Transport protocols and bulk file transfer

[Steven Senger <>]

All,

I apologize for the confusion over the July 17th call. I did not get a  
reminder notice sent out and ended up cutting the call short. We will  
have our next call on Aug 21.

At our June call we began a discussion about how to reinvigorate the  
group and in particular whether we wanted to refine the Mission/ 
Description statements of the group. Originally, the purpose of the  
group was to create a protocol/tool suitable for high-performance  
networks. The group produced a design space document, API  
specification and draft implementation. It is my sense that the group,  
while still having specific interests in this area, now has a broader  
view of possible ways to address our needs.

The Transport WG is considered a legacy group in that it preceded the  
current council structure and NTAC. The NTAC has a clear need in  
getting early and full input from the community on future directions  
for the network. Chet and I have been approached about a possible role  
for the group. Discussions at NTAC have suggested a need for four  
working groups to cover new and growing areas of importance. Broadly  
these are 1) performance, 2) DCN, 3) information services (discovery  
and topology) and 4) session layer services/transport (layer 4, hybrid  
networking, flow based analysis). This last area clearly has some  
overlap with the interests of members in this group. The question is  
can we define our focus in a way that allows this group to be a source  
of community feedback in this area as well as maintaining our  
particular interests. Chet and I see an advantage to doing so and  
would like to make this the main agenda item for the Aug 21 call.

Chet has been making progress on getting the group wiki organized.  
More information on this will be forth coming.

- steve