NetSE: Small: Collaborative Research: The Economics of Transit and Peering Interconnections in the Internet

尽管人们对互联网的经济方面越来越感兴趣，例如网络互连（对等）、定价、性能和各种网络类型的盈利能力，但两个历史发展导致了互联网上的经济模型和实际操作实践之间的持续脱节。首先，互联网在流量动态、拓扑和经济方面变得过于复杂，目前可用的分析工具无法实现真实的建模。其次，参数化更现实的模型所需的数据根本无法获得。这个问题很基本，也很熟悉：简单模型无效，复杂模型无法验证。该项目旨在通过创建更强大、经验参数化的计算工具，并实现比以前更广泛的验证，在研究互联网的经济方面——网络互联（对等）、定价和各种网络类型的盈利能力方面取得变革性进展。该项目将涉及对影响互联网基础设施经济的关键属性的测量，如域间流量、拓扑动态、路由策略和对等实践。这些测量将作为网络互连和动态计算模型的输入。研究人员将验证该模型重现已知的互联网拓扑宏观特性的能力，以及重现互联网演进中已知的历史趋势的能力。然后，研究人员将使用该模型研究与域间互连实践、域间对等连接的稳定性和动态性以及提供互联网基础设施的经济特性有关的各种“假设”情景。这个项目的智力价值在于一种基于宏观互联网拓扑、流量需求、路由策略和对等策略的经验测量的方法。这些数据有望揭示重要的，迄今为止难以捉摸的，对拓扑动态，域间流量特征和路由策略的经济含义的见解，但它们也将告知网络互连激励和动态模型的参数化。这个项目更广泛的影响在于对网络研究中最不透明的分支学科——互联网经济学——的现有数据进行更深入的、基于经验的解释。该项目的教育方面将把互联网经济学整合到佐治亚理工学院的两门课程中，同时一名博士后和一名博士生将以互联网研究这一新兴分支学科的专家身份毕业。在该项目过程中开发的数据和方法将公开提供，并定期提交给研究界以及运营商和政策论坛，例如NANOG， FCC。

Despite growing interest in the economic aspects of the Internet, such as network interconnection (peering), pricing, performance, and the profitability of various network types, two historical developments contribute to a persistent disconnect between economic models and actual operational practices on the Internet. First, the Internet became too complex -- in traffic dynamics, topology, and economics -- for currently available analytical tools to allow realistic modeling. Second, the data needed to parameterize more realistic models is simply not available.The problem is fundamental, and familiar: simple models are not valid, and complex models cannot be validated.This project aims to achieve transformative progress in studying economic aspects of the Internet -- network interconnection (peering), pricing, and the profitability of various network types -- by creating more powerful, empirically parameterized computational tools, and enabling broader validation than previously possible. This project will involve measurement of key properties that impact Internet infrastructure economics, such as interdomain traffic, topology dynamics, routing policies and peering practices. These measurements will serve as inputs to a computational model of network interconnection and dynamics. The investigators will validate the model's ability to reproduce known macroscopic properties of the Internet topology, and its ability to reproduce known historical trends in the evolution of the Internet. The investigators will then use the model to study various "what-if" scenarios relating to interdomain interconnection practices, the stability and dynamics of interdomain peering links, and economic properties of provisioning Internet infrastructure.The intellectual merit of this project lies in an approach grounded in empirical measurements of macroscopic Internet topology, traffic demand, routing policies, and peering policies. The data promise to reveal important, and thus far elusive, insights into the economic implications of topology dynamics, interdomain traffic characteristics, and routing policy, but they will also inform the parameterization of a model of network interconnection incentives and dynamics. The broader impact of this project lies in deeper, empirically grounded interpretation of available data on the most opaque sub-discipline of network research -- internetwork economics. The educational side of the project will integrate Internet economics in two Georgia Tech courses, while a PostDoc and a PhD student will graduate as experts in this nascent sub-discipline of Internet research. The data and methods developed during the course of this project will be publicly available and regularly presented to both the research community as well as operator and policy forums, e.g., NANOG, FCC.