1 Future Internet Architectures: Toward an Architecture-Agnostic Architecture Jennifer Rexford Princeton University

2 Deciding Not to Decide Flexibility has been key to the Internet’s success –Many different applications and services –Beyond anything the initial designers ever envisioned Today this flexibility is limited to the end systems –Not surprisingly, this is where we have seen innovation And, the “inside” is quite difficult to change –Witness the fate of IPv6, QoS, multicast, secure routing Even if we could start over… –Maybe the design problem is over-constrained –Too many goals, some of them conflicting

3 It’s Hard to be a Routing Protocol These Days Many, many design goals –Global reachability –Fast convergence –Efficient use of resources –Low protocol overhead –Secure control plane –Flexible routing policies – Perhaps we cannot satisfy all of these goals –Perhaps we should not even try

4 Example: Security vs. Reachability Online BankingWeb Surfing PropertiesSecurity, even at the expense of reachability Reachability more important than security RoutingSecure control plane for participating parties Insecure control plane for all parties AddressingSelf-certifying address associated with person Ephemeral address related to the topology

5 Example: Convergence vs. Scalability Voice over IP Gateway Remaining Traffic PropertiesFast convergence for a few prefixes Scalability to 200K prefixes DisseminationFloodingHierarchical Routing Protocol OSPF or IS-ISInternal BGP with route reflectors

6 Concurrent Architectures are Better than One Virtualization –Multiple logical routers on a single platform –Resource isolation in CPU, FIBs, and bandwidth Programmability –General-purpose CPUs for control and manipulation –Network processors and FPGAs for fast forwarding –Third-party providers for routing and forwarding solutions Economic refactoring –Infrastructure provider: manage routers and links –Service provider: offer end-to-end services