DARPA's network research direction has been somewhat aenemic over the last
couple of years, given the force protection focus and GWOT mission to
which DARPA has adapted. It's pretty easy to overreact to the DARPAtech
stuff, esp. when a PPT slide or news article says "IP is broken".
IP isn't broken. From a program management perspective, "IP" is merely
referring to a large number of interacting protocols, from the lowest
level physical layer to the application layer. If one reads the article
with a little more care and not as a manifesto, DARPA is interested in a
protocol suite where static (wired) networks are a special case. What
exists is a network system where the dynamic (mobile/unwired) network mgmt
is grafted onto the static network, treating the dynamic network as a
special case. DARPA wants to change the way protocols are designed, where
the network is primarily designed for dynamic nodes (and all of the
overhead that entails). I wouldn't read much more into the program
statements than that, despite the fact that controversy makes good press.
One really good example of what the program is most likely aiming toward
is the MIT RON research. It's not the IP routing protocols or the 2-tier
routing hierarchy that's broken, it's the fact that these protocols
converge so slowly to repair the network. Thus, RON is successful in the
fact that traffic can continue to get to its destination via the RON
overlay despite the routing reconvergence and the time it takes for
reconvergence. Currently, RON claims to improve reliability by orders
of magnitude rather than fixing routing protocol brokeness.
The article also mentioned something along the lines of "Redesign The
Seven Layer Model!" Frankly, I've always preferred the four layer IETF
model because it didn't have the extra useless layers; but hindsight is
20/20, after all. I could look at the ceiling and foresee the session
and presentation layers suffering the death they truly deserve, but
the remaining layers staying intact. Layers may need subdividing or even
outright addition to the current model so that overlays and the recovery
semantics they provide are more explicit.
SMTP is not a good example of what's wrong with IP and I'm not even sure
why COL Gibson or the other presenters even used what's arguably the most
successful Internet protocol example. As the article points out, SMTP's
promises are pretty weak regarding whether e-mail gets delivered, if at
all, or the timeliness with which delivery occurs. Then again, the USPS
doesn't make any strong promises either for regular letters. When the USPS
does make promises, you pay extra for them, and even then, delivery
confirmation is not a gauruntee if the return address is hosed.
Of course, if DARPAtech had worded their presentations with less
controversy, most participants would have yawned and said "Oh, yeah,
business as usual -- nothing interesting here." Death and complete
redesign of IP? Not likely in my lifetime 'cos "It just works, mate!"
On Sat, Mar 13, 2004 at 11:08:31AM +0100, Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:
Jeff Williams writes:
Seems that the self styled "father of the internet", Vinton Cerf's
IP [ Internet Protocol ] has finally begun to be recognized as
obsolete for wireless networking.
As compared to what?