Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714

A -- DARTNET-NETWORKING, SECURITY AND MOBILITY RESEARCH COLLABORATION SOL RA 96-15 DUE 040196 POC Dr. Gary Minden, Program Manager, FAX (703) 522-2668. The Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting industrial and other participants in a collaborative network research venture referred to as ''DARTNet'' or ''DARTNet II''. Selected participants will be given permission to connect to a network or set of networks funded by the government for the purpose of network and information technology research and development. The primary targets for this RA are commercial organizations not under contract to the government for related research. Current ARPA contractors should propose access to the DARTNet collaboration through normal contractual or proposal paths. In addition, successful proposers will be invited to participate in various annual ARPA Principal Investigator meetings. This RA will not result in the award of any contracts or grants. The typical instrument will be a memorandum of agreement or an ''Other Transaction'' between ARPA and the proposer setting out the benefits and responsibilities for each party in the collaboration (see 10 U.S.C. 2371). No transfer of funds is anticipated. The current DARTNet research collaboration consists of around a dozen academic and research organizations connected through a T1 IP-based network. Each current DARTNet point of presence (POP) has a workstation configured to act as a router. Researchers may reserve all or some of the network and routers for experimentation. The network is available in whole or in part for experimental, non-operational use. Researchers are permitted and encouraged to use the network for experiments which might be detrimental to operational networks if tested on them. Experimental use may include either network infrastructure protocols or network and distributed system based applications. Previous research collaborations on the existing DARTNet have been instrumental in or resulted in the development of the Internet Multicast technology, the deployment of the multicast backbone (MBONE), the development of MBONE based tools such as VAT and NV, the development and testing of the resource reservation (RSVP) protocol, the development and testing of enhanced versions of the Network Time Protocol (NTP), and the development and analysis of a number of routing protocols. ARPA hopes to expand the collaboration to include research communities interested in network security and mobile and distributed computing. ARPA is planning to enhance DARTNet on a continuing basis over the next 12 months. One obvious enhancement is the upgrading of backbone connectivity to OC3 rates. Other enhancements may include multi-platform routers and switches, fixed/mobile nodes and security enhancements. ARPA strongly encourages proposer discussions with the current DARTNet collaborators prior to proposal submission. PROPOSALS: Proposals should include a description of the research and development effort anticipated, a list of collaborative partners to specifically include any of the current DARTNet community, anticipated benefits for both the proposer and the ARPA research community, and anything else (e.g. donated equipment or facilities) the proposer is willing to make available to the community either directly or through a network connection. Proposals should also include proposed point(s) of connection to the DARTNet II. Proposers will be responsible for their own local site equipment as well as the line costs to connect to a DARTNet II POP. The government will be responsible for all POP costs including any additional site interface hardware to connect proposer lines as well as for any backbone costs. For the purposes of estimating their costs, proposers may assume that there are or will be POPs at both T1 and OC3 rates in each of the Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area (e.g. Palo Alto), and Boston/Cambridge metropolitan areas. The 4 POPs listed above will provide both T1 (Internet Protocol/PPP) and OC3 access. OC3 access will primarily be via ATM to the national infrastructure, but some local SONET experimentation may be possible. The current SUN workstation based DARTNet routers will be replaced over the next year with high-end, PC-class platforms interfaced via T1 serial and OC3 ATM interfaces. The standard implementation platform will migrate to Free BSD. Where appropriate, proposers may wish to acquire compatible systems for their own sites. Proposals will be evaluated by a scientific review conducted by both the government and current academic and non-profit research participants (listed below) according to the set of criteria set forth below. Proposals will be evaluated by at least three reviewers including at least one government employee and at least one current DARTNet researcher. CRITERIA (in descending order of relative importance): 1) Technology Transfer or Development: How does this proposal enable either reduction to practice of previously funded ARPA research in information technology or the development of new technology? A good example of on-going technology transfer is the collaborative development of interoperable versions of the RSVP protocol and testing against the research reference implementations. New Technology Development may include development of new technology not necessarily funded by ARPA but which has synergy with existing ARPA efforts. Some examples include IPv6 development, middleware and mobile computing environments and ATM Signaling. 2) Collaboration Plans & Partners: Who are the ARPA collaboration partners, and what are the shared research goals? How does the proposed research plan benefit the partner? How does it benefit the proposer? How does it benefit the collaboration goals as a whole? 3) DOD Relevance: What is the relevance of company to defense concerns? What is the relevance of the research or product to defense needs? In many cases, this may be as simple as the DOD being a major customer. ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES: All proposals should be in the following format. A proposal must be in a single volume (or 2 volumes if proprietary information is provided) and include the following sections, each starting on a new page (where a ''page'' is 8-1/2 by 11 inches with type not smaller than 12 pitch, type on one side of the page only). Cover page: List administrative and technical points of contacts and proposal title. Include address, phone #, fax # and email addresses for all POCs. Abstract (1 page max.): Briefly describe the area of research/development and expected results. Technical Proposal (5 pages max.): Provide an expanded description of the research plan covering 3 years. Describe existing and planned collaborative partnerships and joint goals. Describe benefit to the DOD and to the DARTNet collaboration of proposed research and development. Connectivity Proposal (4 pages max.): List proposed DARTNetII POP(s) and proposer research location(s). Describe researcher testbed equipment or networks to be connected to the DARTNetII. Provide a diagram down to the router/switch level of local equipment. Describe access other collaborators will have to your facilities if any. Researcher Bios (1 page max.): Provide short biographical sketches for each of the principal research investigators. Additional considerations (Optional, 3 pages max.): List anything else you would like the evaluators to consider to include special capabilities you are willing to make available to the community (and conditions), equipment donations, etc. Proprietary Information (Optional, 5 pages max.): Provide as a separate attachment any information you wish to be considered as part of the technical proposal but do not want to be made available to non-government evaluators. This attachment will be made available and evaluated only by government employees. Provide a cover page as above and mark it ''Proprietary Annex''. Five (5) copies of each proposal should be addressed to RA9615, ARPA/ITO, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. Facsimile is not acceptable. Electronic mail is acceptable in either of the following formats: MIME text/plain (66 lines/page and 60 characters/line) or MIME application/postscript sent to ra9615@arpa.mil. Proposals may be reviewed and acted on as they arrive. However, no proposal will be accepted after 4:00 p.m. EST, 1 April 96. Restrictive notices not withstanding, proposals will be handled for administrative purposes by a support contractor. With the exception of information marked as proprietary, all proposals will be evaluated by government and DARTnet researchers. Individual proposal evaluations will be based on acceptability or unacceptability without regard to other proposals submitted under this announcement, however, all acceptable proposals may not be offered the opportunity to join the collaboration due to the need to construct a balanced program meeting ARPA's needs. The Government reserves the right to select for implementation all, some, or none of the proposals received. This CBD notice itself constitutes the full and entire research announcement. No additional written information is available, nor will a formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement be issued. Requests for same will be disregarded. Additional information on current ARPA research programs is available via the Internet at URL ''http://www.ito.arpa.mil/''. Points of Contact information for current DARTNet researchers follows. Current DARTNet researchers: USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina Del Ray, CA, POC: Robert Braden, braden@isi.edu, (310) 822-1511. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science, Cambridge, MA, POC: David Clark, ddc@lcs.mit.edu, (617) 253-6003. BBN Systems and Technology, Cambridge, MA, POC: Martha Steenstrup, msteenst@bbn.com, (617) 873-3192. University of Delaware, Newark, DE, POC: David Mills, mills@udel.edu, (302) 831-8247. Xerox PARC., Palo Alto, CA, POC: Steve Deering, deering@parc.xerox.com, (415) 812-4839. SUN Microsystems, Mountain View,CA, POC: Allyn Romanow, allyn@eng.sun.com, (415) 336-1326. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, POC: Van Jacobsen, van@ee.lbl.gov, (510) 486-7519. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, POC: Deborah Estrin, estrin@usc.edu, (213) 740-4524. Bellcore, Morristown, NJ, POC: Susan Thomson, set@thumper.bellcore.com, (201) 829-4514. SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, POC: Barbara Denny, denny@erg.sri.com, (415) 859-2812. The administrative addresses for this RA are: Fax: 703-522-2668 Addressed to: ARPA/ITO, RA96-15, Electronic Mail: ra15@arpa.mil, Electronic File Retrieval: http://www.ito.arpa.mil/Solicitations.html, Mail: ARPA/ITO, ATTN: RA96-15, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. (0044)

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