Dear program committee and all, shortly before the previous RRG meeting in Dublin, I had proposed a new host stack architecture as one step towards solving the routing scalability problem. The idea was to move the existing indirection between hostnames and IP addresses from its current position at the application layer down to the IP layer. Applications and transport protocols would thus exclusively work with hostnames, and IP addresses would be dealt with only at the IP layer. I would like to let the group and the program committee know that I am now working on a concept paper describing this new stack architecture in more detail, and that I would like to present this at the RRG meeting in Minneapolis. I hope to have the paper ready within a few days, as I am aware that this is a prerequisite for RRG presentations. Let me for the meantime point back to the email in which I sketched the new stack architecture initially:
http://www.ops.ietf.org/lists/rrg/2008/msg01912.html Like other host-based solutions, the proposed new stack architecture provides a basis for efficient multi-homing, and it simplifies renumbering by eliminating the need to renumber hosts and applications. Unlike other host-based solutions, the new stack architecture has additional advantages in terms of human-friendliness, low stack complexity, and simplified application programming: - Human-friendliness, because the role of a host identifier is taken by human-readable and memorizable hostnames rather than by cryptographic or encoded bit strings. - Low stack complexity, because no extra identifier/address split is needed, and because IP-address-specific functionality (hostname resolution, IP destination address selection, NAT traversal) is centralized at the IP layer, avoiding the need to replicate this functionality in applications. - Simplified application programming, because the existing, IP-address-oriented socket API is replaced by a simplified API providing "connect-by-hostname" and "accept-by-hostname" methods. Note that these additional advantages provide strong incentives for operating system vendors and application programmers to adopt the new stack architecture. Efficient multi-homing and simplified renumbering alone provide only weaker incentives, because they have no or very limited benefits for host and users. Let me re-emphasize that the proposed new stack architecture may not be sufficient to fully solve the routing scalability problem. It will certainly be a big step, because new multi-homing capabilities and the reduced renumbering costs will make it easier to use provider-allocated addresses at the Internet edge. But some sort of network support may still be needed to eliminate renumbering altogether. Moreover, the new stack architecture could serve as a framework for core ideas from other host-based solutions. Take multi-path TCP as an example. Or the capability from (host-based) Six/One to rewrite IP addresses in the network as a trigger for hosts to redirect traffic to a different path. Anyway, I am writing this down now in said concept paper. And while I'm doing this, I'd like to queue up for a presentation slot in Minneapolis. - Christian _______________________________________________ rrg mailing list [email protected] https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/rrg
