RARE UPDATE No.8

[bersee@localhost]

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A RARE UPDATE
No.8, February 1993
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NEWS FROM THE COA

by Josefien Bersee
at the RARE Secretariat

The 25th meeting of the RARE Council of Administration took place on
February 4/5 1993.  Progress and results on major subjects are summarized
below.
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SEPARATE MEMBERSHIP FOR CZECH AND SLOVAK NETWORKS
Czechoslovakia, formerly represented by the Institute of Applied
Cybernetics as Associate National Member of RARE, split up into two
republics recently. Therefore membership to RARE had to be changed
accordingly. The COA accepted separate Czech (CESNET) and Slovak (SANET)
networking organizations as new Full National Members.

RTC REAPPOINTED FOR TWO YEARS' TERM
The RARE Technical Committee, which started its activities in April last
year has been reappointed for a two years' term, ending 1 May 1995. In
addition to the existing members Milan Sterba will represent RIPE.
Currently there is one vacancy, as Eike Jessen had to resign. 

The current RTC is chaired by Tomaz Kalin,  RARE Secretary-General; Tim
Dixon, RARE Project Development Officer acts as Secretary. Other members
are: Brian Gilmore (Edinburgh University, United Kingdom), Erik Huizer
(SURFnet, Netherlands), Jean-Paul Le Guigner (CICB, France), Bernhard
Plattner (ETH Zuerich, Switzerland), and Sven Tafvelin (NORDUnet, Chalmers
Technical Institute, Sweden). Howard Davies (RARE Vice-President,
University of Exeter, UK) liaises between the RTC and the RARE Executive
Committee and Christian Huitema (INRIA, France) liaises between RARE and
the Internet Architecture Board.

PROGRESS ON RARE TECHNICAL PROGRAMME
The preparation of a Survey on Multimedia Research, Standards, and Products
was contracted to the University of Edinburgh. In January editor Chris Adie
made a draft version of the survey available. Work on the GIX route server
and IP specification work is progressing well.  Tony Bates, formerly
working as Assistant Network Manager at ULCC, has been hired to work on the
project; he is housed with the RIPE NCC. A RARE/RIPE Task Force concerned
with IP version 7 has started its activities; two or 3 pilots are already
on the way. The RTC will take action to raise the necessary additional
funds.

NEW PROJECT DEVELOPMENT OFFICER AT RARE SECRETARIAT
Jeroen Houttuin has started work as PDO at the RARE Secretariat in
Amsterdam on January 1st. He studied telematics at the University of Twente
and has been involved in R&D networking projects at GMD-FOKUS, ETH Zuerich,
 and SWITCH. He participated in the COSINE MHS Project Team. Jeroen will be
involved in RARE Working Group activities, upper-layer related issues in
particular.

EBONE IN 1993 
The EBONE'92 backbone continues in 1993. At the Ebone consortium meeting on
Feb. 3 in Luxembourg the partners finalized the budget, decided on an
upgrade of the backbone and set up the organization to operate Ebone in
1993.  Ebone's long term strategy was confirmed to concentrate in the
future on providing a neutral interconnect for all networks, while it is
assumed that provision of backbone services will be offered by one or more
(competing) providers in the longer run. Until such offers are forthcoming,
Ebone will take care of its partners' needs in this area too. The RARE
Secretariat will continue to provide administrative services and act as a
clearing house. 

LAUNCH EuropaNET 
On 9 February EuropaNET, the multi-protocol backbone for the European
research community, was launched in The Hague, The Netherlands. EuropaNET
replaces IXI, COSINE's International X.25 Infrastructure pilot which
connected European researchers over the past two years. 

START-UP CONTRACT OPERATIONAL UNIT SIGNED BY RARE
RARE has signed the contract with the CEC for the start-up of the
Operational Unit for provision of networking services to the European
research community.  The RARE Executive Committee and the OU Steering
Committee have reached agreement on RARE acting on behalf of the
Operational Unit.

PUBLICATION OF PAPER VERSION RARE/EARN JOURNAL APPROVED
The COA approved the budget for publishing a paper version of a new journal jointly
published by RARE and EARN. It will appear as a quarterly supplement to the
Elsevier North Holland journal "Computer Networks and ISDN Systems"
Publication of the first issue is planned for April.

PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME 4TH JENC AVAILABLE
The preliminary programme and registration form for the 4th Joint European
Networking Conference are now available from the RARE Secretariat, on paper
as well as electronically. The deadline for the early registration fee is
March 29th.