EARN DIRECTORS: Paul Bryant, U.K., EARN General Secretary Klaus Birkenbihl, Germany (deputy) Avi Cohen, Israel, EARN Executive Mohamed Elkotb, Egypt Lluis Ferrer, Spain Rene Florizoone, Belgium (deputy) Frode Greisen, Denmark, EARN President Thedi Hatt, Switzerland (deputy) Matti Ihamuotila, Finland Jean-Claude Ipollito, EARN Treasurer Dennis Jennings, Ireland, EARN Executive Petter Kongshaug, Norway Olivier Martin, CERN Oguz Manas, Turkey Wilfried Maschtera, Austria (deputy) Kees Neggers, Netherlands Stelios Orphanoudakis, Greece Constantinos Papanstasiou, Cyprus Yagos Puric, Yugoslavia Arne Sundstrom, Sweden Stefano Trumpy, Italy, EARN Executive EARN STAFF: Alain Auroux, Manager, Paris Office Hans Deckers, Manager designate, Paris Office Jerry Striplin, (DEC) Manager, EARN OSI operations centre OBSERVERS: Laura Abba, EARN, Italy Sitki Aytac, Turkey Peter Bakonyi, Hungary Jose Barbera, IRIS, Spain Harry Clasper, IBM (Europe) Bob Cooper, JANET, UK Francois Fluckiger, CERN Switzerland Jan Gruntorad, CVUT, Czechoslovakia Jurgen Harms, SWITCH Switzerland Tomasz Hofmokl, Poland Andeas Mavroyiannis, Second secretary of the Cyprus Embassy for item 23.10.9 Guenakh Mitselmakher, TINR, DUBNA USSR Taher Sabry, Egypt Philippe Salzedo, EARN France Mohsen Tawfik, Egypt Hans Wallberg, SUNET, Sweden Martin Wilhelm, DFN, Germany Alex Zwahlen, DEC Switzerland ABSENT: Iceland, Ivory Coast, Luxembourg, and Portugal
The President thanked the organisers of the EARN/RARE Joint Networking Conference, 1990 for organising the Board meeting and for the splendid facilities provided.
Approved - the minutes of meeting 22 - BOD59 89
Noted - all actions have been completed or were taken up in papers or in the appropriate sections of the minutes with the exception of 22.9.4.
Noted - in 22.9.4 the Executive had been asked to bring forward proposals for the connection of countries by alternative means such as ISDN, PPSDN, dial-up, and IXI. Although no proposals have been produced EARN now has a project to test IXI, Tunisia is being connected by PPSDN, SNA is now approved, and there is a paper at this meeting on the use of NJE/IP. Some inconclusive thought has been given to dial up but there is no progress on the use of ISDN.
Noted - the President's report - BOD2 90
Approved - the EARN strategic plan - BOD3 90 with 13 votes in favour, 3 against and 5 abstentions.
Noted - the EARN office report - BOD4 90
Resolved - to acknowledge Hans Deckers, born June 22, 1935 in Antwerpen Belgium as the EARN Manager and to give him full powers to operate the bank accounts of the EARN Association.
Noted - the INET'91 plan for a world wide networking conference in Copenhagen in 1991 - BOD34 90.
Noted - the EARN/RARE Joint Networking Conference, 1990, which attracted 380 attendants is regarded as a great success. There is to be a further RARE networkshop or conference in Blois France in 1991 and the RARE COA is setting up a programme committee to be chaired by Jurgen Harms to organise it. EARN has been asked to support the venture and to provide member(s) for the programme committee.
Resolved - to instruct the Executive to decide the extent of EARN's involvement in the proposed INET'91 event in Copenhagen and the proposed RARE event in Blois.
Noted - the EARN operations report - BOD5 90
Noted - the EARN-SNA report - BOD6 90 - which advocates the use of SNA as detailed in the paper. A set of "EARN Directives and Recommendations" is now under consideration. In the light of BOD6 90 the Executive have given permission for the use of SNA virtual circuits between non adjacent nodes in accordance with the "Management of Change" EXEC103 89. See the minutes of Executive meeting 30 - EXEC164 89 - where scenario one is approved. Only NJE traffic is currently permitted.
Resolved - in the light of uncertainly over the extent of the control over EARN's use of EASINET links the Executive is instructed to clarify the situation.
Noted - the Traffic report - BOD7 89. On page 4 section 7 the increase in traffic should be 71% rather than 4%.
Resolved - all countries are asked to supply traffic figures in conformance with EXEC71 89.
Noted - the EARN visitors programme - BOD28 90 - allowing EARN to part fund the training of staff from new countries at the EARN Office. It was suggested that in some cases it may be more appropriate for the visits to be to sites other than the Paris Office depending on convenience and language problems.
Approved - the VNET gateway proposal - BOD15 90 - which permits the operation of a mail gateway between EARN and the IBM corporate network with 17 in favour 0 against and 2 abstentions.
Resolved - the Executive is instructed to negotiate an annual fee.
Approved - the EARN operations and Technical Management Plan - BOD37 90 - as amended, defining the tasks to be undertaken by EARN staff and the hiring of further staff. This is subject to discussions on the budget and on technology options. Norway and Switzerland abstained in the vote.
Secretarial note - the paper available from LISTSERV@UKACRL has been amended to state that "..one additional person [will be hired] at the EARN office or the EOC to work mostly on OSI migration.." and the information paper at the end has been deleted.
Noted - Germany stated that they did not wish to put any finance into EARN OSI migration.
Noted - the EARN NOG minutes from the meeting of October 6, 1989 - BOD38 90 - all the items of importance are included under other agenda items.
Noted - the Amsterdam OSI operations centre project status and activities report - BOD9 90 - defining the current state of the project.
Noted - no update has been made to the OSI development plan - BOD36 89 - as there has been no significant change apart from the IP development which is in a separate paper.
Noted - the NJE-IP policy and procedures from the EARN IP project group - BOD10 90 - which advocates the use of NJE-IP on international connections under suggested conditions.
Resolved - the Board of Directors recognises that for the immediate future there are good reasons to operate the NJE service over a variety of underlying technologies. The subnetworks of NJE over specific technologies require careful management via appropriate "Directives and Recommendations" and under the "Management of Change" mechanism. Care has to be taken with the resulting complex situation which will result to ensure a sensible and efficient NJE topology. The Executive is instructed to study the routing implication and should set up a GENROUTE project group. EARN should take part in the co-ordination of bandwidth from various sources.
Noted - the Liaison reports - BOD12 90
Resolved - to authorise the EARN president to continue negotiations with the CREN regarding improved connections, including the sharing of line costs of the intercontinental links, sharing of software and tools, and geographical co-operation.
Resolved - to endorse the proposal for EARN to manage the HEP NJE names by including them in the EARN tables subject to "management of change" and satisfactory technological arrangements.
Resolved - the Executive should study a possible change in the EARN rules to allow more than one country connection in the light of the sharing of lines and the inclusion of HEP names in the EARN NJE tables.
Resolved - EARN should seek assurances from IXI that there will be no restriction on EARN traffic emanating or terminating anywhere in the EARN/BITNET/NETNORTH networks.
Approved - the 1989 accounts - BOD13 90.
Noted - the updated budget for 1990 - BOD14 90
Noted - the expenditure to date - BOD14 90
Noted - the contributions received to date - BOD14 90 - countries are asked to pay their contributions as soon as possible.
Noted - the draft budget for 1991 - BOD14 90
Resolved - the X.25 backbone item is removed. This effectively cancels the EARN X.25 infrastructure and the Executive is instructed to prepare a plan for closure. Voting in favour 9 against 5 abstain 5.
Resolved - the Executive is requested to reduce contributions. No specific figure is defined but some members requested that contributions should not be dissimilar to the 1990 ones. Suggestions for savings are:
Noted - the draft 1992 to 1994 forward look - BOD14 90
Noted - the UK stated that it could not increase its level of contribution.
Resolved - to adopt the cost sharing proposal - BOD17 90 - votes in favour 19 against 1.
Resolved - after study of BOD18 90 the Executive is instructed to bring forward a further proposal based on discounts.
Resolved - the overspend of the Presidents Office from February 1987 to February 1989 will be funded by EARN. Final payment to University College Dublin will be made, - votes in favour 16 abstentions 2. Members are reminded that the paper associated with this item is confidential.
Noted - the users report - BOD22 90 - (tabled at the meeting).
Noted - the Policy report as amended at the meeting - BOD39 90
Approved - the Abolition of Membership Committee - BOD29 90 - votes in favour 17 against 0 abstention 1.
Approved - the Country Memberships of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and USSR.
Resolved - a vote of thanks to Frode Greisen for the work leading to these memberships. Frode Greisen recognised the contribution of Dennis Jennings of establishing the initial contacts and of contributing to negotiations.
Approved - the Country Membership of Iran - BOD35 90 - votes in favour 18 against 0 abstentions 2
Noted - the UK wished it to be minuted that their favourable vote did not extend to the use of interactive protocols and could not be used to support any applications for the import of equipment or software by Iran.
Noted - according to the Charter Board members are requested to report new associate members. The only report was from Egypt.
Resolved - the draft amended EARN Charter - BOD30 90 - will be further amended in the light of comments.
Approved - the changes to the EARN Code of Conduct required by the changes to the EARN Charter with the deletion of the last paragraph in order to make the document independent of others ones - BOD32 90
Noted - the G-box ownership issues to be resolved at a subsequent meeting - BOD16 90
Resolved - BOD20 90 - the EARN Board of Directors, based on article 2.2, which states that "Requests for FULL INSTITUTE membership are handled and decided upon by the EARN Director in the respective country" as well as on the article 2.3, which states that "The member of the EARN Board of Directors in each country decides on applications for FULL Institute membership according to the regulations established by the Board" requests Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean University which is located in Cyprus, to correct the current irregular connection. In case of non compliance measures will be taken by the EARN Executive Committee to rectify the situation. Votes in favour 12 against 1 abstentions 6. Noted - the UK requests its abstention to be registered on the basis that EARN should not be concerned with issues of territoriality. The UK, as a member of the United Nations Organisation, debates all such issues through its representatives there. Questions concerning the rights of countries or territories to join the EARN network should be clearly covered by general rules contained in the EARN Charter, which should define a recognised country as one recognised by the United Nations, and the territories of countries to be the territories recognised by the United Nations. Resolved - the Executive should look into a clearer definitions of a country and reconsider the connection procedures.
Noted - the General Secretary's report - BOD23 90
Resolved - to thank the Secretary General for preparing the papers for this meeting as well as maintaining the file store for all EARN papers..
Noted - Pilot IXI Project, Memorandum of understanding - BOD24 90
Noted - EARN NORDUNET agreement - BOD25 90
Noted - LISTSERV agreement - BOD26 90
Noted - DEC external research agreement - BOD27 90
Noted - EARN SNA Directives and Recommendations -BOD36 90
The next Board of Directors meeting will be in Cairo on November 8 and 9, 1990 by kind invitation of Professor Elkotb. The possible hotels are The Intercontinental at 72 USD per night or Safir at 55 USD per night excluding taxes of 14% and meals. Mohamed Elkotb offered to arrange a sightseeing trip.
Approved - the revised contribution rules for new country members which will reduce contributions in the first two years of membership - BOD41 90 - votes in favour 19 abstentions 1.
Approved - to allow the Technical Forum and/or NOG to take place in conjunction with SHARE and/or DECUS meetings should the members wish. This would have no financial implication for the EARN Association.
Resolved - in the light of the decision to discontinue the EARN X.25 infrastructure the Board of Directors confirms its commitment to an OSI programme.
