RFC 504

Distributed resources workshop announcement

📅 published April 1973, from ietf

Workshop Announcement ✨

Network Working Group 💖 Written by Bob Thomas at BBN 🎀

RFC # 504 🦋 NIC # 16155 🌸 Dated April 30, 1973 💅

The title block doesn't state a category or status for this document. It also doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so there's no drama there 🙈

The Basics 📅

Okay so the big event is called Automated Resource Sharing on the ARPANET 🔥

  • Date: Monday May 21, 1973 💜
  • Time: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM ⭐
  • Place: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge, Mass. 🏙️
  • Hosts: TENEX and TIP Groups at BBN 🫶

Theme 🌈

This workshop is all about one big question:

What steps can be taken to automate access to the distributed
resources on the ARPANET?

Bestie, the real question is how we get from where we're at today to a place where sharing resources is easy. The goal is to move the work of dealing with the network off the human user and onto processes that act on their behalf 🧚 Also, operating systems do a bunch of stuff without a human starting it, like file system backup, and that stuff could be way better if they could use resources on other systems. So how do we make system-to-system cooperation easier too? 🤖💖

Objectives of Workshop 🎯

  1. Identify and clarify the issues. What's stopping more people from sharing resources on the ARPANET? Is it technical, political, or administrative? Is there just not much worth sharing? (We don't think so 🙅‍♀️) Is automated sharing a bad idea? (Also no, we don't think so 💅)
  2. Find the resources. Look at what's available at different network sites that's good for automated sharing, and figure out what's missing that should exist 🍓
  3. Make a plan for experiments. Come up with experiments to test the pros and cons of different ways to automate resource sharing. The whole point is to learn by actually building and using prototype systems that support automated sharing ✨

Format of Workshop 🌸

Morning ☀️

To get everyone up to speed, each participant will give a quick presentation about relevant work their site is doing right now, plans to do, or issues they think matter for this topic. There'll be a little time for discussion after each one 💬

Afternoon 🌇

It's a general discussion of what came up in the morning. Possible topics include (but they don't have to be the only ones):

  1. Possible multi-site "services." Intersite mail, terminal linking, and status information are examples. What else? 📬
  2. Resources good for remote use. File systems, compilers, on-line query systems, and manuscript preparation systems are examples. What else? 💻
  3. Getting to remote resources. Could there be access paths other than the standard logger port? How much (if at all) can access paths to different resources be standardized? How can resources that move between Hosts, or that live on several Hosts, get found and picked dynamically? And is a "broadcast ICP" a good idea? 🔍
  4. Accounting for resource use. Network-wide accounting would be a huge convenience. For example, it'd be so nice if a user could use the same account at many (or all?) sites. What's stopping that? 🧾
  5. Security and access control. Think authentication for users and processes trying to use resources. Like network-wide accounts, being able to use the same name and password everywhere would be super convenient. But how do you protect a user's password and other sensitive data in that kind of setup? There's also the idea of a third party password validation and user authentication service 🔐
  6. Ways to automate resource sharing. You can identify a few approaches that look different on the surface:
    • a. Multi-site executive programs that make resources available to the user at the command language level. The inter-site, user-user interaction and file maintenance activity supported by the RSEXEC is one example.
    • b. A programming language environment designed to make resource sharing easier. For example, LISP is a machine independent language, so you could imagine a multi-computer LISP system that supported automated resource sharing.
    • c. The "collect a resource" approach. You pick an Editor here, a file storage service there, a compiler somewhere else, and so on, then build a "workshop" environment that gives convenient access to all of them.

So what are the pros and cons of these approaches? What do they have in common? Is it possible to find a common base that could support all of them? 🧠

  1. Protocols for automated resource sharing. Creating a detailed protocol spec at this workshop would be inappropriate. It's totally fine, though, to talk about the kinds of activity a protocol should support. Existing protocols (except the Host-Host protocol and maybe the new TELNET protocol) seem aimed at human users. Automated resource sharing means processes acting for human users to reach remote resources, and that suggests protocols should be very process oriented. For example, since there should be minimal human intervention in error recovery, the protocols should be extremely robust, with well specified time outs and things like that 🛡️💜

Arrangements 📝

If you're coming to the workshop, let Bob Thomas at BBN know. You can send net mail to BTHOMAS@BBN, or call (617) 491-1850, x483 📞 If you want motel reservations at the homestead Inn at Fresh Pond, call Mrs Terry Bernier at BBN (x545) 🏨

It's possible one day won't be enough for this workshop. If the attendees agree, the workshop will keep going through Tuesday May 22 🗓️

Position papers, memos, notes, and so on that participants prepare ahead of time will really help the workshop succeed, and they're requested 🙏 Anything received before May 11 will be sent out to workshop attendees in advance.

These questions might help you focus your thinking:

  • What resources would your site be willing to make available for use in automated resource sharing experiments?
  • Under what conditions would your site be willing or able to participate in such experiments?
  • What administrative and/or technical considerations would prevent your site from entering into a network wide resource sharing agreement?
  • If you employ accounting Procedures that require cost recovery, how, if at all, should they be modified to work in a network resource sharing environment?

Reading List 📚

Honestly, there's not much written on automated resource sharing yet 😭 But these are at least somewhat relevant to the workshop. Please tell them about any others you know of 🫶

  1. ARPANET NEWS, Issue 2, Report on COMPCON 73 "Birds of a Feather Session" on Resource Sharing Networks, NIC 15337.
  2. "A Resource Sharing Executive for the ARPANET", R. Thomas, Preprint of paper for 1973 National Computer Conference, BBN Report 2522, NIC #14689.
  3. "Terminal Access to the ARPANET - Experience and Improvements", N. Mimno, B. Cosell, Walden, et. al., COMPCON 73 Proceedings, NIC 14791.
  4. "A Tentative Proposal for a Modified User Protocol", M. Padlipsky, RFC 451, NIC #14135.
  5. "Interentity Communication - An experiment", R. Bressler, R. Thomas, RFC 441, NIC 13773.
  6. "Netbank", J. Postel, RFC 408, NIC #12390.
       [ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
       [ into the online RFC archives by Alex McKenzie with    ]
       [ support from GTE, formerly BBN Corp.             9/99 ]

That's the whole workshop, bestie! 🌈💅

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