Cisco Academic Research

Programs

JJ Jamison
NLR Project - ARTI Team
john.jamison@cisco.com
JJ Joint Techs S05 © 2001, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. 1
 Agenda

• ARTI Team - Academic Research and Technology

Initiatives Team
• URP – University Research Program
• CARD – Cisco Applied Research and Development
program
• NRNs - National Research Networks
• NRP - NRN Research Program
• NLR – National Lambda Rail

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 ARTI Team

• ARTI focuses primarily on two areas:

– research programs: URP, CARD, NRP
– advanced research and education network activities: National
Research Networks (NRN), Regional Networks, Government
Research Networks, Supercomputer Centers, and
Research/Higher Education Institutions world wide
• ARTI is not part of Cisco’s Sales organization
– ARTI is part of Cisco’s Engineering Organization
– Bob Aiken reports to Charlie Giancarlo Cisco’s CTO/CDO

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 ARTI Leadership

• Bob Aiken
– Director of ARTI
– Formally at Argonne National Lab, DoE
Headquarters & NSF
• Javad Boroumand
– Senior Manager, NRNs & NRP
– Formally at NASA, USC-ISI, & NSF
• Graham Holmes
– Senior Manager, URP & CARD

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 ARTI Team Members

• Amy Blanchard • Matt Schmitz

• Chris Buja • Chas Smith
• Ole Jacobsen • Carol Stillman
• JJ Jamison • Michael Turzanski
• Kevin McGrattan • Doug Walsten
• Robin Penn • Steve Wolff

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 Academic Research at Cisco

• There is no “Cisco Research” organization or “Cisco Labs”

• ARTI houses the only Cisco corporate-wide academic
research programs (URP, CARD, and NRP)
• There are other organizations within Cisco that fund
academic research
– CIAG - Critical Infrastructure Assurance Group
– Business Units (BUs) and other groups can and do fund
academic research on their own
– Tech Center – pre-BU product development

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 Cisco Academic R&D

Applied Production
Research Early
Research Development Deployment
Deployment

ARTI
URP
URP
CARD
CARD
NRP
NRP(NRN
(NRNRP)
RP)
R&E
R&ENetworks
Networks
CIAG
CIAG

BU
Business
BusinessUnit
UnitR&D
R&D
Tech
TechCenter
Center
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 URP, CARD, and NRP

Why is Cisco funding external academic research

instead creating a “Cisco Labs”?
Why not use the same strategy as Howard Hughes?

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator:

“Look, whatever they pay you at UCLA I'm doubling it, all right?
You work for me now. Find some clouds. Find some clouds!
Find me some clouds!”

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 Timelines and engagement models

0-12 month payoff Exclusive province of

Business Units
18-36 months Cisco Applied Research
and Development
(CARD)
3-5 years University Research
Program (URP)
Tuned to timeline of NRN Research Program
associated NRN (NRP)

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 URP Description

• URP funds specific research projects of interest to

Cisco
– at universities and other not-for-profit institutions
worldwide
– via unrestricted cash and equipment gifts
– to faculty and research scientists
• URP has no funds for center membership, consortia
joining, conference support, teaching labs, endowed
chairs, non-research fellowships, etc.

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 University Research Board

• Board of Cisco experts, advisory to the URP

• URB tasks:
– Set strategic direction for URP
– Identify, solicit, and evaluate quality research
proposals
– Maintain appropriate programmatic balance
and relevance
– Represent their Cisco organization interests

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 Cisco Champions

• Cisco Champions are Cisco developers who act

as technical liaisons with funded researchers
• A key part of URP to realize mutual value and
benefits of funded research
• We will NOT accept and evaluate a proposal
without a Champion. We do provide opportunity
for Champion identification prior to submission
deadlines
• We will not fund a proposal without a Champion

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 Criteria for evaluating proposals

• Intellectual merits of proposed research

• Qualification and track record of Principal
Investigator(s)
• Relevance/importance to Cisco and/or industry
• Support of a Cisco Champion for the project

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 Grant Type

• “Unrestricted Gift” – i.e., a grant, not a contract

• No formal deliverables
• Open publishable results
• Intellectual Property Rights remain with PI(s) and
institution
• Zero or very small overhead taken by institution

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 Proposal and grant information

• Accept unsolicited proposals in networking

technology from Principal Investigators
• 2 page proposals – could be more
• Deadlines twice per year
• 1 year awards - renewals compete with new proposals
• Awards range up to $100K/year/project – average is
$70K; one PI may have multiple projects
• Awards are in cash and equipment

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 URP program examples

• Analysis and Visualization of IP Connectivity

– CAIDA/SDSC

• All Optical Header Recognition

– University of Maryland
• Improving the Robustness of Multicast in the Internet
– UT Dallas/UCSB

• ISP Negotiation for Coordinated Traffic Engineering

– University of Washington

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 CARD program description

• Applied research program designed to shorten

development cycle or add value to product R&D efforts
• Close collaboration between researcher and Cisco
developer
• Usually initiated by a BU
• Agreement/contract may be multi-year
• Initial funding by ARTI, 2nd & subsequent years (if any)
require BU buy-in
• Intellectual Property Rights contractually settled before
work begins

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 CARD program examples

• Network Infrastructures Support in P2P and Overlay Networks -

Stanford University
Study Objective: first-step in looking at how routing infrastructures can
support new applications such as P2P and overlay networks

• Meta-CLI Technology - University of Quebec Montreal

Study Objective: Develop meta-language for analyzing complex CLI
scripts

• IPv6 Renumbering Study – University of Southampton &

University of Meunster
Study Objective: Gain practical experience in IPv6 renumbering
implementations

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 NRP description

• Promote system-level research to complement

technology focused research under URP and CARD
• Drawing from specific technologies plus research in
management, economics and policy; evolving the
architecture a key driver
• Collaboration between networking researchers,
distributed systems researchers and NRN operators
• Experimenting in real live network environments
with real user traffic and applications

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NLR Layer 3 Network (Initial Configuration)

SEA

CHI
NYC
DEN
CLE PIT
WDC

LAX RAL
ALB TUL
ATL

BAT JAC

HOU

Cisco CRS-1 8/S router

10GE wave
10GE managed wave
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 Research in NLR
• NLR is about both providing infrastructure and support for:
– Experimental networking research
– Production high-performance networking for science (and other) applications

• NLR is not just a single network but an evolving infrastructure to

enable researchers to build multiple networks (production and
experimental)
• Critical for NLR and regional/campus network operators work
together to extend NLR capabilities and services to the interested
researchers
– Network operators as partners in experimental networking not just facility
providers

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 Cisco in NLR

• Why is Cisco involved in NLR?

– MORPHnet: Jan 97 paper by Aiken, Carlson, Foster, Kuhfuss, Stevens,
and Winkler
– the R&E community needs a flexible research network that is both
production and experimental

• NLR and Cisco have a strategic relationship focused on

joint research interest and not a vendor-customer
relationship
• This relationship is managed by Cisco’s ARTI group and
not out of the sales organization

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 Cisco in NLR

• Cisco was an early founder of NLR and is its

largest contributor
• Our major goal is to drive network technologies
development, tech transfer and commercialization
through experimental networking research in NLR
• Using NRP funds Cisco and NLR will soon
announce the NLR Research Program
– for more info contact research@nlr.net

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 For more information see:
www.cisco.com/go/research
& www.cisco.com/go/arti

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