CENIC '99

Conference Will Explore Application Development for Internet 2

Russ Hobby, director of IT-Advanced Networked and Scientific Applications (ANSA) and chairman of a CENIC technical planning group, is looking for comments and suggestions from anyone who is interested in using high bandwidth applications to collaborate with other high-level research institutions. The ANSA director would like to take the information with him to CENIC '99, but says he would welcome such information at any time. Also, contact him if you would like to develop such applications.

The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California was formed in January 1998 to develop a high speed, wide area communications infrastructure offering guaranteed, quality service. The formation of CENIC allows its members, representing the state's institutions of higher education, to pool funds and develop a more robust network with higher bandwidth. CENIC '99's workshop format is designed to further a consensus on the issues involved in middleware and advanced applications, say conference organizers. Hobby describes middleware as the programs which run between the applications and the network, increasing the quality of routine functions.

"One of the things we want to explore is what kind of tool sets can be developed so the applications don't have to be built from the ground up every time," says Hobby. At the conference, Hobby will lead a focus group that will explore why these applications aren't being developed and what's lacking in the current standards for creating such applications.

Conference organizers hope to:

• Develop strategies for optimizing distributed research partnerships.
• Identify suggested areas of collaboration and mechanisms for avoiding duplication of effort.
• Identify research areas where middleware may enable applications with minimal modification to the application.
• Elucidate what middleware can and cannot provide.
• Compile a list of specific research areas which warrant priority funding in order to speed the deployment of advanced applications.
• Draft a proposal for a specific set of advanced application utilities which can be widely and immediately deployed.

Notes from the conference will be posted on the CENIC Web site.

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