[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 5 (Friday, January 8, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1184-1185]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-390]
[[Page 1184]]
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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Office of Science
Office of Science Financial Assistance Program Notice 99-09; Next
Generation Internet--Applications, Network Technology, and Network
Testbed Partnerships
AGENCY: Department of Energy.
ACTION: Notice inviting research grant applications.
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SUMMARY: The Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (OASCR)
of the Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), hereby
announces its interest in receiving applications for the Next
Generation Internet--Applications, Network Technology, and Network
Testbed Partnerships program. The Next Generation Internet (NGI) is a
multi-agency federal research and development program to develop, test,
and demonstrate advanced networking technologies and applications. This
particular research notice invites research applications for
Applications, Network Technology, and Network Testbed Partnerships to
focus on integrating advanced applications with leading edge network
research to test wide area data intensive collaborative computing
technologies through partnerships between the developers of
applications and network researchers.
DATES: Applicants are encouraged to submit a brief preapplication. All
preapplications, referencing Program Notice 99-09, should be received
by DOE by 4:30 P.M., E.S.T., February 12, 1999. A response to the
preapplications discussing the potential program relevance and
encouraging or discouraging a formal application generally will be
communicated within several days of receipt.
Formal applications submitted in response to this notice must be
received by 4:30 P.M., E.S.T., March 31, 1999, in order to be accepted
for merit review and to permit timely consideration for award in fiscal
year 1999.
ADDRESSES: Preapplications, referencing Program Notice 99-09, should be
sent by E-mail to scott@er.doe.gov.
Formal applications, referencing Program Notice 99-09, should be
sent to: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Grants and
Contracts Division, SC-64, 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874-
1290, ATTN: Program Notice 99-09. This address must also be used when
submitting applications by U.S. Postal Service Express Mail, any other
commercial overnight delivery service, or when hand-carried by the
applicant. An original and seven copies of the application must be
submitted.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mary Anne Scott, Office of Science,
U.S. Department of Energy, 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874-
1290, telephone: (301) 903-6368, E-mail: scott@er.doe.gov, fax: (301)
903-7774. The full text of Program Notice 99-09 is available via the
Internet using the following web site address: http://www.er.doe.gov/
production/grants/grants.html
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The NGI initiative is a multi-agency Federal
research and development (R&D) program that is developing advanced
networking technologies, developing revolutionary applications that
require advanced networking, and demonstrating these capabilities on
testbeds that are 100 to 1,000 times faster end-to-end than today's
Internet. Partnerships among academia, industry, and governments
(Federal, state, local, and foreign) that will keep the U.S. at the
cutting-edge of information and communications technologies are
encouraged. (Details on submitting applications involving partnerships
can be found in the Application Guide for the Office of Science
Financial Assistance Program referenced below). The strategic R&D
investments are coordinated across the agencies involved and are
focused to produce an environment where advanced networking R&D
breakthroughs are possible. Information concerning NGI can be found at
http://www.ngi.gov/.
Topic Details
DOE's current core programs in network and application research are
intended to enhance the Department's ability to satisfy mission
requirements through advanced technologies such as distributed
computing, national collaboratories, remote access to facilities, and
remote access to petabyte-scale datasets with complex internal
structure. The DOE NGI Applications, Network Technology and Network
Testbed Partnerships research will focus on integrating advanced
applications with leading edge network research to test wide area data
intensive and collaborative computing technologies. The objective of
this research is to enable more efficient and smarter use of network
resources, as well as to support higher speeds (that is, end-to-end
capacity).
The DOE encourages the submission of applications for Applications,
Network Technology and Network Testbed Partnerships to address the
issues and challenges required to create persistent wide area data
intensive and collaborative computing testbed networks. These
partnerships should combine the efforts of applications programmers,
middleware developers, and network researchers to create persistent
testbed networks that can support the diverse set of DOE mission
critical applications described below.
The important issues for applications programmers are:
Support for advanced applications that address the needs
of the DOE community including, but not limited to, distributed
visualization of large data sets, remote access to Petabyte scale data
archives of high energy physics experiments, and distributed
collaborations to study functional genomics.
Definition of what network services (e.g., bandwidth,
latency, QoS) are required.
Definition of what middleware services are required to
permit these applications to effectively run over wide area networks.
The important issues for the middleware developers are:
Provide a rich set of features that applications can
select and use to obtain the level of service they need to operate.
Define the features and the API's necessary to allow the
application and middleware to communicate.
Define the specific network service calls that properly
provision the underlying network for the applications needs.
Tight integration of the middleware API's with the
applications and also the physical services provided by the network
layer.
The important issues for the network researchers are:
Integration of SAN, LAN, MAN, and WAN technologies to
create distributed collaboratories.
High performance network interfaces for super-computers to
enable Gbps data rates between communicating applications.
Management and control of network components (e.g.,
routers, switches, WDM's) to dynamically change network configurations
in reasonable time frames (minutes to hours).
Integration of Differentiated Services, or other Quality
of Service functions, into wide area networks.
Integration of these new technologies into the existing
production networks as rapidly as possible without compromising the
existing production network services.
Running advanced applications over leading edge networks in a
persistent manner requires research and
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development in many areas. It also requires the joint efforts of
applications programmers, middleware developers, and network
researchers to create persistent testbed networks that can support the
diverse set of goals described above. This program notice seeks joint
applications from these three communities to form partnerships to
address the issues and challenges required to create these persistent
wide area data intensive and collaborative computing testbed networks.
Software tools developed are expected to interoperate with existing
middleware tools as well as those under development.
Program Funding
It is anticipated that up to $4 million will be available for
multiple awards to be made in FY 1999 in the categories described
above, contingent on the availability of appropriated funds.
Applications may request project support up to three years, with out-
year support contingent on the availability of funds, progress of the
research, and programmatic needs. Annual budgets are expected to range
from $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 total costs.
Preapplications
A brief preapplication may be submitted. The preapplication should
identify on the cover sheet the institution, Principal Investigator
name, address, telephone, fax and E-mail address, title of the project,
and the field of scientific research. The preapplication should consist
of a two to three page narrative describing the research project
objectives and methods of accomplishment. These will be reviewed
relative to the scope and research needs of the Next Generation
Internet--University Network Technology Testbeds Program.
Preapplications are strongly encouraged but not required prior to
submission of a full application. Please note that notification of a
successful preapplication is not an indication that an award will be
made in response to the formal application.
Applications will be subjected to scientific merit review (peer
review) and will be evaluated against the following evaluation criteria
listed in descending order of importance as codified at 10 CFR
605.10(d):
1. Scientific and/or Technical Merit of the Project,
2. Appropriateness of the Proposed Method or Approach,
3. Competency of Applicant's Personnel and Adequacy of Proposed
Resources,
4. Reasonableness and Appropriateness of the Proposed Budget.
The evaluation will include program policy factors such as the
relevance of the proposed research to the terms of the announcement and
an agency's programmatic needs. Note, external peer reviewers are
selected with regard to both their scientific expertise and the absence
of conflict-of-interest issues. Non-federal reviewers may be used, and
submission of an application constitutes agreement that this is
acceptable to the investigator(s) and the submitting institution.
Information about the development and submission of applications,
eligibility, limitations, evaluation, selection process, and other
policies and procedures may be found in 10 CFR Part 605, and in the
Application Guide for the Office of Science Financial Assistance
Program. Electronic access to the Guide and required forms is made
available via the World Wide Web at: http://www.er.doe.gov/production/
grants/grants.html. The Project Description must be 20 pages or less,
exclusive of attachments. The application must contain an abstract or
project summary, letters of intent from collaborators, and short
vitaes.
(The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number for this program
is 81.049, and the solicitation control number is ERFAP 10 CFR Part
605.)
Issued in Washington, DC on December 22, 1998.
John Rodney Clark,
Associate Director of Science for Resource Management.
[FR Doc. 99-390 Filed 1-7-99; 8:45 am]
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