Leading authorities deliver the commandments for designing high-speed networks There are no end of books touting the virtues of one or another high-speed networking technology, but until now, there were none offering networking professionals a framework for choosing and integrating the best ones for their organization's networking needs. Written by two world-renowned experts in the field of high-speed network design, this book outlines a total strategy for designing high-bandwidth, low-latency systems. Using real-world implementation examples to illustrate their points, the authors cover all aspects of network design, including network components, network architectures, topologies, protocols, application interactions, and more.

This document contains the transcript of three hearings on the High Speed Performance Computing and High Speed Networking Applications Act of 1993 (H.R. 1757). The hearings were designed to obtain specific suggestions for improvements to the legislation and alternative or additional application areas that should be pursued. Testimony and prepared statements were received from: (1) John H. Gibbons, Office of Science and Technology Policy; (2) Thomas J. Tauke, NYNEX; (3) Robert H. Ewald, Cray Research; (4) W. B. Barker, BBN Communications; (5) Richard F. Rashid, Microsoft; (6) Major R. Owens, House Subcommittee on Select Education and Civil Rights; (7) Don E. Detmer, University of Virginia; (8) Connie Stout, Texas Educational Network; (9) John Masten, New York Public Library; (10) Martin A. Massengale, University of Nebraska; (11) Cynthia H. Braddon, Information Industry Association; (12) Donald A. B. Lindberg, National Coordination Office for HPCC Program; (13) Malvin H. Kalos, Cornell Theory Center; (14) Jeffrey C. Kalb, Maspar Computer Corp.; (15) Edward Masi, Intel; (16) Fred Weingarten, Computing Research Association; (17) David K. Herron, Lilly Research Laboratories; and (18) John B. Gage, Sun Microsystems Laboratories. Subcommittee and committee markups of H.R. 1757, as well as prepared statements from the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network, International Society for Technology in Education, Coalition for Patent Information Dissemination, and Microcomputer Industry Association, are appended. (KRN)

1 This year marks the l0 h anniversary of the IFIP International Workshop on Protocols for High-Speed Networks (PfHSN). It began in May 1989, on a hillside overlooking Lake Zurich in Switzerland, and arrives now in Salem Massachusetts 6,000 kilometers away and 10 years later, in its sixth incarnation, but still with a waterfront view (the Atlantic Ocean). In between, it has visited some picturesque views of other lakes and bays of the world: Palo Alto (1990 - San Francisco Bay), Stockholm (1993 - Baltic Sea), Vancouver (1994- the Strait of Georgia and the Pacific Ocean), and Sophia Antipolis I Nice (1996- the Mediterranean Sea). PfHSN is a workshop providing an international forum for the exchange of information on high-speed networks. It is a relatively small workshop, limited to 80 participants or less, to encourage lively discussion and the active participation of all attendees. A significant component of the workshop is interactive in nature, with a long history of significant time reserved for discussions. This was enhanced in 1996 by Christophe Diot and W allid Dabbous with the institution of Working Sessions chaired by an "animator," who is a distinguished researcher focusing on topical issues of the day. These sessions are an audience participation event, and are one of the things that makes PfHSN a true "working conference.

The refereed proceedings of the 6th IEEE International Conference on High Speed Networking and Multimedia Communication, HSNMC 2003, held in Estoril, Portugal in July 2003. The 57 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 105 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on integrated differentiated services, multicasting, peer-to-peer networking, quality of service, QoS, network and information management, WDM networks, mobile and wireless networks, video, CDMA, real time issues and protocols for IP networks, multimedia streaming, TCP performance, voice over IP, and traffic models.

There is a great deal of change happening in the technology being used for local networks. As Web intranets have driven bandwidth needs through the ceiling, inexpensive Ethernet NICs and switches have come into the market. As a result, many network professionals are interested in evaluating these new technologies for implementation consideration. If you are looking for advice from experts who can help you realistically compare and decide how to use the options before you. Often, books on this subject are too varied in subject matter, attempting to cover to many subjects in the book. This book addresses the topic of Ethernet Networking from a planning perspective to a bit analysis of the Ethernet packets. It explains in detail information in the new network administrator would find it necessary to know.

High-Speed Cisco Networks: Planning, Design, and Implementation covers LAN/WAN technology and its benefits. The book lays out Cisco's complete line of products and describes their features and best applications. It provides critical details on routers and servers, switches and hubs, security products, network management tools, ATM products, other services and programs, and Internetwork Operating Systems (IOS). Cisco's routers, hubs, and switches are the core of the Internet and today's high-speed networks. Armed with this independent evaluation, the reader can design high-speed networks that meet current needs and scale to future requirements with confidence.

It is always confusing, and perhaps inconvenient at times, using generic terms that will mean something to everyone but different things to different people. "High Performance" is one of those terms. High Performance can be viewed as synonymous to High Speed or Low Latency or a number of other characteristics. The interesting thing is that such ambiguity can sometimes be useful in a world where focus shifts quite easily from one issue to another as times and needs evolve. Many things have changed since the first HPN conference held in Aachen, Germany in 1987. The focus then was mainly on Media Access Control (MAC) protocols that allow users to share the high bandwidth of optical fiber. FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) was making its debut with its amazing 100 Mbps speed. ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and SONET (the Synchronous Optical Network) were beginning to capture our imagination. What could users possibly do with such "high performance"? Share it! After realizing that the real problems had gradually shifted away from the network media to the periphery of the network, focus also began to shift. Adapter design, protocol implementation, and communication systems architecture began to attract our interest. Networking -not Networks-became the hot issue.

The communication of information is a crucial point in the development of our future way of life. We are living more and more in an information society. Perhaps the more obvious applications are those devoted to distributed cooperative multimedia systems. In both industry and academia, people are involved in such projects. HPN'95 is an international forum where both communities can find a place for dialogues and interchanges. The conference is targeted to the new mechanisms, protocols, services and architectures derived from the need of emerging applications, as well as from the requirements of new communication environments. This workshop belongs to the series started in 1987 in Aachen (Germany), followed by Liege (Belgium) in 1988, Berlin (Germany) in 1991, Liege (Belgium) again in 1992 and Grenoble (France) in 1994. HPN'95 is the sixth event of the series sponsored by IFIP WG 6.4 and will be held at the Arxiduc Lluis Salvador building on the campus of the University of the Balearic Islands in Palma de Mallorca (Spain) from September 13 to 15.

This was the first conference jointly organized by the IFIP Working Groups 6. 2, 6. 3, and 6. 4. Each of these three Working Groups has its own established series of conferences. Working Group 6. 2 sponsors the Broadband Communications series of conferences (Paris 1995, Montreal 1996, Lisboa 1997, Stuttgart 1998, and Hong-Kong 1999). Working Group 6. 3 sponsors the Performance of Communication Systems series of conferences (Paris 1981, Zürich 1984, Rio de Janeiro 1987, Barcelona 1990, Raleigh 1993, Istanbul 1995, and Lund 1998). Working Group 6. 4 sponsors the High Performance Networking series of conferences (Aaren 1987, Liège 1988, Berlin 1990, Liège 1992, Grenoble 1994, Palma 1995, New York 1997, Vienna 1998). It is expected that this new joint conference will take place every two years. In view of the three sponsoring Working Groups, there were three separate tracks, one per Working Group. Each track was handled by a different co chairman. Specifically, the track of Working Group 6. 2 was handled by Ulf Körner, the track of Working Group 6. 3 was handled by Ioanis Stavrakakis, and the track of Working Group 6. 4 was handled by Serge Fdida. The overall program committee chairman was Harry Perros, and the general conference chairman was Guy Pujolle. A total of 209 papers were submitted to the conference of which 82 were accepted. Each paper was submitted to one of the three tracks.

From a user point of view it is obvious that experience in the 100Mbit/sec range is still very limited and that early efforts of deployment have been sometimes rather painful. But the trend is clear and the stabilization of the standards makes researchers confident in a forthcoming evolution which will follow the pace of the Ethernet deployment ten years ago. Yet even if the 100Mbit/sec range is not yet stabilized, there is much continuing effort in the Gigavit and Terabit ranges, where many research claims have been considered as remote dreams. Included in this conference proceedings, are papers dealing with the 100Mbit/sec range, where the standards and the products are coming, and where the integration begins; and state-of-the-art research in the very high speed range from 1 Gigabit/sec up.