EARN REPRESENTATIVES: Alain Auroux, EARN Office, Paris Paul Bryant, United Kingdom Birgitta Carlson, Sweden Joe Chester, EARN Office, Dublin Michael Hebgen, Germany Ann Hovenden, EARN Office, Dublin Jean-Claude Ippolito, France Dennis Jennings, Ireland David Lord, CERN Stefano Trumpy, Italy Observers: Herb Budd, IBM Europe, Paris
The minutes of the last EARN EXEC meeting were approved as circulated and will be distributed to the EARN BOD by Michael Hebgen. Joe Chester will send a signed copy to Alain Auroux for the book.
The Minutes of the last EARN Board Meeting were amended and approved for distribution to the EARN BOD. Comments, changes and a statement about the confidentiality of Appendix 3 are invited from the BOD within four weeks from the date of distribution.
Matters arising. Alain Auroux proposed an official opening of the EARN Office in Paris on the evening preceding the next EARN Exec Meeting. This was agreed to. Alain is to prepare a proposal for the opening and circulate it to the EARN EXEC as soon as possible. The estimated cost of the reception was fixed at 1.000-1.500 ECU.
The date of the next meeting was fixed for Paris on 8 March with the opening of the office on the previous evening.
CEPT: Stefano Trumpy reported on the December Meeting with CEPT. The meeting EARN-CEPT was followed an enlarged meeting with EEC and RARE. CEPT has raised no objections to the continuance of EARN through 1988. The CEPT draft report on the meeting does not reflect the EARN position on the decision reached.
Stefano Trumpy was asked to send a statement to the EARN BOD about the CEPT recommendation to continue EARN's permission on leased lines in 1988 and to prepare a full report on the meeting EARN-CEPT. He will also write to CEPT expressing EARN's concern over the CEPT Minutes of the enlarged meeting. Michael Hebgen requested that a copy of this letter be circulated to the EARN EXEC as soon as possible.
EUNET: Dennis Jennings reported on favourable discussions with EUNET. There is a wish to put a formal structure on negotiations. EUNET are also planning to migrate to OSI over the X.25 network, so future discussions would be beneficial to both bodies. Joe Chester reported on replies from BOD members to join the EUNEARN@MCVAX list.
SPAN: David Lord reported on the SPAN Meeting in Frascati. Joe Chester should continue with SPAN.
The EARN EXEC approved the activities with EUNET and SPAN and supports ongoing co-operation. Dennis Jennings is to be responsible for appointing a liaison person out of the EARN BOD for EUNET and for SPAN.
COSINE-RARE: Dennis Jennings reported on meetings with Peter Linnington (RARE) and Peter Tindermans (COSINE). It was decided that the EARN EXEC should comment electronically on the COSINE-RARE-EUNET-RARE Statement of Co-operation and Direction within one week. It was agreed that the first two pages of this document should be sent electronically to EARN BOD Members, the entire document should be sent to EARN BOD by post and formalisation is to be brought up at the next EARN BOD Meeting. Stefano Trumpy suggested including a paragraph or annex in the document emphasising EARN's primary responsibility of providing service to the users. This was supported by Paul Bryant and JEAN-Claude Ippolito.
Dennis Jennings reported on the current status of the Programme. The OSI Programme Committee was approved and will meet before the next EARN EXEC meeting. Joe Chester will circulate a report on the Geneva Meeting as soon as possible.
Dennis Jennings summarised the background to the offer from Northern Telecom and it is proposed to continue discussions on this offer to be followed on by Paul Bryant and Dennis Jennings. Dennis Jennings emphasised the confidentiality of the letter of intent from Northern Telecom.
The Dutch PTT expressed an interest in participating in EARN's OSI transition and Dennis Jennings will ask them for a letter of intent.
Dennis Jennings will prepare a full statement on the current status of the programme and discussions with suppliers for circulation to the EARN BOD.
Concern was expressed at the state of arrangements for EARN88. The two EARN offices are to work together in urgently disseminating information to each country. A package of information on the conference will be sent to each country director on 13 February from the Paris Office.
Herb Budd gave a presentation of IBM's Supercomputing initiative in Europe. He first explained the plans for the US NFSNET and then the requirements for networking between supercomputer centres in Europe. The most important question is "what is the network component?", is it EARN or other connections like 2MB links running TCP/IP?
The EARN EXEC will continue discussions on this aspect with IBM and Dennis Jennings and Paul Bryant will prepare a statement of requirements.
Birgitta Carlson drew the attention of the EARN EXEC to some minimal changes in the status of QZ by the Swedish Government. The continuance of QZ as the international EARN node was affirmed by the EARN EXEC.
The "minimum cost topology" has shown problems and results in severe degradation of the service. Especially the vulnerability by missing backups and the way the network is used (interactive messages, file services, modified RSCS-PVM) was mentioned.
A set of actions to deal with congestion on the network was proposed and agreed:
The budget proposal presented by Alain Auroux was noted as commented: Alain Auroux will to circulate a spreadsheet. David Lord will prepare two funding models for 1989.
Jean-Claude Ippolito will circulate - ideally before April 1 - a balance sheet and an income statement on paper copy to the EARN BOD members. Alain Auroux will circulate the auditors report and a statement about the book keeping as soon as possible, at least in the first week of April: he will also prepare a statement of the legal responsibilities of the EARN BOD members for circulation.
The X.400 project has been terminated. Paul Bryant will inform the Technical Group.
Michael Hebgen proposed an operating procedure for electronic voting for the EARN EXEC similar to the one for the EARN BOD. This was accepted by the EARN EXEC and Michael Hebgen should keep one document up to date with all accepted operating procedures and circulate it to the EARN BOD.
Alain Auroux will circulate the specification for the country co-ordinators job to the EARN EXEC and ask for comments.
It was agreed that the reporter of the EARN Technical Meeting would be invited to attend the complete EARN Executive and would present his report. His expenses would be funded. The EARN EXEC commented that this would be a valuable means of making various members of the Technical Group aware of the activities of the Executive.
The proposal on "File traffic control proposal" will be circulated to the Country Co-ordinators by Alain Auroux and to the EARN BOD by Paul Bryant for further comments before adoption.
The EARN EXEC welcomed the proposal to set up a series of "EARN Request For Comment" (ERFC) papers. They requested a detailed proposal from Paul Bryant which they would vote on electronically.
The "Proposal for rules for control of EARN nodes" was accepted with amendment that objections to a "directive" or "recommendation" would be 4 weeks rather than 14 days.
It was agreed that there should be no further activity on the X.400 project. It was expected that any further activities would be concerned with IBM, and other manufacturers, products in this area.
The request for two EARN support posts was not considered.
The discussion on the Technical Group meeting lasted 20 minutes. Paul Bryant protested at the guillotining of the discussion after such a short period. Many items have been left for resolution and comment at a future date. This endorses the recorded view of some members of the Technical Group that their views and proposals are not considered by the Executive. He is concerned that his paper on "The use of SNA on EARN" was not considered thus leaving the advanced plans for its use in an uncertain state. He is concerned that the UK request for corporate membership is again delayed. He requests that these items be considered firs at the next meeting. He would like to point out that the item on attendance at the "Winter'88 BITNET Technical Meeting" on February 27 was not considered and we will therefore loose the opportunity of attending.
Michael Hebgen and Joe Chester are going to work on updating the Code of Conduct covering commercial use and abuse like the CHRISTMAS EXEC.
Dennis Jennings will send a letter to Michael Hebgen, as the appropriate Country Director, welcoming the suspension of the individual responsible for CHRISTMAS EXEC.
