General-Purpose Computer Networks and Resource Sharing in ERDA. Volume 3. Remote Resource-Sharing Experience and Findings

摘要

The investigation focused on heterogeneous networks in which a variety of dissimilar computers and operating systems were interconnected nationwide. Homogeneous networks, such as MFE net and SACNET, were not considered since they could not be used for general purpose resource sharing. Issues of privacy and security are of concern in any network activity. However, consideration of privacy and security of sensitive data arise to a much lesser degree in unclassified scientific research than in areas involving personal or proprietary information. Therefore, the existing mechanisms at individual sites for protecting sensitive data were relied on, and no new protection mechanisms to prevent infringement of privacy and security were attempted. Further development of ERDA networking will need to incorporate additional mechanisms to prevent infringement of privacy. The investigation itself furnishes an excellent example of computational resource sharing through a heterogeneous network. More than twenty persons, representing seven ERDA computing sites, made extensive use of both ERDA and non-ERDA computers in coordinating, compiling, and formatting the data which constitute the bulk of this report. Volume 3 analyzes the benefits and barriers encountered in actual resource sharing experience, and provides case histories of typical applications. (ERA citation 07:045415)