EntNet meeting report

Atlanta June 8th, 1998

The EntNet meeting was held in conjunction with ICC'98. Roberto Saracco chaired the meeting which proceeded according to the previously distributed agenda, as follows:

The following reports the main points of discussion and the action points. Comments on this report shall be sent to Roberto Saracco.


Roll Call

The list of attendee is given in annex 1.

TAC Report - Roberto Saracco

A list of action points resulted from the TAC report. They have been addressed as follows:

Internet 2 support:  it is felt that EntNet is very much interested in Internet 2 since Enterprises are at the edges of the backbone and make use of services. They can both experiment new services and provide ideas and requirements from the business side.
Each TC shall assume a proactive role to initiate and foster technical activities within    Standardisation Working Group: from EntNet side at this moment there is no standard involvment but as this might happen we will work within that standard.

Globecom'99 miniconferences themes have been discussed with the following outcome:

it was felt that an additional miniconference may also be proposed with a theme that would better fit enterprise networking area cosponsoring with some other committee like CNOM, TCII and Communications Software.

Technical Program Report - Stan Moyer

Stan provided an overview of what TPC roles are and it emphases that advanced planning is required. This material will be made available to Ceila for posting it on the Web.

Feedback from the Enterprise Networking Miniconference
The conference was attended by  52 people. The quality of paper was good and the informal climate stimulated discussion.  31 papers from 10 countries were received and 17 accepted. Two panel discussions, one keynote address and 4 paper sessions.
A little bit more of organization may be required, eg. distributing a final list of papers and panels at the beginning of the conference. Participants proposed to have one single track in the next editions.
It was noted that most contributions focused on the lower layers of the enterprise networking without addressing the application layer nor the processing layer. Also attendance reflected this interest. It may be worth considering alternating the conference one year in conjunction with ICC/Supercom and the following one in conjunction with Interop to attract attendees from other areas in the Enterprise Networking domain (upper layers).

Globecom'98
4 papers were assigned to our committee and of these 4, 3 made through the revision process. A session should consist of 7 papers. Some of the papers accepted may be considered as part of Enterprise Networking technical area but have been assigned to other committee.
 
ICC'99
Pradeep is  the TPR.

Globecom'99
According to the new structure of Globecom'99 (Special Interest Topics Symposia + General Conferences) a Symposium (or Mini Conference) has been proposed on "Enterprise Processes, Intranet/Extranet Applications and Technology". The Symposium will have EnterNet Committee as principal sponsor and CNOM, TCII and Communication Software as co-sponsor. Laura Cerchio is the TPR for this Symposium. Algiardas Pakstan is the TPR for the Globecom'99 General Session.

ICC2000
Stan is the TPR.

Globecom2000
To be assigned.


ENCOM'99
it has been agreed that the miniconference will be held attached either to INTEROP or to SUPERCOMM. It is important to have it in conjunction to INTEROP at least each two years to attrack IT people. The new Officers will take care of contacting ComSoc people in order to have the right contacts to talk to INTEROP Organising Committee. INTEROP is held in Las Vegas and SUPERCOMM will be held in Atlanta. As soon as the contact for INTEROP'99 will have been set up, the Call For Papers will be circulated. Bhumip is the Chair and Pradeep is the TPC for ENCOM'99.

1st Conf. on Standardisation and Innovation in IT
being organized by Kai Jakobs of the Technical University of Aachen.

Enterprise Networking Charter
Enterprise Networking was founded to stimulate discussion and cluster competence on Enterprise Business form a technical point of view. This is a very broad area from the physical aspects of the transport infrastructure connecting the various enterprise systems to the applications supporting the enterprise business. As a matter of fact the area is so large that a variety of competency is required and in many cases events like conferences and seminars have involved other Technical Committee.
This is felt to be normal and appropriate, given the breadth of the field, but it is also felt important to focus the charter a bit more to define core competence of the Committee that will be supplemented on occasion by competency of other Committees.
The discussion identified the following focus areas:

It was agreed to ask the new Chair and Technical Program Chair to make a proposal for the revision of the charter and to post it on the web in a discussion area on the EntNet site. This new charter will also be used for the Committee recertification. The formal approval of the charter will be made by e-mail and formally adopted in the next meeting in conjunction with Globecom'98.
It was also proposed to have the new Chair investigating if a new name would better reflect this focus.

New Officer Election

The attendee elected unanimously for the next two year period:

Shri Goyal EntNet Chair
Masayoshi Eijiri EntNet Vice Chair
Laura Cerchio Technical Program Chair
Ray Pradeep Secretary

Shri proposed to identify a Membership Chair with the responsibility of purging the current membership list and of enrolling new members. It was decided to ask all members to re-register through the web site to have an updated mailing list.
Roberto Saracco wished the new officers all the best in forwarding the Enterprise Networking Committee, one of the most crucial area in the evolution towards the Information Society and a bridge between Telecommunications, Computers and the Business world.
He also thanked for the dedication the previous officer and the many who contributed in these two years.

Doug and the attendee joined in the thanks to the previous officers.

Status of Web Site

Three web sites are now active, one in Italy, one in Korea and one in Brazil. A fourth one, in the USA will be activated in the next months. There are two options: using the previous BBN site or using the IEEE site.
The site structure is very similar to the one of the CNOM. Hit frequency is lower than the CNOM but it is expected to increase since we have now a significant amount of material that makes visiting worthwhile.


Any other Business

Status of the proposal on Enterprise Networking Magazine
An Enterprise Networking and Computing (EnCom) Series is about to start in IEEE Network Management. Bhumip and Salah are handling the paper processing (reception, review, submission for publication). One paper has already been reviewed and accepted and 10 papers are in the review process. The plan is to have 2 papers published in every issue and if the backlog becomes significant a separate EnCom magazine may be started.

Call for paper, Computer Communication Journal, Special issue on Enterprise Networking
Guest editors: Mohammed Atiguzzaman and Vijay Bhagavath.

Special issue of JNSM
A special issue of JNSM targeted first quarter 1999 is under processing for Enterprise Networking and Systems Management. Bhumip is taking care of it and has already received 10 papers (4 or 5 slots will be available).

Next Encom Conference may be done in conjunction with InterOp or ICC. Celia or Tom can help in negotiating the organization. Shri will contact them.


ANNEX 1

IEEE Communications Society
Technical Committee on Enterprise Networking
List of Attendees

Salah Aidarous NEC America
Laura Cerchio CSELT
Enrico Bagnasco CSELT
Masayoshi Ejiri Fujitsu
Shri Goyal GTE Labs
James Hong Postech
Bhumip Khasnabish GTE Labs
Stan Moyer Bellcore
Algirdas Pakstas University of Sunderland
Pradeep Ray UWS
Roberto Saracco CSELT
Doug Zuckerman Bellcore