BT/JISC University Research Initiative - Management of Multi-Service Networks. Management/Technical Meeting Number 9. Location: UCL. 12th December 1996 Present: Andrew Grace (Chair + Notes) BT Labs Omar Bashir Loughborough University Iain Phillips Loughborough University Rebecca Isaacs Cambridge University phyllis callinan oxford brookes university Ian Leslie University of Cambridge David Hutchison Lancaster University Daniel Waddington Lancaster University Christopher Edwards Lancaster University Nat Pryce Imperial College Stephen Crane Imperial College Halldor Fosså Imperial College David Parish Loughborough University Geoff Tagg Oxford Brookes University Tim Spencer BT Labs Dave Caton Oxford Brookes University Jon Crowcroft UCL Morris Sloman Imperial College James Cowan UCL Mick Mulvey (part) BT Labs Apologies: Ian Marshal BT Labs Rob Davison BT Labs Actions from previous meeting ----------------------------- 1 - Loughborough to contact Ken Totton at BT Labs re data mining. Loughborough have arranged a date to visit Ken at BT Labs in the new year. 2 - Jon Crowcroft to investigate UCL 6 monthly billing to BT. Jon reported that he had recently sent a couple of emails on this subject. 3 - URI partners to produce a paragraph on work package plans. A BT MMN phase 3 proposal has been circulated to BT and the URI partners. Technical reports ----------------- UCL - Winsock 2 TCPIP Protocol Stack. James Cowan presented a report on his results to date, based upon the analysis of some simple applications running over his stack. IC - Configuration Management for CORBA. Halldor Fosså presented the results of IC work to date. Configuration management is used to overcome the weaknesses in CORBA with respect to support for multiple interaction types, specifying implementation structure and representing communication bindings explicitly. A graphical toolset is available for describing and managing configurations, and the IC CORBA platform is available albeit as an unsupported alpha platform. Lancaster - Dan Waddington reported on the deliverables and results from Lancaster work. A paper on resource management for Distributed Multimedia Applications has been produced for ECMAST’97. Over the past year, collaborative work with Imperial College and BT Labs has identified requirements for stream interfaces and specification of QoS on stream interfaces. The Lancaster prototype platform development is based upon a COM object model for the engineering of multimedia components and local binding, plus incorporation of ActiveMovie multimedia component architecture. Chorus COOL ORB support is used for distributed bindings. The platform also has a preliminary inclusion of an AAL5 network service through the Winsock 2 FORE systems api. Future work is focused on QOS managed bindings which will incorporate mapping from point to point requirements to further binding types, and work for group communications through the incorporation of multicast and multipoint network protocols. Loughborough - Iain Phillips reported that there are GPS stations running at Loughborough and Lancaster. 3 monitor stations are also now running as part of the Walsall operation. Work is in progress to provide object oriented access to data, and a JAVA prototype is operational to provide graphical access to data. Future work on ATM monitoring is investigating the various possibilities available for implementation. Cambridge - Rebecca Isaacs reported on the work on DPE security. The security service has a facility for a server to create and advertise secure protocol channels, for a client to determine if it can meet the security requirements advertised by the server and if so bind to that channel. CORBA security number 95-12-1 has been implemented in DIMMA using an enhancement of the IIOP protocol in DIMMA. SECIOP supports establishment of security context and protection of CORBA2 GIOP messages. The DIMMA nucleus maintains security state context credentials using the GSS API security mechanism. As a result, applications don’t need to be security aware. Oxford Brookes - Dave Caton reported that a Heterogeneous network testbed is being created at OBU. This is using IP over ATM, with MARS based multicast IP over ATM. Started to get to grips with RSVP and how it maps down to ATM VC’s. Next areas to look at are: hierarchical video encoding and synchronisation issues. BT Review of URI ---------------- BT have recently completed an internal review of the Management of Multi-Service Networks URI. In providing feedback the project consortium, Andrew Grace said that the work of the project had been well received by BT’s Corporate Projects Research Office, in particular the end-to-end systems approach being taken by the project and the collaboration between project partners. Future work. ------------ Ian Leslie outlined the new proposed work area for University of Cambridge. So far within the URI, the Cambridge work has essentially been a security work package, resulting in a security architecture and a security implementation, but its implementation has been quite general. The new work proposed by Cambridge is based upon switchlets and ‘Networks on Demand’. The switchlet idea is to partition switches using switchlets and then connect switchlets to produce virtual networks. A draft workplan has been prepared by the project partners and a final version of the 97 plan will be produced by end of April 97. Action 9/1. Due 31 Jan 97. Each partner to update workplan with costings and deliverables, and to unify the style of each workpackage workplan. Action 9/2. Due 31 Jan 97. Ian Marshall to confirm that the above schedule for producing the 97 workplan is correct. Workshop plans. --------------- The URI workshop is scheduled for 16/17 April 97. The content for the workshop is to include URI speakers, BT speakers, outside speakers, with a split between architectural views and practical papers each about 25 minutes duration, with proceedings being published on the web. Start with an opening talk from BT (Ian Marshall?) on why BT is interesting in this project. Finish with a summarising talk. Possible timings for the workshop: Day 1 11-5, Day 2 9 - 3. Action 9/3. Due 31 Jan 96. Each partner to submit a one page abstract on a paper about their work to DH + MS. Action 9/4. Due 31 Jan 96. Each partner to suggest and contact additional people to invite/speak at workshop. Date of Next Meeting -------------------- The workshop is April will replace a quarterly technical meeting. A one hour Management meeting will be held after the first day of the workshop on 16 April 1997 at 5 with one management representative from each site. Summary of New Actions ---------------------- Action 9/1. Due 31 Jan 97. Each partner to update workplan with costings and deliverables, and to unify the style of each workpackage workplan. Action 9/2. Due 31 Jan 97. Ian Marshall to confirm that the above schedule for producing the 97 workplan is correct. Action 9/3. Due 31 Jan 96. Each partner to submit a one page abstract on a paper about their work to DH + MS. Action 9/4. Due 31 Jan 96. Each partner to suggest and contact additional people to invite/speak at workshop. Andrew Grace Friday 13 Decemeber 1996. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew Grace E: apgrace@jungle.bt.co.uk Distributed Systems Group Tel: +44 1473 644257 BT Labs, Martlesham Heath. IP5 7RE Fax: +44 1473 640929 ------------------------------------------------------------------