(I'm assuming you haven't sent this out yet...)
Are you expecting the people being invited to show with a high
probability? The reason I ask is that it seemed odd that the
invitation starts with details on how to arrange to get to the
retreat, and then goes into what the subject of the retreat is. I
would rearrange things a bit. (I also changed "attack" to "address",
although maybe fightin' words are better for DARPA projects, and we
should add a few words on why we're having the retreat and why we are
inviting them.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We would like to invite you to attend the kickoff retreat for the
Detour/WebOS/WebCache projects, to be held at the Rosario Resort,
Orcas Island, Washington, June 29-30, 1998. The focus of our work is
to exploit computational resources in the internetwork to address a
series of problems in wide area distributed computing. By moving
computation to the appropriate point in the network, we can:
(i) reduce latency (because of speed of light considerations, quickly
becoming the dominant factor in the end-to-end performance of wide
area distributed systems),
(ii) reduce congestion (by reducing bytes transferred, by more
carefully managing router buffers, and by making better use of
redundant paths),
(iii) improve end-to-end availability (e.g., single point failures
should be transparently and quickly hidden),
(iv) and simplify protocols (e.g., by moving responsibility for
congestion control into the network), particularly for "thin" clients
such as network attached sensors and hand-held mobile devices.
Our approach has been to systematically re-think all aspects of
network and distributed system design starting from this vision of
ubiquitous remotely programmable resources (routers, CPUs, disks,
DRAM, and sensors).
[insert reasons why we are having the retreat, and why we want them to
show -- or possibly put this just after the first sentence in the
intro paragraph.]
Because we need an accurate head count, we would like you to reply by
Memorial Day, May 25th, to Lisa Stuebing, lisas@cs.washington.edu as
to whether you can attend. For those of you travelling from out of
town, please contact Lisa for information on getting to Rosario's; we
will be leaving at approximately 8am on the 29th by van from Seattle
-- the exact time of departure is dependent on the summer ferry
schedule. In replying to Lisa, please indicate if you will be
attending one or both days, whether you will need space on the van,
and if you have any dietary restrictions, etc.
More information about our project can be found at
http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/networking/detour, including the
tentative retreat agenda.
We are looking forward to seeing you at Rosario's!
Tom Anderson
Associate Professor
University of Washington