Abstract
This paper presents the vision of GENI as first formulated at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in early 2004 and expanded during 2004–2007, identifies what forces shaped the basic idea during its formation, and comments on where it may go in the future. The paper describes motivations, concepts, and history—not technical details—that were in play between 2004 and 2007 as the GENI Project was being formulated and launched, and that continue today. Understanding the original vision and goals, basic ideas, and motivations of the GENI Project; the context in which it emerged; and the forces that shaped the Project will enable you to understand better the technical details and changes that occur in the future. I end with some comments about possible futures for GENI.
© Peter A. Freeman, 2015.
The name ‘GENI’ wasn’t created until over a year after the effort started at NSF—we initially called it “CIRI—Clean-slate Internet Re-Invention Initiative.” A second version was “GEENI—Global Experimental Environment for Networking Investigations.” The name was shortened to GENI in mid-2005 and today it is mostly an unexpanded acronym standing for Global Environment for Networking Innovations.
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Notes
- 1.
The GENI Research Program was not launched until 2010, in the form of the Future Internet Architecture (FIA) solicitation from NSF. http://www.nets-fia.net/.
- 2.
The GENI Initiative, NSF announcement distributed at SIGCOMM 2005 on August 25, 2009.
- 3.
This is funding distinct from the research funds controlled by individual NSF directorates, and is used for projects whose initial cost would be a substantial proportion of a directorate’s annual budget.
- 4.
The “Gang of Four” consisted of Tom Anderson (Univ. of Washington), Larry Peterson (Princeton), Scott Shenker (Berkeley), and Jon Turner (Washington University). Parulkar had been a professor at Washington University and successful entrepreneur. At the time he was a program director at NSF and we often referred internally to the “Gang of Four Plus One” since he contributed his own ideas as well.
- 5.
A decade later we still don’t have robust security on the Internet, for example.
- 6.
Notably, at a meeting in mid-2005, a group of very senior networking pioneers reviewed our plans as of that date and, while some expressed strong support (“Just do it!” said one), some expressed deep reservations about attempting the Project at all (“The Internet has evolved well so far without this!”).
- 7.
Guided by Larry Landweber, Senior Advisor to the AD. Larry was also instrumental in helping motivate and involve a broad swath of the networking community here and abroad in the GENI Project.
- 8.
Computing Community Consortium (CCC): Defining the Large-Scale Infrastructure Needs of the Computing Research Community, NSF Solicitation 06-551, http://1.usa.gov/1IOdAQq.
- 9.
Global Environment for Networking Innovations (GENI): Establishing the GENI Project Office (GPO) (GENI/GPO). NSF Solicitation 06-601, http://1.usa.gov/1TJQKdi.
- 10.
There have been studies of GENI, however, for example: Kirsch, Laurie J. and Slaughter, Sandra A., “Managing the unmanageable: How IS research can contribute to the scholarship of cyber projects.” Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 14 (2013), No. 4, p. 198–214.
- 11.
We attempted to engage DARPA, DoE Office of Science, and other agencies in a broad GENI effort. Unfortunately, we were not successful in that effort.
Acknowledgements
I have already acknowledged that without the networking community there would be no GENI. My colleagues at NSF, principally Guru Parulkar, Deborah Crawford, and Larry Landweber, deserve a very large amount of credit for bringing GENI into existence. In addition, their comments on this paper and an earlier, longer version have been very helpful. The editors of this volume have also contributed useful suggestions on the paper.
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Freeman, P.A. (2016). The GENI Vision: Origins, Early History, Possible Futures. In: McGeer, R., Berman, M., Elliott, C., Ricci, R. (eds) The GENI Book. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33769-2_1
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