The following blog post is from Mark Berman, the GENI Project Director.
Submissions invited by August 24, 2015.
Over the next two years, the NSF’s Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) project will transition from a stage of development and deployment managed by the GENI Project Office (GPO) to a phase of continuing operations and support of research innovations under community governance. During the period from Fall 2015 through Fall 2017, the community – to include academia, industry, and government stakeholders, including NSF – will establish governance, administrative, and operations resources and procedures to meet the following goals:
- Continue and expand GENI’s success as a platform for research and education;
- Identify and recommend research investment opportunities in support of future GENI operations and capabilities; and
- Maximize the contribution of existing cyberinfrastructure, design, and community to future research cyberinfrastructure projects.
The participation and guidance of relevant community members is of vital importance both to steer the ongoing operations and governance of the GENI infrastructure and also to define and focus future research efforts that may build on work from GENI and related cyberinfrastructure research. For example, consider NSF’s current mid-scale investment in NSFFutureCloud (CloudLab, Chameleon) along with recent NSF-funded workshops in mid-scale infrastructure, including NSF workshop on Future Research Infrastructure for the Wireless Edge 2014 (report) and Workshop on the Development of a Next-Generation Cyberinfrastructure (report).
Initial brainstorming sessions to begin the information gathering process were conducted at the 23rd GENI Engineering Conference at UIUC in June. Additional community input, including specific recommendations for action, is now sought. Important questions for community input include, but are not limited to, these:
- What are the key activities that should be continued, initiated, or wound down to meet the community’s goals for GENI?
- What approaches to governance, administration, and finance should be employed?
- What contributions and lessons can the GENI experience and community offer to future research cyberinfrastructure projects?
How to participate: Input is invited from interested individuals and institutions in academia, industry, and government, including both GENI participants and non-participants. Input should be submitted via electronic mail to future@geni.net by August 24, 2015. While there is no specific page limit, brief submissions of fewer than five pages are encouraged. Do not include proprietary information; submissions may be published to the community in verbatim or summary form and used for future planning activities. Please state whether you are interested in participating in a community decision making and planning workshop tentatively planned for December 10-11 in DC and provide contact information for 1-2 candidate participants from your organization.
Background information: These resources may be useful in researching and preparing submissions.
Important note: The information in these timelines and tables represent working drafts and should not be treated as complete or final. Expanding, correcting, and revising these documents are important components of the ongoing planning process.
Planning process strawman timeline (now through fall 2015)
GENI transition strawman timeline (fall 2015 through fall 2017)
GENI current and continuing activities – What should continue, ramp down, or start?
Candidate models for governance, administration, and finance – How should GENI be managed beyond 2017?
The materials above were developed in preparation for the June 2015 brainstorming sessions at GEC23. The purpose of these sessions was solely to expand the potential solution space and invite community participation. Results from these sessions are captured under “Summary/Notes” at this page: GEC23 Future Planning Sessions.
