SuperNova2007 (6/...)

Does the Net Need an Upgrade?
(Van Jacobson, Rick Hutley, Norman Lewis, David Isenberg)

Applications, user expectations, business arrangements, and infrastructure demands are all changing as the Internet converges with voice, video, and mobile networks. There are even calls for a fundamental technical redesign of the Net, in order to address scaling, security, and other needs. Will the Internet of the next decade look different than the Internet of today? Should it?

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Notes:

Rick Hutley:
• The Internet is not “out there” – it is a collections of activities shared by people and companies.
• The Internet as corporation use it – keep changing.
• The upgrade should be defined by the entities that use it.
• Security will continue to be a problem, as the nature of business become more complex.

Norman Lewis:
• We need to define who to engage in a discussion with the stakeholders and users.
• Security is a main topic. How do we create a balanced process and result?

Van Jacobson:
• The protocol was design in 1975 and was changed only 3 times since. And this is very good, compared to the telephone system – from a scale point of view.
• Keeping the “Net” simple was achieved by following the concept of pushing everything to the edge.
• The place we could not push to the edge was security. The “Net” is moving data and the “Net” is blind to the dataset, therefore it cannot help the end points with security. “Garbage/threats” in “garbage/threats” out.
• We need to upgrade the content and the ways to secured it – keep the “Net” simple.
• Making the “center/core” more complex will not work.

David Isenberg
• We need to be careful when trying to fix the current issues not to cause more damage.
• There are calls for upgrading the “Net” be companies – trying to support their current business models (limit Internet solutions that affect their business – for example – phone companies who would like to charge more for Internet services, providing VoIP).

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My Thoughts:

Similar to ‘upgrading’ the ‘Web’ (offerings, services, applications) to ‘Web2.0’, upgrade of the Internet should bring real value and new concepts/applications.
There are constant changes in the way people and companies/organizations are using the Internet.
No one can stop current processes as these activities happens at the edges and are motivated by market needs. It cannot be stopped or rebooted.

As for the responsibility for the security issue (Network core/protocol or applications at the edge), the panel used examples of sending a secured letters via the mail.

My example would be related to cars, trains and travel: At the edge, cars ars are getting better, safer, faster, smarter, greener, while in the core, the infrastructure is lagging behind. Forcing new order in transportation is like forcing cars to be loaded onto trains and travel on specific rails.



It is the way you would like to travel?
What is worst – a car crash or a train crash?

E.T.

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