Applications Area Director(s): o Russ Hobby: rdhobby@ucdavis.edu Area Summary reported by Russ Hobby/UC Davis A new goal in the Applications Area is to move toward working groups being unified by guiding architectures. Toward this goal the start of two architectures have been defined. The first is an architecture to define workstation based teleconferencing. The second is a joint effort between the Applications Area and the User Services Area to create an Internet Information Architecture to define a system of protocols to allow support information organization, searching and retrieval. Conference Control BOF (CONFCTRL) An impromptu BOF on Conference Control (sometimes referred to as connection or configuration management) was held. Discussions were to understand how such a group might contribute to the remote conferencing architecture effort. It was agreed that there is a need for a a session layer control protocol to perform higher layer functions than the protocol proposed in the AVT Working Group. The beginnings of design criteria for this protocol were identified by determining which functions must be supported. Discussion also focused on the range and capabilities of various session types needing support, the list of outside services to which the protocol will interface, and short-term versus long-term functionality considerations. NAPLPS Graphics and Character Sets as a MIME BOF (NAPMIME) This BOF explored interest in the definition of a NAPLPS body part for MIME. There was a demonstration of an NAPLPS system showing how presentation graphics can be transmitted using low bandwidths. Remote Conferencing BOF (REMCONF) The Remote Conferencing BOF discussed an architecture for all aspects of workstation based teleconferencing. This includes things like video, audio, shared windows, session setup and management. A separate group was spawned off to focus on session configuration and management. This group will become a working group to continue guidance on the architecture. Remote Mail Protocol BOF (REMMAIL) The Remote Mail BOF discussed methods for end-user mail delivery and problems with current protocols such as POP and IMAP. The Group reached consensus on two areas of work for a possible working group. First is to standardize a protocol for central mail repository to work with 1 diskless clients. The second is the email support of laptops and other disconnected machines. Discussion of a working group Charter will be done on the ietf-remmail@umich.edu mailing list. SMTP Extensions Working Group (SMTPEXT) The SMTP Extensions Working Group came to closure on a set of documents that answers the concerns brought up from the Last Call of the previous documents. These new documents will soon be submitted by the Working Group for approval to be a Proposed Standard. Network Database Working Group (NETDATA) The Network Database Working Group discussed the proposal from SQL Access for doing OSI's RDA directly on a TCP/IP stack. Security was the main technical concern of the Group. However, a more significant hurtle may be the logistical and legal one of being able to put the ISO and X/Open specification on line to create a complete description of the overall protocol. Network News Transport Protocol Working Group (NNTP) The NNTP Working Group finished up work on the NNTP v2 document and went on to discuss the requirements for a Network News Reader Protocol (NNRP) that would serve between a news repository and a user agent. Questions came up about how NNRP will relate to mail protocols, how authentication can be done, how to do search mechanisms, and whether NNRP should be an extension of NNTP or be developed independently. Telnet Working Group (TELNET) The Telnet Working Group continued the work on authentication and encryption for Telnet sessions. Internet Information Architecture The Internet Information Architecture is a start to define a system of protocols to support of information organization, searching and retrieval. Four working groups have been created to address several parts of the overall goal. These working groups are: o Networked Information Retrieval Working Group (NIR): is cataloging the types of information and information services that currently exist. This defines the starting point for work on the overall architecture. o Universal Resource Identifiers Working Group (URI): is looking at ways to have unique identifiers for information objects on the Internet. This will allow a person to know that they have found a 2 particular object regardless of how the object is named locally. o Integration of Internet Information Resources Working Group (IIIR): is looking at the various information search and retrieval protocols, such as Archie, Gopher, WAIS and others, and working toward a common protocol or set of protocols to standardize these functions. o Whois and Network Information Lookup Service Working Group (WNILS): is looking at how to organize directory information that already exists in various WHOIS servers. 3