Four myths about GENI (and one recommendation)

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Four myths about GENI (and one recommendation)

• Constantine Dovrolis
• dovrolis_at_cc.gatech.edu
• College of Computing
• Georgia Tech

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The summary of my position

• The main motivations behind GENI and FIND are
  questionable
• Myth-1 The lack of adoption argument
• Myth-2 An experimental facility such as GENI
  will lead to better networking research (or
  higher deploy-ability)
• Myth-3 The Internet architecture is ossified
• Myth-4 Clean-slate architectural research will
  lead to a better future Internet than the
  evolution of the current architecture
• A recommendation to NSF and the research
  community
• Do not put all your eggs in one basket
• Embrace and support evolutionary Internet
  research
• Provide experimental facilities that evolutionary
  research desperately needs

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Myth-1 If the real-world does not adopt our
architectures/protocols, then something is wrong
with the real-world..

• Or is it that something is wrong with our
  architectures and protocols?
• What happened to IPv6, IntServ, IP Multicast, and
  so many other architectural proposals?
• GENI proponents say that the real-world (mostly
  ISPs and router vendors) does not have the
  incentive to deploy innovations at the network
  layer
• In reality though, ISPs never stopped deploying
  new protocols/technologies when they actually
  need them
• Think of MPLS, BGP route reflectors, traffic
  classifiers/differentiators at forwarding plane,
  NIDS, etc
• The real-world adopts evolutionary mutations
  that address a real need and provide an
  advantage/gain to the deployer
• Think in biological terms mutations, natural
  selection, survival of the fittest

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Myth-2 Prototype implementations and testbed
experiments will lead to increased deploy-ability

• Most previously proposed failed architectures
  were actually implemented and run on various
  testbeds
• Remember MBone? 6-Bone? RSVPIntServ
  implementations?
• Testbeds and prototypes do not prove
  deployability
• All recent congestion control proposals (e.g.,
  XCP) have been implemented and run on testbeds
• The main issue with any testbed/experimental
  facility is that it does not carry real user
  traffic
• Real users will not use a buggy/experimental
  network
• Plus, a testbed cannot capture the complex
  economic/incentive issues that were the key
  factor behind the failure of many previous
  architectures
• Routing research without considering policies and
  incentives?
• On the other hand, the real-world has repeatedly
  deployed new protocols/technologies that lacked
  testbed experiments, but that evolved while
  running in production networks
• Think of the long TCP evolutionary path

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Myth-3 The Internet architecture is ossified

• What can we learn from biology and complex
  systems?
• In any complex system, the core components
  (evolutionary kernels) need to be conserved, so
  that complexity and diversity can emerge at the
  periphery of the system
• Think of Doyles bow-tie architecture, or the
  TCP/IP waist of the protocol hourglass
• The network layer represents an evolutionary
  kernel. It needs to be conserved (few and minor
  changes) so that innovation and diversification
  can continue at the transport/application layers
  and at the physical/link layers
• My (serious) prediction The Internet of 2020
  will be running a backwards-compatible, evolved
  version of IPv4
• The research community needs to understand the
  conservation of evolutionary kernels principle,
  and focus its innovative energy on higher and
  lower layers
• Where innovation thrives

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Myth-4 A clean-slate architecture will lead to a
better future Internet than the evolution of the
current architecture

• A clean-slate architecture in 2007, based on the
  current economic/technological constraints,
  objectives, and requirements will probably be
  irrelevant in 5-10 years from now
• The environment in which a network architecture
  lives is changing faster than the timescales of
  academic research
• How long does it take to think, design,
  prototype, experiment, publish and fund a
  complete clean-slate architecture? 5-10 years?
• Clean-slate architectural research would have a
  chance if we knew the actual objectives and
  constraints in 5-10 years from now
• But we dont have this luxury
• On the other hand, evolutionary research does not
  need crystal ball
• Focus on current objectives, constraints and
  problems
• Provide evolutionary solutions that do not break
  existing net
• Repeat as needed

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A recommendation to NSF the community

• Embrace and support evolutionary research
• Evolutionary research does not mean incremental
  patches or ad-hoc/easy research
• An unfortunate misconception that has gone
  unnoticed
• Evolutionary research has a high impact on the
  Internet and to the broader society
• Evolutionary research does not benefit from
  testbeds and toy-prototypes
• Instead, it needs Internet-based facilities such
  as
• Distributed Internet monitoring probing
  infrastructures
• Experimental ISPs with connections to real ISPs
• Experimental but production-level services (e.g.,
  an NSF-funded YouTube-like service) that can
  attract real users to instrumented facilities

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If you are interested to read more..

• Paper under submission
• What would Darwin think about GENI and FIND?
  Evolutionary versus clean-slate Internet
  research
• Email me for a copy