Tag Archives: editorial

A square law revisited

Brian Carpenter

Abstract

An earlier study observed that until 2008, the size of the BGP4 system for IPv4 appeared to have grown approximately in proportion to the square root of the host count of the globally addressable Internet. This article revisits this study by including IPv4 data until 2020 and adding IPv6 data. The results indicate that BGP4 for IPv4 is continuing to scale steadily even as IPv4 approaches its end of life, and that it is working as it should for IPv6, except for a slight concern that the number of announced routes is trending upwards faster as time goes on.

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Workshop on Overcoming Measurement Barriers to Internet Research (WOMBIR 2021) final report

KC Claffy, David Clark, John Heidemann, Fabian Bustamante, Mattijs Jonker, Aaron Schulman, Ellen Zegura

Abstract

In January and April 2021 we held the Workshop on Overcoming Measurement Barriers to Internet Research (WOMBIR) with the goal of understanding challenges in network and security data set collection and sharing. Most workshop attendees provided white papers describing their perspectives, and many participated in short-talks and discussion in two virtual workshops over five days. That discussion produced consensus around several points. First, many aspects of the Internet are characterized by decreasing visibility of important network properties, which is in tension with the Internet’s role as critical infrastructure. We discussed three specific research areas that illustrate this tension: security, Internet access; and mobile networking. We discussed visibility challenges at all layers of the networking stack, and the challenge of gathering data and validating inferences. Important data sets require longitudinal (long-term, ongoing) data collection and sharing, support for which is more challenging for Internet research than other fields. We discussed why a combination of technical and policy methods are necessary to safeguard privacy when using or sharing measurement data. Workshop participants proposed several opportunities to accelerate progress, some of which require coordination across government, industry, and academia.

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Collaboration in the IETF: an initial analysis of two decades in email discussions

Michael Welzl, Stephan Oepen, Cezary Jaskula, Carsten Griwodz, Safiqul Islam

Abstract

RFC 9000, published in May 2021, marks an important milestone for the Internet’s standardization body, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): finally, the specification of the QUIC protocol is available. QUIC is the result of a five-year effort – and it is also the second of two major protocols (the first being SPDY, which later became HTTP/2) that Google LLC first deployed, and then brought to the IETF for standardization. This begs the question: when big players follow such a “shoot first, discuss later” approach, is IETF collaboration still “real”, or is the IETF now being (mis-)used to approve protocols for standardization when they are already practically established, without really actively involving anyone but the main proponents?

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Limited domains considered useful

Brian Carpenter, Jon Crowcroft, Dirk Trossen

Abstract

Limited domains were defined conceptually in RFC 8799 to cater to requirements and behaviours that extend the dominant view of IP packet delivery in the Internet. This paper argues not only that limited domains have been with us from the very beginning of the Internet but also that they have been shaping innovation of Internet technologies ever since, and will continue to do so. In order to build limited domains that successfully interoperate with the existing Internet, we propose an architectural framework as a blueprint. We discuss the role of the IETF in ensuring continued innovation in Internet technologies by embracing the wider research community’s work on limited domain technology, leading to our key insight that Limited Domains are not only considered useful but a must to sustain innovation.

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The July 2021 issue

This July 2021 issue contains one technical paper, two educational contributions, as well as four editorial notes.

The technical paper, NemFi: Record-and-replay to emulate WiFi, by Abhishek kumar Mishra and colleagues, proposes a trace-driven WiFi emulator called NemFi, that allows modeling of transmission opportunities of uplink and downlink directions, packet loss, frame aggregation, and media access control behavior. The latter two concepts are unique for WiFi when compared with other similar tools that have been built for cellular networks.

The first educational contribution, The Graph Neural Networking Challenge: A Worldwide Competition for Education in AI/ML for Networks, by Jose Suarez-Varela and colleagues, proposes a ”challenge” to teach students about applications of AI/MLin computer networks. The authors describe a process to select a dataset, and a competition-based approach where participants must design a neural-network-based approach to infer properties of the dataset with as much accuracy as possible.

The second educational contribution, P4Pi: P4 on Raspberry Pi for Networking Education, by Sandor Laki and colleagues, presents a novel platform for networking education based on a Raspberry Pi, allowing students to program P4.

Then, we have four editorial notes. The first one, Limited Domains Considered Useful, by Brian Carpenter and his colleagues, argues not only that limited domains have been with us from the very beginning of the Internet but also that they have been shaping innovation of Internet technologies ever since, and will continue to do so.

The second editorial note, Collaboration in the IETF: An Initial Analysis of Two Decades in Email Discussions, by Michael Welzl and his colleagues, discusses the following question: when big players follow such a “shoot first, discuss later” approach, is IETF collaboration still “real”, or is the IETF now being (mis-)used to approve protocols for standardization when they are already practically established, without really actively involving anyone but the main proponents?

The third editorial note, Workshop on Overcoming Measurement Barriers to Internet Research (WOMBIR 2021) Final Report, by kc claffy and her colleagues, reports on the Workshop on Overcoming Measurement Barriers to Internet Research (WOMBIR), held earlier in 2021.

The fourth and last editorial note, A Square Law Revisited, by Brian Carpenter, revisits the approximate apparent growth of the globally addressable Internet in proportion to the square root of the host count.

I hope that you will enjoy reading this new issue and welcome comments and suggestions on CCR Online (https://ccronline.sigcomm.org) or by email at ccr-editor at sigcomm.org.

Great educators in computer networking: Bruce Davie

Matthew Caesar, Bruce Davie

Abstract

This interview is part of a series on Great Educators in Computer Networking, where we interview some of the most impactful and skilled educators in our field. Here, we interviewed Australian Bruce Davie, the self-described computer scientist/engineer/runner/cyclist, who agreed to talk to us about his thoughts on computer networking education, his role in it, his thoughts about the big ideas in our field, and how the pandemic is changing our work. Bruce has over 30 years of industry experience and is well known for a broad spectrum of educational initiatives such as co-authoring several textbooks, as well as his contributions to many networking standards and technologies, including IP quality of service, network virtualization, software defined networking, and more.

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SatNetLab: A call to arms for the next global Internet testbed

Ankit Singla

Abstract

The space industry is moving rapidly towards offering low-latency and high-bandwidth global Internet coverage using low Earth orbit satellites. Such networks represent “one giant leap” in Internet infrastructure, both in their goals and the underlying technology. Due to their unique characteristics, they open up new opportunities, and pose new research challenges. I thus lay out a case for networking researchers to collaboratively undertake the construction of SatNetLab, a research platform that enables experimentation across upcoming satellite-based networks.

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Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE 2020) Final Report

kc claffy, David Clark

Abstract

On 16-17 December 2020, CAIDA hosted the 11th interdisciplinary Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE) in a virtual Zoom conference. This year our goal was to gather feedback from researchers on their experiences using CAIDA’s data for economics or policy research. We invited all researchers who reported use of CAIDA data in these disciplines. We discussed their successes and challenges of using the data, and how CAIDA could help these fields via Internet measurement and data curation. To avoid Zoom fatigue, we had a conversation-focused rather than presentation-focused workshop. Research topics we discussed included: Internet data for macroeconomics; connectivity and its effect on economic interdependence; effects of the EU’s new GDPR on internet interconnection; measuring corporate cyber risk; measuring work-from-home trends; measuring the economic value of open source software; and more generally how to best support evidence-based policymaking.

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The Netivus Manifesto: Making Collaborative Network Management Easier for the Rest of Us

Joseph Severini, Radhika Niranjan Mysore, Vyas Sekar, Sujata Banerjee, Michael K. Reiter

Abstract

We study operational issues faced by Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) network owners and find that SME network management practices have stagnated over the past decade, despite many recent advances in network management. Many of these advances target hyperscalers and ISPs and cannot be directly applied to SME networks that are operated with vastly different constraints. In our work, we outline these constraints and explain how they impact challenges around debugging, namely: representing, reproducing, and remediating network problems. This article takes a fresh look at these challenges in the light of SME practices around collaborative debugging and presents a roadmap aimed to help resolve SME operational issues quickly.

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The April 2021 issue

The April 2021 issue contains one technical paper as well as five editorial notes.

The technical paper, Surviving switch failures in cloud datacenters, by Rachee Singh and her colleagues, examines the nature of switch failures in the datacenters of a large commercial cloud provider. This work studies a cohort of over 180,000 switches with a variety of hardware and software configurations.

Then, we have five editorial notes. The first one, The Netivus Manifesto: Making Collaborative Network Management Easier for the Rest of Us, by Joseph Severini and his colleagues, studies operational issues faced by Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) network owners.

The second editorial note, Revitalizing the Public Internet By Making it Extensible, by Hari Balakrishnan and his colleagues, argues for the creation of an Extensible Internet that supports in-network services that go beyond best-effort packet delivery.

The third editorial note, Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE 2020) Final Report, by kc claffy and David Clark, reports on the 11th interdisciplinary Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE).

The fourth editorial note, SatNetLab: A call to arms for the next global Internet testbed, by Ankit Singla, lays out a case for networking researchers to collaboratively undertake the construction of SatNetLab, a research platform that enables experimentation across upcoming satellite-based networks.

The fifth editorial note, Great Educators in Computer Networking: Bruce Davie, by Matthew Caesar and Bruce Davie, is an interview, part of a series on Great Educators in Computer Networking, where some of the most impactful and skilled educators in our field are interviewed.

I hope that you will enjoy reading this new issue and welcome comments and suggestions on CCR Online (https://ccronline.sigcomm.org) or by email at ccr-editor at sigcomm.org.