The Future Internet: A clean-slate design? Nicholas Erho

Current internet architecture cannot fulfill the current demands. – The original list of design goals does not address the contemporary demands. – Proposed solutions are only partial solutions to each of the challenges.

Future Internet Challenges Security Mobility Network Management Reliability and Availability Problem Analysis Scalability Quality of Service

Security Demand – Everyone is concerned about the lack of security. Current Solution – Add security by securing each individual protocol. Problem – The composition of two secure components does not guarantee secure resulting system. Cause – Designed to place significant functionality on vulnerable end systems. – Designed to rely on trusted cooperating systems.

Mobility Demand – More support for mobile technology and applications. Current Solution – Break routing hierarchy. – Use another IP address. Problem – Breaking routing threatens scalability and IP filtering. – Using another IP address requires fundemental redesign or has a high efficiency impact. Cause – Internet naming is based on an address hierarchy to maintain scalability.

Network Management Demand – Reliability and Availability Users want and need service as least as reliable as the POTS network, as internet access is very much a crucial role in both business and private life. – Problem Analysis Current internet debugging tools are limited, researchers and administrators need a more sophisticated toolset. – Scalability There is still some question about the scalability of some aspects of the current architecture. Current Solution – Unresolved. Cause – Distributed management design. – Lack of “resource use” measurement tools. – Lack of understanding of how to set up the “control plane” in such a way the network is reliable, manageable, scales, and is debuggable.

Quality of Service Demand – It is unclear of how and where to integrate different levels of QoS into architecture. Current Solution: – Well studied and several solutions exist. Problem – Management, configuration, policies, charging, and inter-provider setups of such services. Cause – Packet switching design. – Collaboration of networks.

Internet Redesign Two ways to evolve a system: – Incremental: A system is moved from one state to another with incremental patches. – Clean-slate: The system is redesigned from scratch to offer improved abstractions and/or performance, while providing similar functionality based on new core principles.

For the last 30 years the internet has successfully used the incremental approach. – Problems People are unable or unwilling to experiment with current architecture. Original designed principles from which the internet architecture was built no longer meet the current requirements and since these designed principles are foundational they are hard to change. Integration of new technologies. – Solution Clean-slate approach using experimentation for the evaluation of creative new network architecture ideas based on current technology and demands.

Possible Outcomes Most Conservative: Learn that the current Internet architecture is the “best” possible solution. Most Radical blueprint for the future Internet.

Clean-slate Plan 1.Research into new network architectures. 2.Building an experimental facility.

Benefits of Clean-Slate Design Applications and services can take advantage of enhanced capabilities and technology. Enable currently unimaginable applications. New economic models.

Conclusion Current internet design cannot meet current demands and incremental changes will not improve matters. Future internet designs requires experimentation and measurement for evaluation and comparison.

References 1.Feldmann, Anja. “Internet Clean-Slate Design: What and Why?” ACM SIGCOMM, Fisher, Darleen. “US National Science Foundation and the Future Internet Design.” ACM SIGCOMM, Spyropoulos, Thrasyvoulos. “Future Internet: Fundamentals and Measurement.” ACM SIGCOMM, Keshav, S. “Why Cell Phones Will Dominate the Future Internet.” ACM SIGCOMM, 2005.