Collaborative Research: NeTS-NBD: An Evolvable Architecture for Next-Generation Internet Services

拟议的研究计划将开发和促进下一代互联网架构的核心组件，该架构将在面对现代应用需求时大大增加互联网的功能、健壮性、灵活性和异构性。我们的方法有两个相互关联的要点。首先要解决以下问题：下一代全球网络基础设施的正确架构是什么？因为提出一个全新的设计，或者把这个问题当作一个思想实验，几乎没有机会产生实际影响，第二个重点是建立研究基础设施，使我们能够发现、评估和部署这个架构。具体来说，覆盖网络最近作为一种很有前途的技术出现，将颠覆性技术引入互联网。这种对覆盖功能的关注没有回答一个最关键的问题：下面是什么？什么是适当的最小的、普遍共享的环境来覆盖这些覆盖？支持不断增加的叠加机会的底层的核心在于三个关键要素。首先，必须有一些信息发现和传播的手段，通过与覆盖了解底层的互联网；即所谓的信息平面。其次，将覆盖提升到一级对象，特别强调以经济上连贯的、计算上实用的方式将复杂的网络资源集合（例如，带宽、存储、计算周期、共享信息）协调分配给竞争的覆盖。这需要一个资源分配的经济框架。第三，还有一个互补的问题，即如何定义资源的基本单位，以及通过虚拟化实现资源分配决策的挑战。综合起来，这些元素构成了覆盖层操作环境的关键核心；这是一个覆盖式世界所必需的通用子结构。这三个要素在这个研究项目中发挥着关键作用：它们既是一个关键目标（输出），同时也是建立一个可扩展的广域测试平台的必要条件，使研究人员能够在现实世界的条件下评估新的想法。

The proposed research program will develop and catalyze the core component of a next-generation Internet architecture that greatly increases the functional capabilities, robustness, flexibility, and heterogeneity of the Internet in the face of modern application requirements.Our approach has two inter-related thrusts. The first is to address the following question: What is the right architecture for the next generation of global networking infrastructure? Because proposing a clean-slate design, or treating this question as a thought experiment, has little chance of practical impact, the second thrust is to build the research infrastructure that allows us to discover, evaluate and deploy this architecture.Specifically, overlay networks have recently emerged as a promising technique for introducing disruptive technology into the Internet. This focus on overlay functionality has left unanswered the single most critical question: What lies underneath? What is the appropriate minimal, universally shared environment to underlay the overlays?The core of an underlay that supports an increasing multiplicity of overlay opportunities lies in three key elements. First, there must be some means of information discovery and dissemination through with overlays learn about the underlying Internet; a so-called Information Plane. Second, elevating overlays to first-class objects places special emphasis on the coordinated assignment of complex collections of network resources (e.g., bandwidth, storage, computational cycles, shared information) to competing overlays in an economically coherent, computationally practical fashion. This requires an Economic Framework for resource allocation. Third, there is a complementary question of how to define the basic unit of resource, and the challenges in the implementation of decisions made in resource allocation by means of Virtualization. Combined, these elements form the critical core of an operating environment for overlays; the necessary universal substructure for an overlay-enabled world. These three elements play a pivotal role in this research program: they are both a key objective (output), and at the same time, essential for building a scalable wide-area testbed that allows researchers to evaluate new ideas under real-world conditions.