Experimental Infrastructure Networks (EIN)

The purpose of the NSF Experimental Infrastructure Networks (EIN) is to establish, address, explore, and experiment with next generation network infrastructure technologies to meet the rapidly emerging requirements of e-Science and other advanced applications which are not being addressed by today's research networks (e.g., Abilene or vBNS) or the Internet. The EIN will be driven by applications which push the leading edges of network technologies and capabilities, such as higher bandwidth, alternate protocols, performance, latency, and guaranteed levels of service. The EIN program blurs the traditional demarcation points normally associated with computing, networking, and storage technologies, as one of the goals of the EIN program is to meet the needs of next generation applications without being constrained by existing infrastructure deployments, capabilities or approaches.

The purpose of this announcement is to enable members of the advanced network community (universities, government agencies, non-profit organizations and industrial units) to collaborate in establishing, developing, exploring and experimenting with new types of networking infrastructure to support novel high performance applications. The Experimental Infrastructure Networks must be robust enough to support application-driven development of software application toolkits, middleware, computing and networking. EIN projects must also provide enough "persistence" to be useful to the application scientists and engineers, and yet be able to accommodate and encourage experimentation with innovative and novel approaches to networking architectures and technologies.  EIN proposals are expected to directly address how application scientists will accommodate network experimentation and network service.

The EIN Program encourages collaboration between application scientists and engineers, and the networking community, and will involve a variety of disciplines and geographic locations, depending on application requirements. Features of the EIN include:

• one or more applications which require network capabilities not available on today's production network               
• end-to-end support to the application(s)               
• creative and innovative network infrastructure projects involving a combination of academic, government, and industry partners

ANIR has a companion program announcement called the Network Research Testbed (NRT) which will emphasize cutting-edge research and will contribute in a signficant way to expand the frontiers of networking.  Since the EIN and the NRT programs cover a wide, continuous problem space from experimental infrastructure to advanced networking research, the programs are being announced at the same time. Proposers will be expected to direct their proposal to either EIN or NRT, as the same proposal will not be reviewed by both programs. Proposers can, however, submit a proposal to each program if they are substantially different from each other and address the goals and objectives of the program announcement.

Proposers are encouraged to contact the appropriate Program Director if they are unsure which program they should submit to or if they have any questions.