Advanced networking infrastructure initiatives, such as that represented by NSF's vBNS or the government's Next Generation Internet initiative, are typically accessible in their early stages only to a small number of leading research institutions of higher education. Though dissemination of results is an expected outcome of these initiatives, it can be extremely difficult for the rest of higher education, in very practical terms, to replicate the experiences of the early adopters and developers. Typically, those who follow require information, consultation, and other services of a rather intense and dedicated, case-by-case type. The intent of this proposal is to seed the establishment of such a service, through the formation of an outreach program, that would help to grow the involvement of more of higher education and related communities in the use and implementation of emerging high performance research and education networks.
