The Future of the Internet

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The Future of the Internet

• Jennifer Rexford 91
• Computer Science Department
• Princeton University
• http//www.cs.princeton.edu/jrex

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The Internet A Remarkable Story

• Tremendous success
• From research experiment to global communications
  infrastructure
• The brilliance of under-specifying
• Best-effort packet delivery service
• Key functionality at programmable end hosts
• Enabled massive growth and innovation
• Ease of adding hosts and link technologies
• Ease of adding services (Web, P2P, VoIP, )
• But, change is easy only at the edge ?

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Rethinking the Network Architecture

• But, the Internet is showing signs of age
• Security, mobility, availability, manageability,
  
• Challenges rooted in early design decisions
• Weak notion of identity, tying address location
• Not just a matter of redesigning a single
  protocol
• Revisit definition and placement of function
• What are the types of nodes in the system?
• What are their powers and limitations?
• What information do they exchange?

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Hurdle 1 Deployment Dilemma

• An unfortunate catch-22
• Must deploy an idea to demonstrate feasibility
• Cant get an undemonstrated idea deployed
• A corollary the testbed dilemma
• Production network real users, but cant change
• Research testbed easy changes, but no users
• Bad for the research community
• Good ideas sit on the shelf
• Promising ideas do not grow up

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Hurdle 2 Too Many Design Goals

• Many different system-engineering goals
• Scalability, reliability, security, privacy,
  robustness, performance guarantees,
• Perhaps we cannot satisfy all of them at once
• Applications have different priorities
• Online banking security
• Web surfing privacy, high throughput
• Voice and gaming low delay and loss
• Compromise solution isnt good for anyone

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Hurdle 3 Coordination Constraint

• Difficult to deploy end-to-end services
• Benefits only when most networks deploy
• No single network wants to deploy first
• Many deployment failures
• QoS, IP multicast, secure routing, IPv6
• Despite solving real, pressing problems
• Increasing commoditization of ISPs

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sender
receiver
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Virtualization to the Rescue

• Multiple customized architectures in parallel
• Multiple logical routers on a single platform
• Isolation of resources, like CPU and bandwidth
• Programmability for customizing each slice

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Overcoming Deployment Dilemma

• Multiple experimental networks in parallel
• Some are mature, offering services to users
• Isolated from others that are works in progress
• VINI VIrtualized Network Infrastructure
• Virtual nodes, links, and network stack in Linux
• Deployed in Internet2 and National Lambda Rail

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Overcoming Too Many Design Goals

• Run multiple operational networks in parallel
• Customized to certain applications and users
• Programmable network elements
• Virtualized kernel-level packet handling
• Using Click, Linux IP chains, NetFPGA
• Design of customized protocols
• Protocols as distributed solutions to
  optimization problems
• E.g., delay vs. throughput sensitive

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Overcoming Coordination Constraint

• Run multiple end-to-end services in parallel
• Infrastructure providers Maintain routers,
  links, data centers, etc.
• Service providers Offer end-to-end services
  (e.g., layer 3 VPNs, SLAs, etc.) to users

Infrastructure Providers
Service Providers
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Conclusion

• The Internet needs to change
• Security, mobility, availability, management,
• We can overcome barriers to change
• Realistic experimentation with new ideas
• Multiple designs with different trade-offs
• End-to-end deployment of new services
• Network virtualization is the key
• Run many research experiments in parallel
• Offer customized end-to-end services in parallel