In a graduate networking course at BYU, we review the design philosophy of the Internet. By the "Internet", I refer to the architecture and protocols under which today's applications and services (web browsing, file sharing, media streaming, communication, etc.) are run. The success of the Internet is evaluated in terms of how well its design goals are met.
So what are its design goals? That has depended on what people have termed they should be over the course of the Internet's history. It has been around since the '70s, so the goals change over time due to advancements in hardware, and due to new apps that are invented, and can be supported by the Internet at the time.
Many of the design principles still in the Internet today were identified by David Clark in 1988. The primary goal he mentioned was to allow communication between different types of networks. Other goals included fault tolerance, support for multiple types of service, accommodation for a variety of networks, distributed resource management, cost effectiveness, ease for computers to attach to the Internet, and accountability for resources.
An additional design consideration since then has been security. Since then, the Internet has been made available for world-wide use, opening up many vulnerabilities relating to privacy and authenticity. Much security research has resulted from this need, and security continues to improve today.
So we have Clark's design goals and security. Are there additional design goals that the Internet has today? By and large, the above goals are still goals for today's Internet. Perhaps we should examine some of the recent applications. Television and video streaming is becoming a big thing. Perhaps the Internet could make quality of service a bigger priority.
No comments:
Post a Comment