RFC 173

Network Data Management Committee Meeting Announcement ✨

okay bestie, this is RFC 173 📮 and it's a NWG note from 4 June 1971 (NIC 6795). P. M. Karp of MITRE and D. B. McKay of IBM wrote it. It's filed under categories D.4 and D.7, it obsoletes nothing, and it updates nothing. 🎀

The Committee Is Born 💅

The data management talks at the recent NWG meeting were so good that they led to a Network Data Management Committee, chaired by Doug McKay of IBM. RFC 146 explains that the committee exists to:

• (a) classify the issues involved and propose various approaches;
• (b) integrate the network activities that were working separately on data sharing problems until now; and
• (c) set up and coordinate experiments to test the services developed and to evaluate alternative approaches.

Who Showed Up 🫶

An informal meeting happened on Wednesday morning, 19 May, to figure out how to hit those three goals. The attendees were:

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

Membership of the committee wasn't actually settled, because a file transfer committee meeting overlapped and everyone had to be in two places at once. 😭

The Big Meeting at CCA 🎟️

It was decided to hold a data management meeting at CCA in Cambridge before the next general NWG meeting. It's modeled on the network graphics meeting (RFC 87), which means the price of admission is a working paper on one or more of the chosen discussion areas, plus an oral presentation. no paper, no entry, periodt 💅

The meeting gives different viewpoints on network data sharing a real stage. The essential issues will be educed, which covers objective (a). Then comprehensive plans for (b) and (c) can be built. The committee expects that interested members will take on responsibility for (b) and (c). 👑

One original goal was to collect comments on the data language for the data computer, right after CCA presented its design specifications. But CCA changed its schedule, so they'll talk about the facilities the data computer provides instead of the language itself. Participants can still give input to the language design, aimed specifically at those facilities. 🧚

Topics for Position Papers 📝

Some suggested topics 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.

You can cover any or all of these in a single paper. More ideas are hiding in RFC 144 and RFC 146. Also, lots of the comments from the data management session on 18 May, at the NWG meeting (RFC 164, pp. 26-29), can be expanded and expounded upon. 🍓

Logistics 🗓️

Position papers need to reach Doug McKay by 16 July (received no later than 19 July). A meeting agenda, copies of all submitted papers, and a background bibliography will go out to all participants by 23 July.

The meeting is at CCA, 565 Technology Square, Cambridge, Mass., running from 2 August until 4 August. Everyone should contact Marty Ginsberg at CCA (617-491-3670) by 16 July to book hotel reservations. 🏨✨

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by Simone Demmel 5/97 ] 🌈