minutes of the meeting held June 1/2, 1989

issued by

The secretariat

June 14, 1989

 

——————————————————————–

 

EARN Board of Directors members are invited to submit corrections to the

attached minutes after which they will be published. The dead line for

comment is July 29, 1989.

 

PLACE:  Capsis Beach Hotel, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

 

EARN DIRECTORS:  Pedro Amorim, Portugal

Kurt Bauknecht, Switzerland

Paul Bryant, U.K., EARN General Secretary

Miguel Angel Campos, Spain

Avi Cohen, Israel, EARN Executive

Jean-Loic Delhaye, France (deputy)

Mohamed Elkotb, Egypt

Frode Greisen, Denmark, EARN President

Michael Hebgen, Germany, EARN Vice President

Matti Ihammotila, Finland

Dennis Jennings, Ireland, EARN Executive

Petter Kongshaug, Norway

Oguz Manas, Turkey

Olivier Martin, CERN (deputy)

Wilfried Maschtera, Austria (deputy)

Kees Neggers, Netherlands

Jean Nuyens, Belgium

Stelios Orphanoudakis, Greece

Jagos Puric, Yugoslavia

Arne Sundstrom, Sweden

Stefano Trumpy, Italy, EARN Executive

 

EARN STAFF:      Alain Auroux, Manager, Paris Office

Jerry Striplin, (DEC) Manager, EARN OSI operations                  centre

 

OBSERVERS:       Jose Barbera, IRIS, Spain

Herb Budd, IBM (Europe)

Harry Clasper, IBM (Europe)

Bob Cooper, JANET

Dominique Desbois, Ivory Coast

Rene Florizoone, Belgium

Torgny Hallenmark, Sweden

Odd Jorgensen, Digital (Europe)

Hans Wallberg, Sweden

Martin Wilhelm, DFN

Knut Winsnes, Norway (deputy)

 

ABSENT:          Iceland and Luxembourg

 

 

21.1 Welcome

 

Representatives of the new members Egypt and Yugoslavia were welcomed.

 

The observers were welcomed.

 

The President thanked Stelios Orphanoudakis and his staff for organising the Board meeting and for their hospitality throughout EARN89, the Executive meeting, and Technical Forum. The beautiful site and the excellent domestic arrangements were also acknowleged.

 

A revised agenda and additional papers were circulated.

 

 

21.2 Minutes of last meeting and matters arising

 

 

21.2.1 The minutes of meeting 20 – BOD1 88 – were approved

 

 

21.2.1 Review of actions from meeting 20

 

All actions have been completed or were taken up in the papers or in the appropriate sections of the minutes.

 

Noted – inconclusive discussions had been held with BITNET on sharing the cost of the trans-Atlantic link and these are continuing.

 

Noted – the BITNET charter had not been circulated as no document with the intended contents had been located.

 

 

21.3 Presidents report                                 F Greisen

 

Noted – the presidents report – BOD2 89

 

 

21.4 Operations                                          M Hebgen

 

 

21.4.1 Operations report

 

Noted – the report on operations – BOD3 89

 

Noted – a verbal report of the Network Operation Group including-

 

-Turgut Kalfaoglu from Ege University in Turkey is now employed by EARN and will, amongst other tasks, manage LISTSERV. He is supported by a team of volunteers. Discussions are being held with BITNET on LISTSERV to ensure inter-operability.

 

-Some Directives are not being respected for technical reasons and solution are being sought.

 

 

21.4.2 EARN statistics

 

Noted – an example of some EARN statistics – BOD24 89

 

 

21.4.3 The use of SNA

 

Noted – the setting up of the SNA group – BOD4 89

 

Noted – the current policy is for all requests for SNA point to point connections and for circuits between non adjacent notes to be decided by the Executive pending the report from the SNA group. This is as a result of the ‘Management of Change’ paper and resolution at Board of Directors meeting 20. Currently only one circuit exists between non adjacent node namely Bonn to CUNY.

 

 

21.4.4 Statistics directive

 

Resolved – to accept BOD26 89 subject to rewording to align with the document on ‘Directives and recommendations’. This will be published as BOD33 89.

 

Noted – statistics are currently collected for topology and traffic overloading purposes but in the future they may be used for determining part of a country’s financial contribution. There will be a continuing program of developing the presentation of statistics. The effect of servers of traffic will be examined.

 

 

21.5 Development                                         D Jennings

 

 

21.5.1 Transition progress

 

Noted – the OSI transition progress report BOD6 89

 

Resolved – the Executive be instructed to produce a draft plan by September 14, 1989 for the transition of the network to use OSI protocols. The plan is to include comments on:-

 

-user needs

-continuity of service

-co-operation with other organisations

-implications of IXI

-cost implications and funding

-uncertainties

-time scale predictions

-the use of non OSI protocols.

 

The plan should be flexible and include options to take account of possible changes in circumstances.

 

The plan will be circulated to the Board for comment and a revised plan will be brought to the Autumn Board meeting.

 

 

21.6 Liaison reports                                     F Greisen

 

Noted – the liaison reports – BOD7 89.

 

 

21.7 Finance                                             J C Ippolito

 

 

21.7.1 Accounts 1988

 

Resolved – to approve the statement of accounts for 1988 – BOD8 89

 

 

21.7.2 Accounts 1989

 

Resolved – to approve the update of the EARN 1989 budget – BOD5 89. Note that as a result of subsequent resolutions the EARN 1989 budget will be further revised to reduce item 5.6.2 (Second US line) from 58 KECU to zero and thus increase item 7 (contingency fund) by 58 KECU to 148 KECU.

 

Noted – the statement of accounts for 1989 to date – BOD9 89

Noted – the payments made to date – BOD23 89 and BOD25 89

 

Resolved – to instruct the Executive to bring proposals to the Board on how to deal with late payment or non-payment on country contributions. This will deal with dis-connection procedures, any subsequent line cancellation problems, penalties for late payment, or discounts for early payments.

 

Noted – the EARN Association is not responsible for expenditure which is outside its control such as lines between countries apart from the trans-Atlantic line and the part payment for some lines used in the transition.

 

Noted – the cost of international leased lines – BOD22 89. All lines are 9.6K except for the German 64K line. The Iceland line does not exist. The national part of the Yugoslavia line is an over-estimate. The German and Belgium lines also attract a volume charge.

 

 

21.7.3 Funding model for 1990

 

Resolved – the draft funding model for 1990 – BOD27 89 was adopted subject to agreed clarified wording and is re-published as BOD28 89.

 

Resolved – the Executive is instructed to provide recommendations on “server compensation”, that is how traffic from LISTSERV, NETSERV, file servers, gateways, and other supra-national services should be accounted.

 

Resolved – the Executive is instructed to work towards applying keys derived from traffic figures instead of GNP for 1991. The Executive is instructed to provide a report on the application of traffic keys to the 1991 contributions using such traffic figures which are available and draft server compensation proposals to the Autumn meeting.

 

Noted – BOD10 89 which gives example contributions for 1990 assuming the draft budget is accepted.

 

 

21.7.4 Budget 1990 and five year forward look

 

Noted – the draft 1990 budget and five year forward look – BOD11 89 was understood.

 

Resolved – the Executive is instructed to revise the 1990 budget to:-

 

-remove funding for the second trans-Atlantic line

-take account of the increased 1989 surplus by the absence of a second trans-Atlantic line

-reconsider the size of the contingency fund.

-append further explanations of the benefits of each item

-issue by July 1, 1989

 

Members are expected to respond to the revised budget by August 1, 1989.

 

Resolved – the Executive is instructed to investigate options for further and back-up trans-Atlantic capacity.

 

 

21.8 Users                                               S Trumpy

 

 

21.8.1 Reorganisation of EARN technical work

 

Resolved – the reorganisation of EARN technical work – BOD12 89 – was approved with minor amendments and is re-published as BOD31 89.

 

 

21.8.2 Services

 

Resolved – the report that technical experts are preparing on the use of EARN’s current services should be considered at the next Board Meeting.

 

 

21.8.3 EARN 90

 

Noted – EARN 89 had been attended by 250-300 people and was very successful.

 

Resolved – to ask Dennis Jennings to investigate the possibility of linking EARN 90 with RARE Networkshop in Ireland which is scheduled for May 14/15/16, 1990. If this proves impracticable then Stephano Trumpy will be asked to investigate holding EARN 90 in Pisa.

 

 

21.8.4 EARN Technical Meeting

 

Noted – the verbal report on the Technical Meeting points raised were:

 

– an IP Special Interest Group should be established with a view to establishing a Project Group.

– a close co-operation should be kept with RARE working groups and EARN should not set up competing groups.

– the Technical Forum should meet at least once a year.

– there is concern on the generally poor level of information services.

 

Resolved – the Executive is instructed to draw up terms of reference for a Permanent Group dedicated to user support activities to be submitted to the Board of Directors for approval.

 

Resolved – the Executive is encouraged to set up a Project Group to investigate new services in particular a document describing the idea of EARN Grand will be provided.

 

 

21.9 Policy                                              A Cohen

 

 

21.9.1 New members

 

Resolved – to approve as per BOD15 89:

 

– the Country Membership of Jordan

– the Co-operating Country Membership of Pakistan

– the Associate membership of Pergamon Press

– the Associate Membership of British Telecom Laboratories.

 

Resolved – a recent application from Syria to join EARN as a country member was presented and unanimously accepted.

 

 

21.9.1 New applications particularly from Eastern Europe

 

Noted – the Executive were advised on new applications from East European counties and the resultant Executive actions – BOD16 89.

 

 

21.9.2 Charter

 

Noted – the new charter, BOD17 89, with corrections. A corrected version is published as BOD30 89.

Resolved – as Board Members will be responsible for Associate Membership decisions in future the Executive is instructed to provide a form for this purpose.

 

 

21.9.3 Code of conduct

 

Noted – the new code of conduct – BOD18 89

 

21.10 Information/communications                         P Bryant

 

 

21.10.1 General Secretary’s report

 

Noted – the General Secretary’s report – BOD19 89

 

21.10.2 Annual report

 

Resolved – the plans for the annual report – BOD20 89 – were approved with some changes and will be republished as BOD33 89.

 

 

21.10.3 EARN statutes

 

Noted – the new translation of the EARN Statutes – BOD21 89. Due to the French character set the electronic version will only contain the English version and the complete French and English side by side version is available from Paul Bryant.

 

 

21.11 Date of the next Board of Directors meeting

 

October 18/19, 1989 in Portugal. The deadline for agenda items and papers is October 4, 1989. Additional items and papers will only be accepted in exceptional circumstances at the discretion of the President.