
computational and communications capacity. The NREN, as proposed by the
FCCSET committee, was never intended to provide a "network connection" for
every person in the U.S. (and Dr. Bromley so testified before the HSST
recently), but to help develop and transfer the required technology to the
industrial marketplace such that private enterprises could provide these
services, much the same as the telephone system of today. In addition, there
are many applications today that are not being fully developed due to the lack
of needed computational and communications capacity. Some of these
applications can already consume a DS3 circuit if it were available to the
researcher. In fact, DOE supported researchers from Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory demonstrated some exemplary network applications and supporting
technology, which they developed for use on the ESnet, at NET 91.
You also stated: "acceptable Use Policies have encouraged the marketplace to
develop commercial networking. Private enterprise makes it possible for
government to get out of the costly business of networking."
The government role is to help industry develop new technology and to
encourage its use in applications, nothing more.
Sincerely,
John S. Cavallini
Acting Director
Scientific Computing Staff
Office of Energy Research
cc: Gordon Cook
Office of Technology Assessment
U.S. Congress
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E.
Washington, DC 20510
CC:
MEMBERS@FARNET.ORG
COM-PRIV@PSI.COM
