The EIFFEL Initiative A Proposal for Preparing a Stage for Future Internet Debate Dirk Trossen BT Research ETSI June 2007

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 2 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Goal For Today Part A: Tell you a bit about EIFFEL –How did it come about? –What is it? –What is the envisioned lifecycle? –What has happened so far? Part B: What could it mean for standards debate? –Just an example –Relatively rough thoughts –Not representative! Part C: Discussion on part A and B –Can also happen inbetween the slides!

The EIFFEL Initiative A European Discussion and a Possible Step Towards a Future Internet Forum

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 4 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Background

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 5 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 EIFFEL – How Did It Come About? Proposed and initiated by the EU Commission (J.Da Silva, July 2006) Group of technical experts acting as individuals About 50 participants in each meeting Structure: 4 working groups 1.Evolution scenarios, technological and socio-economic drivers 2.Technical Challenges 3.Policy challenges, risks and opportunities for Europe 4.Planning and Coordination Group Produced a white paper available at Presented during an open & free workshop (Brussels, 15th of Dec. 2006) –Couple of hundred registered participants

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 6 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Needed: A Phased Approach for Developing Research Agendas following a Balanced Approach Recognize importance of evolutionary & explorative path (balance) Business Technology Interne t today Evolutionary Future Networke d Society Exploratory

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 7 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Recognize importance of evolutionary & explorative path (balance) Vision trajectories developed on both paths (research agendas) Business Technology Interne t today Evolutionary Future Networke d Society Exploratory Needed: A Phased Approach for Developing Research Agendas following a Balanced Approach

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 8 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Needed: A Phased Approach for Developing Research Agendas following a Balanced Approach Recognize importance of evolutionary & explorative path (balance) Vision trajectories developed both paths (research agendas) Development of agendas over time (phased approach) Business Technology Interne t today Evolutionary Future Networke d Society Exploratory

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 9 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Needed: A Phased Approach for Developing Research Agendas following a Balanced Approach Recognize importance of evolutionary & explorative path (balance) Vision trajectories developed both paths (research agendas) Development of agendas over time (phased approach) -> Interaction & debate needed to make agendas and visions meet in common challenge Business Technology Interne t today Evolutionary Future Networke d Society Exploratory Interaction and Debate

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 10 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 EIFFEL Whitepaper Recommendation Create coordinating and supporting body for creating coherence of visions create momentum for explorative research stimulate debate among researchers and with stakeholders provide grounding into experimental research -> Submission of FP7 Support Action in Call 1

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 11 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Proposal

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 12 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 What is Needed in Short Term? A Pan-European Forum that ensures a coherent discussion on Future Internet research, spanning issues on technical, policy and governance level. The discussion forum is not about coordination, it is there to allow a lively discussion and disagreement on topical & technical/scientific issues. Guarantee & enforce scientific, technical and policy level debate in Europe on guiding principles for the Future Networked Society ↓ EIFFEL

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 13 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 What is Needed in Long Term? An international forum that ensures coherence between the international research community. -> The EIFFEL initiative shall not stop at the European level. Allowing regional initiatives to thrive yet build communities that will span these local initiatives Guarantee and enforce scientific & technical level debate within the international research community on guiding principles for the Future Networked Society ↓ Future Internet Forum

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 14 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Lifecycle Caretakers Key experts engage revise TC1: … bootstrap participate Think Tank Meetings organize Outcomes Manifestos, position papers, recommendations, challenges produce disseminate feedback Funding Agencies Research community exploit Stakeholders define agendas engage Community IRTF FIND/GENI Key experts FIRE CFP CRN

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 15 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 What Happened Now in FP7? EIFFEL SSA funding application has been submitted for call 1 –The formal organisers for EIFFEL consist of 4 universities, 2 companies, and 1 research institute backed by a professional management company for administrative tasks If successful –Bootstrap the invitation process for finding “area leaders” and for Think Tank (“research retreats”) participants –Setup the technical tools for collaboration; wiki, web-pages,… –The major meetings are planned for 3 years in advance Germany (Eifel mountain range), UK (London), Slovenia, Greece, Belgium and France (Paris) –Internationalization: Intension is to invite international participants to meetings Build liaison to other major initiatives

The EIFFEL Initiative What Could it Mean for Standards Debate? An Example: Design for Tussle in Standardization

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 17 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 What Do Standards Mean to System Design and Deployment? Standards enable interoperability between system components -> design dimension Standards enable value exchange between market players -> market dimension

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 18 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Hard & Soft Standardization Hard –Relatively rigid processes –Relatively long term development –Well-defined (in most cases) rules for IPR declaration –Often requirements-driven –Well established in areas like radio and networks Soft –Processes often rather ‘fluid’ –Often relatively ad-hoc –Often driven by interoperability of existing, de-facto standard, solutions rather than upfront requirements –Well established in areas like software & applications

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 19 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Hard vs Soft, Hard & Soft or Neither Hard Nor Soft at all? Most clear borderline between hard & soft represent industries not technologies! -> seems to point at mind set and economic landscape rather than procedural/technological reason for hard/soft existence Hard standardization is moving into ‘soft space’ and vice versa –Examples: using OWL-S in combination with cognitive radio introduces soft standardization into ‘hard’ radio world Soft processes in IETF turned rather ‘hard’ in recent years

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 20 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Going back… Design dimension –Technologies exist to ensure interoperability, no matter what procedural approach towards standards is taken Formal methods, programming languages (running code), ontologies (e.g., OWL-S), transcoders, translaters, … Market dimension –Value exchange between players essentially means to define and play out tussles in the market Frequencies, access methods IPR-ed standards, policies, rules of engagement, membership, …

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 21 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 The Design Dimension Does Hard & Soft matter at all? –NO, since both achieve the design goal Does Hard & Soft have component boundaries? –NO, recent advances in technologies show that this is not true Is any one of them better suited? –Seem to get to the point…

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 22 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 The Market Dimension Does Hard & Soft matter at all? –YES, since they define rules of engagement, i.e., tussle space delimitation and tussle resolution Does Hard & Soft have component boundaries? –YES, since component boundaries define (parts of) the value chain, i.e., the players, hence the rules of engagement

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 23 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 So What is the Right Approach to Standardization in the Future Industry?

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 24 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 A Detour: Design for Tussle “Design for variation in outcome, so that the outcome can be different in different places, and the tussle takes place within the design, not by distorting or violating it. Do not design so as to dictate the outcome. Rigid designs will be broken; designs that permit variation will flex under variation and pressure.” “Modularize the design along tussle boundaries, so that one tussle does not spill over and distort unrelated issues” “Design for choice, to permit the different players to express their preferences” (Clark et al., Tussle in Cyberspace: Defining Tomorrow’s Internet, ACM SIGCOMM 2002)

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 25 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 What Does This Mean for Standardization? Under the objective to design solutions for tussle, standardization processes reflect (some of) the mechanisms to (define and) resolve tussles in the market space -> Hard and soft in this light only represent mechanisms to achieve the same goal -> The particular choice depends on the market players’ approach to deal with and resolve tussles in the system design

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 26 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 Key Question Can one define standardization processes under the design for tussle principle? For this, hard and soft does seem to matter since it relates to tussle of economics –Be clear about this, do not put technologies forward! –Define and formulate standardization processes under the design for tussle principles with clear delimitation and reasoning for it Since economics are (rapidly) changing, procedures are required that are adaptive with respect to the tussle space at any one time For this to answer, research is needed –To quantify tussle (metrics) –To outline tussle boundaries (value chain analysis) –To understand optimization of tussle (system dynamics modelling) –To (empirically) show the impact of tussle design on value chains Case studies from the past –…–…

THE FUTURE NETWORKED SOCIETY 27 © EIFFEL Think Tank 2007 To Conclude There is no single approach for future standardization –The observed phenomena are mainly driven by industrial mind sets and rules of engagement rather than technology Future standardization is research in itself –No clear approach (across value chains and technologies) is obvious Design for Tussle suggests design principles for system design overall that seem relevant for this question ETSI ought to be part of this since it defines its future –Likely needs to support hard/soft in the future –Needs flexibility to cater market players’ approaches –Needs speed to change rules, if this is seemingly desired