1989.10.10 WiscNet Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
The meeting was called to order at 10 am in room 1820, Van Hise Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, by Tad Pinkerton, the convener. The attendees of the meeting are listed in an attachment to the minutes.
Action items. The following are items to be acted on before the next meeting.
Each institutional Board Director is requested to forward the name of the technical committee representative for that institution to Mike Dorl of UW-Madison as quickly as possible so that this committee can begin work. The first Technical Committee meeting has been scheduled on November 9 at UW-Oshkosh. An announcement and parking information is being sent to each Board Director to be passed to the technical representative.
UW-Madison is asked to provide an enumeration of their contribution to CICnet and also to create another worksheet that includes UW-Madison as a contributing institution.
Next Meeting: Ripon College, December 12, 1989, from 10am until 2 or 3 pm.
(I) Welcome
The Board was welcomed by UW System President Kenneth A. Shaw.
The attendees introduced themselves, indicating their institution and their particular interest in being involved with WiscNet.
(II) Update on Current Activities
Tad Pinkerton updated the Board on the NSF proposal. The federal budget has not yet been passed, but the proposal currently under discussion would give NSF less than they had requested. The budget is normally passed in the latter part of October; NSF should begin the allocation process sometime in November.
The ILI fund used by NSF for instrumental laboratory equipment could be a possible resource for the acquisition of routers and other equipment. NSF wants to add 4-8 additional nodes to the NSFnet backbone. UW-Madison has submitted a proposal to be one of these nodes. Linking directly to the backbone is viewed to be advantageous because there will be increased bandwidth and because there is more path duplication than is provided by CICnet. Thus, WiscNet would have improved access to NSFnet.
An RFQ for the network routers was prepared and issued. Responses to the RFQ pointed out an error or ambiguity in the specifications; consequently, all proposals were rejected and a revised RFQ was released. Cisco was the low bidder for the revised RFQ, and an award was announced. This award has been protested by Proteon. The protest was rejected by UW-Madison Purchasing and has been appealed to DOA.
(III) Legal Status of WiscNet
Discussion focused on whether WiscNet should be incorporated as a non-profit corporation, or organized as an unincorporated consortium. Incorporation provides liability protection for the member institutions and does not cost very much. Incorporation requires by-laws, a formal structure, a budget, and other organizational components that WiscNet would be creating anyway. Access to state purchasing contracts might be jeopardized by incorporation, but this issue is probably moot due to the involvement of private institutions. It was assumed that WiscNet could do just as well by issuing RFP's.
The issue of liability was considered the most important, and a consensus was established to seriously investigate incorporation for WiscNet. Tad Pinkerton will pursue this with UW legal staff.
(IV) Charter Member Fees
A discussion of the fees associated with initiating and subsequently operating WiscNet took place. Tad Pinkerton and Manly Draper described the bases of the costs, which include routers, leased lines, and operational staff in Madison as represented in the NSF proposal. The proposal suggests that NSF contribute toward the initial start-up costs and provide an annually decreasing subsidy toward the operation of the network for the first three years. The fees are based on several components:
One Time Fees include the cost of adding an institution to the network and the global costs of building the network infrastructure. The approximate fee to add an institution is projected to be $10,000, of which NSF would contribute two-thirds and the charter institution one-third as defined in the NSF proposal. The global costs would be divided among the institutions based upon institutional budget.
Annual Fees are divided into fixed fees consisting of the leased line charges, and variable fees consisting of management of the network by UW-Madison personnel and maintenance and repair of equipment and software. The fixed fees are the same for all institutions and are defined so that network membership is independent of the distance between nodes. The variable fees are proportionally based on institutional budget, with larger institutions paying a higher fee. The annual fees for the first year are reduced because an eight-month billing period is assumed. In the fourth year, the network will be entirely self-supporting.
Three budget worksheets were attached to the agenda. The first worksheet (B) represented the fees assuming WiscNetreceives the NSF funding requested in the proposal. The NSF contribution to the operating costs is based on a ratio of the NSF grant to the total cost.
The second worksheet (D) assumes that NSF will contribute 50% of the funding requested in the proposal. This alternative reduces the scope of the network: cutting down the number of inter-LATA connections, providing 14.4KB lines to smaller institutions, and reducing the number of redundant lines. Note that the annual fee in the fourth year and after is lower than that in worksheet (B) due to the reduced scope of the network.
The third worksheet (A) assumes the same full NSF funding as worksheet (B), but the NSF contribution to the annual fees is applied to the variable fees only. This means that in years 1 through 3, the fees to larger institutions will be reduced and the fees to smaller institutions will be increased. The annual fee in the fourth year and after is the same as in worksheet (B).
In the worst case of no NSF grant, the annual fee would be that shown for the fourth year, and the one-time fee would be approximately $10,000 plus $1,500 for every $10,000,000 of the institution budget.
General items about the budget and fee discussion include:
UW-System is treated as a separate institution. It is thought that UW administrative traffic will increase rapidly and that the UW-System portion may need to increase after the first year.
No contribution for UW-Madison is listed. The assumption made is that UW-Madison's membership in CICnet should serve as its contribution. Concern was expressed about this, and Manly Draper was asked to provide an enumeration of UW-Madison's contribution and also to create another worksheet that includes UW-Madison as a contributing institution.
The budget is conservative in that it assumes no growth and no commercial members. Realistically, additional membership should eventually reduce the annual fees of the charter institutions.
The fee distribution is not based on network traffic and was defined to make network membership as easy and as reasonable as possible. Eventually, network traffic may be considered in establishing membership fees. However, this is difficult to measure and serves to discriminate against anyone providing information servers.
(IV) Board Leadership and Committees
A discussion of the various committees needed to operate WiscNet took place. The following committees were suggested:
Executive Committee - made up of the officers: Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, and Member-at-Large. This committee would act on behalf of the Board of Directors and make decisions that cannot wait for a Board meeting. The following officers were elected for the period of October 10, 1989, to June 30, 1990:
Chair: Tad Pinkerton, UW-Madison (by acclamation)
Vice-Chair: Edward Mathay, Marquette University
Secretary: John Beck, UW-La Crosse
Treasurer: Randy Williams, Beloit College
Member-at-Large: Roger Hodek, UW-Green Bay
Technical Committee - chaired by the Vice-Chair. This will consist of one representative from each member institution. The assumption is that this would be a network expert from the computing services area. Each institutional director is requested to forward the name of the technical committee representative for that institution to Mike Dorl as quickly as possible so that this committee can begin work.
Finance Committee - chaired by the Treasurer.
By-Laws/Policy Committee, Membership Committee, Information Services Committee
The structure and membership of the Finance Committee, the By-Laws/Policy Committee, the Membership Committee, and the Information Services Committee will be determined at the next Board of Directors meeting.
(V) Equipment and Line Acquisitions
The discussion centered around the need to begin the evaluation of communications equipment and data lines and the appropriate acquisition process. It was determined that the technical committee should begin work on this as quickly as possible.
(VI) New Member Policies and Fees
Increasing the number of members of the network was generally considered to be a positive goal. The obvious first choice for new members would be additional academic institutions. However, the majority of the major institutions in Wisconsin are already charter members; any new members will be small. Other alternatives mentioned were VTAE schools, public libraries, and K-12 districts. In particular, Milwaukee Washington High School was mentioned as a possibility.
Commercial membership was also discussed. The assumption is that commercial membership would be appropriate for research purposes, to encourage academic-commercial partnerships. A model for this concept is CSnet. The question was raised whether a commercial member should be linked via a member academic institution or have its own network node.
The fee for new (non-charter) members needs to be established. For instance, would a new member share in the NSF grant or be expected to pay their own way from the beginning? Also, a policy to define the appropriate use of the network is necessary so that all members know what is and is not permissible.
(VII) Board Meeting Procedures
It was proposed that a registration fee be charged for attendance at Board of Directors meetings to defray lunch, refreshment, and parking costs. A consensus was established that this is appropriate. The next meeting will be held at Ripon College on December 12, 1989, from 10 am until 2 or 3 pm.
(VIII) Technical Preparation for WiscNet
A discussion of continued Bitnet membership for WiscNet member institutions took place. UW-Madison will continue its Bitnet membership and Bitnet line to CUNY. This would permit WiscNet members to use UW-Madison as a gateway to Bitnet for electronic mail. However, other Bitnet services, such as file send/receive and listserve access, are not likely to work across the gateway. It appears that it is possible to encapsulate Bitnet traffic in the DECnet protocol and send that over WiscNet to UW-Madison, permitting access to all Bitnet services. Member institutions could then retain their Bitnet membership but drop their dedicated lines. UW-Madison is checking with Bitnet (now CREN) to see if this is permissible.
Mike Dorl distributed the first issue of the WiscNet Newsletter, which contains information about what to do to get ready for WiscNet. This includes sources for TCP/IP software and how to obtain an Internet domain identification and Internet network number.
Other technical items included how to connect the LS-2000 library automation systems (use TCP/IP terminal servers - it is being done now at UW-Superior), how to incorporate FAX machines and a general discussion of national and international networks.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:45 pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
John L. Beck
Secretary