Frances Corry, Anna C. Loup

Abstract

This editorial gives a brief overview of a project historicizing the “Technical History of the Internet,” a tutorial held at SIGCOMM’s 1999 meeting at Harvard University. Organized in part by the late computer scientist and historian Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan, the tutorial brought together 19 key players from the development of the Internet to reflect on their foundational work. Using both digi- tal and physical records from Edmondson-Yurkanan’s archive, we discuss the importance of this event in generating a robust discus- sion and historical record about the Internet’s technical evolution. Historical work about this tutorial also raises important questions on the ways in which records about the Internet’s development are preserved or neglected.

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Walter Willinger, Murad S. Taqqu, Daniel V. Wilson

Abstract

This editorial is an outgrowth of our research efforts that resulted in the SIGCOMM’93 paper [1] entitled On the self-similar nature of Ethernet traffic. We discuss some lessons we have learned as we have watched the published findings being absorbed by the scientific community in general and the networking community in particular. We focus on aspects that have remained relevant today, especially at a time when, with the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, networking research has become increasingly data-dependent and data-driven.

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Ryan Beckett, Ratul Mahajan, Todd Millstein, Jitendra Padhye, David Walker

Abstract

We reflect on the historical context that lead to Propane, a high-level language and compiler to help network operators bridge the gap be- tween network-wide routing objectives and low-level configurations of devices that run complex, distributed protocols. We also high- light the primary contributions that Propane made to the networking literature and describe ongoing challenges. We conclude with an important lesson learned from the experience.

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Albert Greenberg, Geoffrey Xie, David A. Maltz, Jibin Zhan, Jennifer Rexford, Hui Zhang

Abstract

It’s been 15 years since what we now call Software Defined Network began emerging out of a set of ideas in the networking research com- munity. This editorial note traces how the ideas in one particular paper from that time have evolved and found practical applications.

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Lyman Chapin

Abstract

In the policy realm what we call “Internet issues” are not actually “Internet” issues-they are well-pedigreed social, political, cultural, and economic issues, for which we clever technologists have pro- vided a rich new environment in which to grow and multiply. It follows that the people best prepared to tackle “Internet” issues may be thoughtful professionals in fields such as behavioral psychology, linguistics, sociology, education, history, ethnology, and political science-not (exclusively) “Internet experts”.

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Costin Raiciu, Gianni Antichi

Abstract

NDP is a datacenter network architecture and stack that was awarded best paper at Sigcomm 2017; it is also one of the first works that explicitly aims at providing both low latency and high through- put simultaneously. We describe the progress of the field since the publication of this article.

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David Waledn

Abstract

Brief notes relating to the Computer Communication Review in 1975–1976.

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Wesley Chu

Abstract

ACM SIGCOMM has reached its fiftieth birthday. The field is still remarkably strong, expanding into new disciplines as well as new application areas. Since I was an early SIGCOMM chair (1973-1977), I have been asked to recall the early days and discuss possible future directions.

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Jeffrey C. Mogul, Christopher A Kantarjiev

Abstract

We look back at our 1987 paper, “Fragmentation Considered Harmful,” to explain why we wrote it, how the prevalence of fragmentation was reduced by approaches such as Path MTU Discovery, and how fragmentation-related issues still lurk in today’s Internet. Our paper listed several reasons why we thought fragmentation was harmful; some were more true in 1987 than they are today, and after our paper was published, the community realized that fragmentation (and the mechanisms used to mitigate it) exposed harms we did not anticipate in our paper.

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Jeffrey C. Mogul, Christopher A Kantarjiev

Abstract

The original Ethernet design used CSMA/CD on a broadcast cable. Even after it became commercially popular, many people expressed concerns that Ethernet could not efficiently use the full channel bandwidth. In our 1988 paper, “Measured Capacity of an Ethernet: Myths and Reality,” we reported on experiments we ran showing that, even under relatively heavy loads, Ethernet typically still performed well. We describe the context in which we ran those experiments, and some subsequent research conducted by others.

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