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经济模型与互联网实际运营实践之间的持续脱节。 首先，互联网变得太复杂-在交通动力学，拓扑结构和经济学-目前可用的分析工具，允许现实的建模。 第二，更现实的模型参数化所需的数据根本无法获得。这个问题是基本的，也是熟悉的：简单的模型是无效的，复杂的模型是无法验证的。该项目旨在通过创建更强大的，经验参数化的计算工具，并使更广泛的验证比以前可能的。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、路由政策和对等做法。这些测量结果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再现互联网拓扑结构的已知宏观特性的能力，以及再现互联网演变中已知历史趋势的能力。然后，研究人员将使用该模型来研究各种“假设”的情况下，域间互连的做法，域间对等链路的稳定性和动态性，并提供互联网infrastructure. This项目的智力价值在于在宏观互联网拓扑结构，流量需求，路由策略和对等策略的实证测量接地的方法。这些数据有望揭示拓扑动态、域间流量特征和路由策略的经济影响，但迄今为止还难以理解，但它们也将为网络互连激励和动态模型的参数化提供信息。这个项目更广泛的影响在于对网络研究中最不透明的子学科互联网络经济学的可用数据进行更深入的、基于经验的解释。该项目的教育方面将整合互联网经济学在两个格鲁吉亚技术课程，而博士后和博士生将作为互联网研究的这一新兴子学科的专家毕业。在本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.