RFC 1167 (rfc1167) - Page 3 of 8
Thoughts on the National Research and Education Network
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1167 NREN July 1990
application level gateways are two possibilities).
8. Provision must be made for experimental research in networking to
support the continued technical evolution of the system. The NREN
can no more be a static, rigid system than the Internet has been
since its inception. Interconnection of experimental facilities with
the operational NREN must be supported.
9. The architecture must accommodate the use of commercial services,
private and Government-sponsored networks in the NREN system.
Apart from the considerations listed above, it is also helpful to
consider the constituencies and stakeholders who have a role to play
in the use of, provision of and evolution of NREN services. Their
interests will affect the architecture of the NREN and the course of
its creation and evolution.
NREN CONSTITUENTS
The Users
Extrapolating from the present Internet, the users of the system
will be diverse. By legislative intent, it will include colleges
and universities, government research organizations (e.g.,
research laboratories of the Departments of Defense, Energy,
Health and Human Services, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration), non-profit and for-profit research and
development organizations, federally funded research and
development centers (FFRDCs), R&D activities of private
enterprise, library facilities of all kinds, and primary and
secondary schools. The system is not intended to be discipline-
specific.
It is critical to recognize that even in the present Internet, it
has been possible to accommodate a remarkable amalgam of private
enterprise, academic institutions, government and military
facilities. Indeed, the very ability to accept such a diverse
constituency turns on the increasing freedom of the so-called
intermediate-level networks to accept an unrestricted set of
users. The growth in the size and diversity of Internet users, if
it can be said to have been constrained at all, has been limited
in part by usage constraints placed on the federally-sponsored
national agency networks (e.g., NSFNET, NASA Science Internet,
Energy Sciences Net, High Energy Physics Net, the recently
deceased ARPANET, Defense Research Internet, etc.). Given the
purposes of these networks and the fiduciary responsibilities of
the agencies that have created them, such usage constraints seem
highly appropriate. It may be beneficial to search for less
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