US computer research networks: Domestic and international telecommunications capacity requirements

The future telecommunications capacity and connectivity requirements of the United States (US) research and development (R&D) community raise two concerns. First, would there be adequate privately-owned communications capacity to meet the ever-increasing requirements of the US R&D community for domestic and international connectivity? Second, is the method of piecemeal implementation of communications facilities by individual researchers cost effective when viewed from an integrated perspective? To address the capacity issue, Contel recently completed a study for NASA identifying the current domestic R&D telecommunications capacity and connectivity requirements, and projecting the same to the years 1991, 1996, 2000, and 2010. The work reported here extends the scope of an earlier study by factoring in the impact of international connectivity requirements on capacity and connectivity forecasts. Most researchers in foreign countries, as is the case with US researchers, rely on regional, national or continent-wide networks to collaborate with each other, and their US counterparts. The US researchers' international connectivity requirements, therefore, stem from the need to link the US domestic research networks to foreign research networks. The number of links and, more importantly, the speeds of links are invariably determined by the characteristics of the networks being linked. The major thrust of this study, therefore, was to identify and characterize the foreign research networks, to quantify the current status of their connectivity to the US networks, and to project growth in the connectivity requirements to years 1991, 1996, 2000, and 2010 so that a composite picture of the US research networks in the same years could be forecasted. The current (1990) US integrated research network, and its connectivity to foreign research networks is shown. As an example of projections, the same for the year 2010 is shown

The Preservation of Digital Objects in German Repositories: Die Archivierung digitaler Objekte in deutschenRepositorien: Drei Fallstudien: Three Case Studies

Taking its cue from the increasing amount of digital content deposited into institutional and subject repositories as well as the open question of repositories'' role in long-term preservation, this study presents case studies of three German institutional and subject repositories all of which are in a different stage of establishing a (cooperative) framework for the long-term preservation of their digital collections. Drawing on different sets of criteria for trustworthy repositories, it is investigated which strategies the selected repositories pursue to preserve the digital assets in their collections, and how these strategies are implemented with the help of both human repository staff and the repository software used. The following repositories are considered: pedocs (Deutsches Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung), JUWEL (Forschungszentrum Jülich), and Qucosa (SLUB Dresden). In that the latter can be regarded as examples for common types of (German) repositories, the results of this study might on the one hand serve as a guideline for repositories that intend, similar to the ones described here, to explore questions of long-term preservation in the near future, or are even taking their first concrete steps in this field. On the other hand, it is hoped that this work can at least give some hints as to the stage and status of long-term preservation in the German repository landscape

Eine Methode zur Spezifikation der IT-Service-Managementprozesse Verketteter Dienste

Die steigende Komplexität von IT-Diensten führt zu neuen Herausforderungen im IT-Service-Management(ITSM). Aufgrund von neuartigen SourcingModellen, Trends wie eBusiness oder auch regulatorischen Vorgaben wächst zunehmend die Notwendigkeit, aber auch die Gelegenheit für eine partnerschaftliche Kollaboration zwischen IT Providern. Jenseits des hierarchischen Modells in der Zusammenarbeit von IT Providern, bei dem ein fokaler Provider eine Reihe von weiteren Dienstleistern mit der Erbringung von Basisdiensten beauftragt, gewinnen alternative Formen der Kooperation an Bedeutung. Die Gewährleistung einer definierten Ende-zu-Ende Dienstqualität ist dabei eine der wichtigsten Herausforderungen. Die Zusammenarbeit von IT Providern erfordert die Spezifikation von interorganisationalen Betriebsprozessen. Die etablierten ITSM Frameworks adressieren jedoch alternative Formen der Diensterbringung nicht; so bleiben kooperierende IT Provider bei der Definition von interorganisationalen ITSMProzessen als Basis ihrer Zusammenarbeit weitgehend auf sich alleine gestellt. Um auf die spezifischen Herausforderungen von Szenarien eingehen zu können, die von den etablierten ITSM Frameworks nicht abgedeckt werden, fokussiert diese Arbeit auf die Dienstklasse der Verketteten Dienste, das sind providerübergreifende, horizontale Dienstketten auf der gleichen funktionalen Schicht. Im Unterschied zu klassischen Szenarien der kooperativen Erbringung von ITDiensten, wie z.B. IP Peering im Internet, wird für Verkettete Dienste eine definierte Dienstqualität und ein serviceorientiertes Management gefordert. Der erste Teil der Arbeit leistet auf der Basis einer Untersuchung realer Szenarien eine eingehende Analyse der ManagementHerausforderungen und der spezifischen Anforderungen für die Prozessdefinition Verketteter Dienste. Zur Kategorisierung der vielfältigen Formen der Zusammenarbeit von Providern wird ein Raster von Koordinationsmustern definiert. Die Betrachtung des Status Quo zeigt, dass, obwohl eine Reihe von Vorarbeiten in den Disziplinen des IT-Service-Managements sowie der Informations- und Prozessmodellierung vorliegt, die Anwendung von universellen Modellierungssprachen auf interorganisationale ITSMProzesse derzeit kaum abgedeckt wird. Im Hauptteil der Arbeit wird dazu die neue Methode ITSMCooP (ITSM Processes for Cooperating Providers) eingeführt. Aufbauend auf der Prozessmodellierungssprache BPMN und dem Shared Information/Data Model (SDI) des TeleManagement-Forums, besteht die Methode aus einer Sammlung von Modellierungskonventionen und Empfehlungen, die alle relevanten Aspekte der Modellierung von interorganisationalen Prozessen abdecken. Die Erstellung von Informations- und Prozessmodellen wird geleitet von einer Vorgehensweise zur Prozessdefinition, die sowohl Referenzprozesse der ITSM Frameworks als auch die spezifischen Koordinationsmuster Verketteter Dienste berücksichtigt. Die Arbeit wird abgerundet durch die Anwendung der Methode ITSMCooP auf ein reales, komplexes Szenario.The growing complexity of IT services poses new challenges to IT Service Management (ITSM). The issue of end-to-endservice quality challenges service providers, as most services are no longer realized standalone by a single provider but composed of multiple building blocks supplied by several providers. In the past, relationships between service providers were organised according to a hierarchical model: a service provider offers services to his customers and relies on a set of underpinning services delivered by subproviders to realize these services. In their current releases, both the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) stress that due to new sourcing strategies, market trends like ebusiness or regulatory policies new necessities and also opportunities for collaboration between service providers arise. Beyond the hierarchical model, alternative forms of provider cooperation gain importance, where multiple providers aim to coprovide services jointly and have to coordinate their activities on an equal footing. The specification of interorganisational processes is a precondition for delivering advanced services in a cooperation of IT service providers. However, the existing ITSM frameworks fail to provide reference processes for scenarios beyond hierarchy. IT providers are left in the lurch with the nontrivial task of defining concise, yet unambigious specifications of interorganisational ITSM processes as a basis for their cooperation. In order to be able to concentrate on the challenges of interorganizational ITSM scenarios not covered by existing frameworks, this thesis is focused on the so-called class of Concatenated Services, i.e. services provided as a sequence of partial services at the same technical layer by a set of independent providers. In contrast to wellknown scenarios, like IP Peering and Transit between Autonomous Systems in the Internet, Concatenated Services are offered with tight end-to-end service quality guarantees and managed according to the best practices of service orientation. In the first part of the thesis, a thorough analysis of management challenges based on real scenarios is given and specific requirements for the definition of ITSM processes for Concatenated Services are derived which are used for a review of related work. The concept of Coordination Patterns is introduced as a means of categorisation of the numerous types of provider cooperation. Even though quite a lot of research has been performed in the areas of ITSM on the one hand and on information and process modelling languages on the other hand, the application of general-purpose languages on the definition of interorganisational ITSM processes is barely covered. To address this issue, the new method ITSMCooP (ITSM Processes for Cooperating Providers) is presented in the main part. Based on the process modelling language BPMN and the Shared Information/Data Model (SID), the method consists of a collection of modeling conventions and recommendations, covering all relevant aspects in the the specfication of interorganisational processes. A top-down modeling procedure guides the utilisation of ITSMCooP, considering the incorporation of both reference processes from ITSM frameworks and Coordination Patterns. The thesis concludes with an application of ITSMCooP to a complex scenario

Global opportunity and national political economy: The development of internet ventures in Germany.

In the late 1990s, the internet was heralded as a global opportunity for new ventures. One aspect of this opportunity was the innovation of including small firms and consumers in seamless 'business webs.' The second aspect was the distance insensitivity and internationality of the internet. New ventures appeared in different countries responding to this seemingly global opportunity. In Germany, this response appeared especially strong against the background of years of slow development of the domestic information technology (IT) sector. This thesis examines the role of national government policy in a world being transformed by technology. 'Network thinkers,' following Schumpeter's concept of 'creative destruction,' believed the internet represented a global innovation opportunity. They emphasised the independence and self-governance of globally networked market players, arguing that the territorial basis of national government policy has eroded. The problematique guiding this research effort has emerged from this thinking. Can the concepts associated with network thinking account for the apparently strong entrepreneurial response to the internet in Germany. A detailed study of the development of internet ventures in Germany was carried out to examine this guiding question. The study was supported by quantitative data supplied through a 123-firm survey conducted in the Spring of 1998. This research revealed that the entrepreneurial response in Germany was much weaker than it appeared to contemporary observers. New ventures had to adopt a 'mixed-play' approach which placed them on a less innovative and less international, slower growth trajectory. Two key policy arenas were identified which constrained the development of German internet ventures: (I) The course of telecommunications liberalisation and (2) the initial lack of venture capital. Practitioners have long been aware of the importance of these two determinants for internet development. The main contribution of this thesis has been to add to the understanding of how these two factors have operated in a national environment conditioned by distinctive institutions