Network Data Management Committee Meeting Announcement

Network Working Group                          P. M. Karp - MITRE
Request for Comments #173                      D. B. McKay - IBM
NIC 6795                                       4 June 1971


Categories:  D.4, D.7
Obsoletes:   None
Updates:     None


         Network Data Management Committee Meeting Announcement

The data management discussions at the recent NWG meeting resulted in
the formation of a Network Data Management Committee to be chaired by
Doug McKay, IBM.  The purpose of the committee, as stated in RFC 146,
is:

      (a)  to classify the issues involved and to propose
           various approaches;
      (b)  to integrate the hitherto independent network
           activities that address problems in the area of data
           sharing; and
      (c)  to set up and coordinate appropriate experiments
           to test the services developed and to evaluate
           alternative approaches.

An informal meeting was held Wednesday morning, 19 May to estab- lish an
approach for achieving the above objectives.  The attendees were:

         Peggy Karp           MITRE
         Doug McKay           IBM
         Tom O'Sullivan       Raytheon
         Ari Ollikainin       UCLA
         Dr. Larry Roberts    ARPA
         Dick Winter          CCA

Due to an overlap with a file transfer committee meeting, membership of
the data management committee was not established.

A decision was made to hold a data management meeting at CCA in
Cambridge prior to the next general NWG meeting.  The structure and
format of the meeting will be similar to that of the network graphics
meeting (RFC 87); that is, the price of admission for an organization is
a working paper on one or more of the areas chosen for discussion,
accompanied by an oral presentation.

The meeting will provide an opportunity for varying viewpoints on
network data sharing to be expressed.  The essential issues will be
educed, thus fulfilling the committee's objective (a).  Compre- hensive
plans for attaining objectives (b) and (c) can then be established.  We
expect that responsibilities for carrying out objectives (b) and (c)
will be assumed by interested committee members.

One of the original objectives of the meeting was to elicit comments on
the data language for the data computer, following a presentation of
design specifications by CCA.  Due to a change in scheduling at CCA,
they will discuss the facilities to be provided by the data computer
rather than language itself.  Therefore meeting participants will have
an opportunity to provide input to the language design which will be
specifically directed at provision of the facilities.

   Some suggested topics for position papers are:

      (a)  philosophical discussion on computer network
           data sharing;
      (b)  syntactic and semantic considerations for data
           description and access languages;
      (c)  approaches for the integration of data handling
           services already available;
      (d)  experimentation methodology for evaluating
           alternative data sharing techniques;
      (e)  information content and structure of a network
           data directory; and
      (f)  operational or control protocol.

Any or all of the above topics can be addressed in a single paper.
Other ideas for position paper topics can be gleaned from RFC #s 144 and
146.  Many of the comments made at the data management session, 18 May,
at the NWG meeting (RFC 164, pp. 26-29) can be expanded and expounded
upon.

Position papers should be submitted ti Doug McKay by 16 July (received
no later than 19 July).  A meeting agenda, copies of all submitted
papers, and a background bibliography will be distributed to all
participants by 23 July.  The meeting will be held at CCA, 565
Technology Square, Cambridge, Mass. from 2 August until 4 August.  All
participants should contact Marty Ginsberg, CCA (617-491-3670) by 16
July for hotel reservations.

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