NeTS: Large: Collaborative Research: Measuring and Modeling the Dynamics of IPv4 Address Exhaustion

今天的互联网拥有约17亿用户，每年为全球创造约1.5万亿美元的经济效益，并被广泛认为将提供一系列令人震惊的社会效益。该网络看到了巨大的需求-大约40Tbps的域间流量和44.5%的年增长率。值得注意的是，尽管互联网的重要性和快速增长，但支持其基本功能(即寻址、命名、路由)的核心协议随着时间的推移几乎没有什么根本性的变化。然而，互联网现在正处于其第一次根本性的颠覆性修改中：一种相变，在整个网络的大量组件中施加广泛的变化。2011年2月3日，互联网编号分配机构(IANA)将剩余的五个IPv4地址空间块分配给五个地区互联网注册机构(RIR)。这一事件是互联网的一个分水岭时刻，因为它代表了互联网未分配的IPv4地址池的耗尽。虽然消除现有分配的IPv4地址空间的低利用率和应用IPv4地址重用技术(即网络到地址转换(NAT)和动态主机配置协议(DHCP))可能会在短期内缓解压力，但这一关键Internet资源的最终匮乏将成为变革的强大催化剂。该项目试图验证这样一个假设，即IPv4地址和伴随的解决方案的匮乏将对Internet及其许多重要属性产生深刻影响，包括异构性、开放性、安全性、可扩展性、可靠性、可用性、并发性和透明度。该项目努力了解这些影响分为三个大的领域：(I)研究分配IPv4地址的动态以及随后如何使用这些地址资源，(Ii)了解短期应对机制和过渡技术(例如，运营商级NAT、隧道)，以及(Iii)观察长期解决方案的采用(即，互联网协议的新版本，IPv6)。为了追求上述目标，该项目组建了一个跨组织的研究团队，他们在科学互联网测量方面有着悠久的历史(密歇根大学、国际计算机科学研究所)。该项目得到了一个强大的支持团队的支持，其中包括互联网服务提供商(AT&amp；T，Merit Networks，Inc.)，互联网号码资源注册机构(APNIC，ARIN，AFRINIC，RIPE NCC和LACNIC)，以及基础设施提供商(Verisign，Packet Clearing House，Arbor Networks)，他们将提供对大量、通常是唯一的数据的访问。智力优势：这种在规模上和跨越众多核心互联网协议的测量本身不仅带来了技术挑战，而且提供了一个千载难逢的机会来看待处于稀缺和转型中的大规模分布式系统。观察到的行为不仅将为全球分布式系统的发展提供信息，还将为网络体系结构和设计、网络协议和移动网络的科学提供信息。这些领域的具体研究领域可能包括：地址转移、地址回收、地址污染、地址分配政策和分配政策滥用、新的地址空间拓扑、地址和身份、动态寻址、寻址和路由、寻址和移动性、过渡战略、采用激励、采用临界点、过渡中的巴尔干化、采用测量、负面采用激励。广泛的影响：对许多人来说，互联网已经成为日常生活中无处不在的方面。这项工作的主要影响将是通过仪器设备、数据共享以及与整个全球网络的运营商和网络进行问题诊断，直接确保互联网的可用性和可靠性，因为它正在经历其运作的这一特殊阶段。此外，本着与这一独特现象和测量相适应的科学探索精神，该项目将提供收集到的大量数据，作为一种手段，以推动超出项目组具体研究的科学研究。最后，在观察和研究的基础上，该项目将制定指导新的、更具弹性的网络架构和协议开发的原则。

Today's Internet has some 1.7 billion users, fosters an estimated $1.5 trillion in annual global economic benefits, and is widely agreed to offer a staggering array of societal benefits. The network sees enormous demand---on the order of 40 Tbps of inter-domain traffic and an annual growth rate of 44.5%. Remarkably, in spite of the Internet's importance and rapid growth, the core protocols that support its basic functions (i.e., addressing, naming, routing) have seen little fundamental change over time.However, the Internet is now in the midst of its first fundamentally disruptive modification: a phase transition imposing extensive changes throughout the network's vast set of components. On the 3rd of February, 2011 the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated the five remaining blocks of IPv4 address space to the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). This event was a watershed moment for the Internet, in that it represented the exhaustion of the Internet's pool of unallocated IPv4 addresses. While eliminating poor utilization of existing allocated IPv4 address space and application of techniques for IPv4 address re-use (i.e., Network to Address Translation (NAT) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)) will likely provide short term relief, the eventual scarcity of this critical Internet resource will be a strong catalyst for change.This project seeks to validate the hypothesis that the scarcity of IPv4 addresses and accompanying solutions will have profound effects on the Internet and many of its vital properties, including heterogeneity, openness, security, scalability, reliability, availability, concurrency and transparency. This project's efforts to understand these impacts are divided into three broad areas: (i) studies of the dynamics by which IPv4 addresses are allocated and how these address resources are subsequently used, (ii) understanding the near-term coping mechanisms and transition technologies (e.g., carrier grade NAT, tunneling), and (iii) observing the adoption of longer-term solutions (i.e., the new version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6). To pursue the above goals this project has formed a cross-organizational team of researchers with a long history of scientific Internet measurement (University of Michigan, International Computer Science Institute). The project is bolstered by a substantial supporting team that includes ISPs (AT&T, Merit Networks, Inc.), Internet number resource registries (APNIC, ARIN, AFRINIC, RIPE NCC, and LACNIC), and infrastructure providers (Verisign, Packet Clearing House, Arbor Networks) who will provide access to massive, often unique data.Intellectual Merit: Such measurement---at-scale and across numerous core Internet protocols---presents not only a technical challenge in itself, but offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to view massive, distributed systems under scarcity and transition. The behaviors observed will inform not only the development of global distributed systems, but also the sciences of network architecture and design, network protocols, and mobile networks. Specific areas of study in these domains potentially include: address transfers, address reclamation, address pollution, address allocation policies and allocation policy abuse, new address space topologies, addresses and identity, dynamic addressing, addressing and routing, addressing and mobility, transition strategies, adoption incentives, adoption tipping points, balkanization in transition, adoption measurement, negative adoption incentives.Broader Impact: For many the Internet has become a ubiquitous aspect of everyday life. A major impact of this work will be directly ensuring the availability and reliability of the Internet through instrumentation, data sharing, and problem diagnosis with operators and networks throughout the global network as it undergoes this singular phase in its functioning. Further, in the spirit of scientific exploration commensurate with this unique phenomenon and measurement, this project will make available the extensive data collected as a means to spur scientific research beyond the specific research of the project team. Finally, based on the observations and studies, this project will develop principles guiding the development of new, more resilient network architectures and protocols.