The Use of the National InformationInfrastructure and High Performance

We divide potential NII (National Information Infrastructure) services into The latter denotes the broad suite of tools we expect to be ooered on the Web in a general environment we term WebWindows. We review current and future World Wide Web technologies, which could underlie these services. In particular, we suggest an integration framework WebWork for High Performance (parallel and distributed) computing and the NII. We point out that pervasive Web-Work and WebWindows technologies will enable, facilitate and substantially accelerate such complex software processes on the NII. We brieey analyze seven broad application areas: society; business enterprises ; health care; defense command and control, and crisis management; education; collaboratory; manufacturing. We contrast their use of NII services with a more detailed examination of the manufacture of complex systems , such as aircraft and automobiles. This application will stress the NII, but there is a remarkable opportunity to develop new manufacturing practices that ooer cost savings and reduced time to market.