CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by April Marine/NASA NAIC

Minutes of the Network Information Services Infrastructure Working Group
(NISI)

Thanks, once again, to Marsha Perrott for providing her notes.  These
minutes follow the agenda items.


Review of Where We Are

The group agreed they were in Houston.

Actually, for benefit of newbies, of which there were several, the group
reviewed the Amsterdam meeting (since even several oldbies had trouble
making that one!).  The discussion primarily centered on how the group
got into writing its current document.  It was mentioned how in
Amsterdam there was agreement to split the one diagram illustrating NIC
relationships into three views:  US-centric; AP-centric; Euro-centric.


Review ``Regional'' NIC Diagrams

Does the group agree on these?  Discussion was defered.


Plan Final Touches on Relationships Document

The diagrams David Conrad from APNIC had shared were shown.  Much
discussion *again* on the problems with diagraming (even though the
scope of what the group was trying to picture had been narrowed).  It
was agreed to punt the diagrams and just go with short descriptions on
the types of NICs that exist.  A registration hierarchy diagram will be
included, and more a more complete discussion on the relationship and
distinctions between registration services and information services
within a NIC will take place.  It is possible that a diagram for Europe
will be included (but that remains to be seen).

April will try to come up with this with input from the list.  Debbie
Hamilton, David Conrad, and Scott Paisley will help review.


Discuss Need/Plan to Update RFC 1302/FYI 12

There was basic agreement that this document, ``Building a Network
Information Services Infrastructure,'' should be updated.  Specific
volunteers were April, Debbie, and Dave Livingston.  It is not clear
that a date was put on this, but the Chair would like to be pretty far
along by the March IETF in Seattle.


Summarize Next Steps and Action Items

   o Finish NICs document by Seattle (April, Debbie, David Conrad)
   o Start update of RFC 1302 by Seattle (April, Debbie, Dave
     Livingston)


NISI Scope/Liaison Discussion

This was the fun part.  Basically, it seems like for the last few
sessions, NISI has been operating on more of a ``top down'' approach
than a grassroots ``bottom up'' approach, and that is not the IETF way.
So, the new attendees were asked what they had expected when they walked
in, and what had not been talked about that they felt were issues for
which they wanted a forum.  This was all by way of scoping out what
NISI, as a forum for NICs, was best suited for.  One idea has been to
fold NISI and start up another working group whenever the surge seems to
warrant it.

Here are some of the types of things people mentioned they were looking
for:


   o Role models of ``good'' NICs including:

      -  Guidelines for how to put things online
      -  How to set services up in a unified way

   o Methods of collecting and disseminating information

   o A list of NIC addresses and contact information and ideas of what
     they had online

   o More action on the NIC Forum list

   o Guidelines for setting up registration services at a NIC

   o Methods of measuring quality of service (except evidently that term
     can't be used for some political reason :-)

   o Cooperating to maintain the information mesh


Some of these ideas are being worked.  The NIC Profiles (registry of
NICs) idea came up again, so some discussion was had on how to best keep
that up to date and make it more accessible.  The InterNIC has had some
ideas on how to collect and offer this information.  Susan Calcari, Pat
Smith, and Glenn Mansfield are talking about how to best offer this
information, and, if done via X.500, how to get schema registered and
recognized.

Jill Foster described how the EuroGopher folks (who are now handling
more than just gopher issues) are working to distributed information
services within Europe (as a point re:  the last bullet above).

It was a good discussion, but no particular item blazed forth as the
obvious thing for NISI.


AOB

Susan Calcari described the upcoming (now gone :-) NICFest.  She
mentioned that there are currently several forums for NIC-types, none of
which gets everyone, so there is a need to make sure the forums somehow
work together (a la Joyce and Jill keeping each other informed on
similar IETF and RARE ISUS activities).


Attendees

Farhad Anklesaria        fxa@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Sepideh Boroumand        sepi@aol.com
Susan Calcari            calcaris@internic.net
Hallie Carlson           hallie@nsipo.arc.nasa.gov
John Chang               jrc@uswest.com
David Conrad             davidc@iij.ad.jp
Ann Cooper               cooper@isi.edu
Sallie Fellows           sallie@ed.unh.edu
Jill Foster              Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk
Judith Grass             grass@cnri.reston.va.us
Deborah Hamilton         debbieh@internic.net
Ellen Hoffman            ellen@merit.edu
Barbara Jennings         bjjenni@sandia.gov
Brendan Kehoe            brendan@zen.org
Ben Levy                 seven@ftp.com
Dave Livingston          squirrel@vnet.net
Gary Malkin              gmalkin@xylogics.com
Glenn Mansfield          glenn@aic.co.jp
April Marine             april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov
Scott Paisley            paisley@central.bldrdoc.gov
Marsha Perrott           perrott@prep.net
Joyce K. Reynolds        jkrey@isi.edu
Patricia Smith           psmith@merit.edu