Charter
It is recognised that gigabit networks have the potential of becoming a
major part of the communications infrastructure during this decade.
Gigabit networks can provide many benefits and enable new applications that
are required in a information dominated society. Gigabit networks also
pose many serious hurdles for exploitation of those applications. The
physical layer of the network may well be the simplest of these hurdles to
overcome. In addition to physical data transport, networks running at
these speeds will require changes in almost every network element at all
levels to cope with the limitations of delay. This will require
architectural changes in computer and workstation hosts, packet switches,
gateways, and routers, both in hardware and software.
The driving applications for gigabit networks will probably evolve from
emerging applications at university, government, and industrial research
institutions. It is logical therefore that the IEEE Communications society
should establish a technical committee of interested users, network
administrators, researchers, developers, and manufacturers to provide a
focal point for needed technical interaction that is driven by user needs.
This technical committee would also pioneer some of the technical
discussion, publications, and technical forums concerned with the evolving
architectures needed to meet the applications being considered by the
network administrators. This committee is expected to concentrate on
end-to-end upper layer issues: user impact, applications, transport and
higher layer protocols, operating systems, and host--network interface
architecture best suited for imaging, visualisation, multimedia, remote
backup, and other emerging national and grand challenge applications, so
that a standard usage is promoted.
Mission Statement
1. Focus
The Gigabit Networking Committee shall promote interest within and outside
the Communications Society, and provide focus and understanding within the
industry on the emerging applications and architectural solutions for
gigabit networks. A primary goal will be to serve as a focal point for
activities in high performance networking: participate and sponsor
conferences and workshops, encourage publications, foster discussion, and
provide education on the utility of gigabit speed networks and possible
architectural alternatives required for optimum infrastructures. Of most
interest to this committee is the promotion of user driven end-to-end upper
layer issues: user impact, applications, transport and higher layer
protocols, operating systems, and host--network interface architecture best
suited for imaging, visualisation, multimedia, remote backup, and other
emerging national and grand challenge applications. Furthermore, the
Committee will consider why will access to such infrastructures will be of
importance to end users, researchers, and ultimately to society as a whole,
including the economic impacts.
Cooperation will be sought with other IEEE Societies and with appropriate
Committees within the Communications Society, including: CNOM, Software,
Communication Switching, Computer Communications, Data Communications,
Multimedia Applications and Terminals, and Optical Communications.
Furthermore, cooperation will be sought with other organisations including
the ACM,
IFIP,
IEE,
and
Internet Society.
2. Committee Structure and Membership
Members will be drawn not only from the Communications Society, but in
addition Committee membership will be an important growth factor for the
Society in attracting new members from other communications related
professional societies as well from other disciplines in research,
development, education, services, and manufacturing. Emphasis in the early
phase of the committee will be on attracting researchers, network
administrators, and users with suitable applications and technical
expertise to drive the implementation and use of high performance networks.
Officers will include: Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary.
Additional steering committee positions will include Technical Activities,
Publications, Standards, International Affairs, and Subcommittee Chairs.
3. Committee Activities
As described above, the Committee will serve as a focal point for
activities in high performance networking: participate and sponsor
conferences and workshops, encourage publications, foster discussion, and
provide education on the utility of gigabit speed networks and possible
architectural alternatives required for optimum infrastructure.
Conferences and workshops:
The Committee should help establish some order to the multitude of
conferences and workshops, herein referred to as events, and serve as a
focal point and source of information for these events. The acceptance
criteria for involvement with these events are:
- The primary role of the event must be that of high speed networking or
applications requiring high speed networking as an enabler; more general
events will only be considered if there is a specific sub-session or
workshop that otherwise matches these criteria and with which to associate.
- The sponsor of the event must be not for profit or nonprofit, and may
either be organised by one of the professional societies (IEEE, ACM, IFIP,
ISoc, Usenix, etc.) or a private or national research institution (e.g.
University or National Laboratory).
- The event should be deemed to be of high quality in technical content.
If it is an established event, this decision can be based on past events
and their reputation. If the event is new, extra scrutiny should be
applied to determine the likely quality and the value of encouraging
additional events in an already chaotic field. We may have a slightly
lower threshold for well established events that we consider in the best
interests of the TCGN with which to associate.
- Acceptance of the event will be based on the concurrence of the
steering committee of the recommendation of the technical activities person.
- The level of association (sponsorship, cooperation, participation) will
depend on the level of involvement specified by IEEE ComSoc guidelines.
The determination of whether to cooperate with an already successful event
or participate to attempt to influence the content as conditional
agreement to a request to associate will be based on concurrence of the
steering committee of the recommendation of the technical activities person.
Publications:
[to be added]
Coordination of interoperability and standards efforts:
[to be added]
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Last updated 4 April 1996
James P.G. Sterbenz
<jpgs@ieee.org>
TCGN