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The study of scaling phenomena in modern communication networks is another realization of Mandelbrot's vision of order in physical and social phenomena that are characterized by scaling laws. This exciting new multi-disciplinary field has attracted the attention of researchers from networking, mathematicians with interest in fractal geometry, physicists experienced in dealing with scaling laws, and computer scientists, economists and control theorists concerned with robustness and scaling issues associated with complex large-scale interacting systems. Moreover, developments in this field have been accompanied by the availability of extended, high quality data sets of network traffic measurements that are unprecedented in other disciplines. This 3-day workshop is intended to bring together the leading researchers in this emerging area, representing its various constituencies. Its main objective is to foster the exchange of ideas between leading networking experts and researchers in other fields, matching problem areas with solution methods.

The workshop will be structured around three fundamental aspects of the study of scaling phenomena in networks: description (e.g., empirical evidence, physical understanding, dynamical systems); analysis (e.g., network performance with fractal traffic flows, renormalization group techniques for large scale distributed systems, mean-field theory approaches for full-service networks); and control (e.g., self-organization; pattern formation, evolution and adaptation in spatially extended non-equilibrium systems). Participants are expected to contribute to this effort by giving a talk and/or actively engaging in the proceedings. In contrast to many other fields where scaling phenomena have had a long history but have not moved beyond the descriptive stage, this area shows great potential to apply the theory to analyze and control complex, large-scale networks such as the Internet. It is expected that this workshop will advance the study of scaling phenomena in networks from a descriptive theory to a prescriptive reality.

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