Third GENI Engineering Conference October 28-30, 2008

Dear GENI Colleagues:

After much thought, the GPO has decided to postpone the third GENI Engineering Conference (GEC3), scheduled for July, to October 28-30.

Our plans for GEC3 call for using the meeting to explain the updated GENI architecture and to kickoff the first round of GENI prototyping. However, it has become clear that to make the meeting effective, we'll need to have most of our sub-contractors under contract and have had time to talk with them (individually and in groups) about their roles and how they fit together. That process won't be far enough along in late July for the conference to be a success. Given all the regular community conferences in August and the usual start of school rush in September, it was simpler to defer to October.

In the interim, we expect to hold some focused engineering meetings during the summer to fill in the weak points in the GENI architecture. More about these meetings soon.

For those of you who submitted proposals to the GPO solicitation, we have identified the proposals we would like to fund and are currently awaiting NSF review and funding so we can begin contract negotiations with sub-contractors. The current estimate is that negotiations will begin in late July or August.

The various sub-contracts collectively will be comprehensive enough that the GPO believes we'll see one or two transcontinental prototypes demonstrating the combination of virtualization, slices, and elements of a control framework within a year of contract awards. We're excited by the prospect of being able to move a few bits in a real prototype!

We look forward to seeing you at GEC3 in October.

Chip Elliott