at&tNITRD

Complex Engineered NetworksBreakout Session on Internet

Robert Doverspike (AT&T Labs – Research)

Keith Ross (Polytechnic Institute of NYU)Sept 20-21, 2012

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Internet Topic Areas for Questions and Challenges

I. Definitions

II. Security

III. Economics

IV. Privacy

V. Methodology

VI. Policy

VII. Reliability and performance, prediction

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DefinitionsInternet: Though different things to different people, we define 3

broad categories• The public Internet. The original instantiation of the “Internet” in

the USA has evolved into a collection of independent, commercial carriers who interconnect via pair-wise peering agreements and protocols (such as BGP). This collection of packet networks allows open IP addresses and reaches all consumer and some business end users (eyeballs).

• Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). This category supports independent business applications and enables private IP addresses and various forms of privacy and security beyond the public Internet. However, at some point packets of the public internet and VPNs mix on the same links of the carriers.

• Private packet networks. These networks are heavily firewalled (both physical and virtually) from the above networks and usually built over a combination of separate routers/switches and lower-layer infrastructures (such high-rate private lines, multiplexing and cross-connect equipment, leased dark fiber, or privately-owed fiber). Many mission-critical networks are of this categories.

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Security

• Henning! This needs to be rewritten to better focus the issues and not make look like old laundry list Malware distribution is perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Internet today (Bob Kahn’s talk). What methodologies can be used to create a more secure and private Internet?

• How dependent are various mission critical systems (such as power grids, transportation system, network control planes, and financial systems) on the various manifestations of the Internet (Public Internet, VPN and private packet networks). What should be done to better to secure the connections to these systems, particularly in the context of cyber warfare. For example, many of these forms of Internet have not proved to be able to properly deliver large-scale synchronized data. Is there a solution for this and what are the impacts to cost and performance.

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Economics

• While critical questions and challenges (such as security, functionality, characterization of the Internet as a system, QoS, measurement of its health and performance) need to be explored, because of the independent, commercial architecture into which the Internet has evolved, these questions cannot be analyzed disjointly from economic models, such as cost constraints and impacts and financial health of the major ISPs who constitute the Internet.

• We need to better understand the economic incentives that spur innovation, such opportunities for computer networking innovation, vis-a-vis and the assessment of impact of disruptive architectures, such as pathways to implementation and complexity of management, operational procedures. Also, how do we gracefully evolve to new architectures, given embedded infrastructures and reliability objectives

• The cost and revenue of the Internet is dominated by the last mile or “access network” to get to the end users ("eyeballs”). The edge is where the “action” is; applied all the way to the edge and coordinated in a heterogeneous (end-to-end) way, plus support emerging end-user needs in context-computing, and content based management.

• What should be the role of emerging CoS (and associated QoS) as a deployed technology in the commodity Internet vs. cost containment objectives, pricing models (such as flat-rate pricing plans, as well as the price structure for access that cuts through the tariffs constraints and issues), and security issues.

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Privacy

• What should individuals, online services, regulators, and policymakers do to ensure our privacy is protected in this age of Internet data? As more user information is tracked (often for purposes of marketing and advertising), how do we prevent or control data mining by third parties to profile individuals in detail?

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Methodology• What are the similarities or differences between the types of

problems and economic constraints of power grids and those of the Internet? Are there methodologies that apply similarities and synergies for the research & engineering community to exploit?

• How can the Internet carriers provide usage data, internal cost models, traffic considerations, architectures, and implementation constructions to the academic and govt research community so that they can better participate in its evolution and optimization?

• To make networks more cost effective, lower power consumption and more reliable, future networks will likely be more agile in adapting to exogenous traffic and dynamic changes in network states. This will put tremendous stress on the control plane. Not all network states can be sensed and used for control in the complex network of the future. The challenge is to make Network Management and Control (NM&C) a science so the architecture can be optimized and prevent NM&C from dominating the cost or limiting network performance. An example is: what is the role of SDN and how does this tradeoff with security?

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Policy

• Reword A potential role for government and research community is assess how the current decoupled structure of the Internet (where each carrier optimizes its own subnetwork, CoS/QoS, and cost structure, perhaps at the expense of other carriers or their users) compares to a structure where the Internet is optimized as a whole, i.e., from the overall societal advantage. What is that role? How does this relate to objectives/notions such as net neutrality and cyber security? What should be the role of the government and Internet (in the context of independent, multi-carrier, commercial architecture into which it has evolved) with regard to social issues, such as Adopt (broadband) America Fund for rural access. How we can build-out and operate high capacity reliable networks at much lower cost (esp. to rural) areas?

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Reliability and performance, prediction

• Reword What objectives and approaches are used to provide network reliability and performance for example: Lack of exposure and control of independent peering/transit (including pricing) agreements can lead to instability. How do we analyze and try to solve this? (mitigating the impact of component outages and network maintenance and upgrading) vs. survivability (outages due to natural disasters, acts of war, outside traffic impacts, such as peering changes leading to surges, and deliberate attacks). E.g., We need to better understand the propensity for cascading failures and now to mitigate them.

© 2012 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved.10

Backup

• Does the Internet need to be scrapped and re-invented? If so, what are the realistic pathways to make that happen? Remove

• One way to address the complexity of Internet it to better clarify its policy objectives. Remove

• How is the Internet equipped to handle new application paradigms, such as cloud computing (large data centers), branch-cache servers, p2p. Are there new drawbacks/threats? Remove

• What are the benefits of machine-to-machine (device-to-device ?) networking (at edge) and what are the risks? Remove

• This needs more definition How to combine heterogeneous data sources to make inferences about higher level phenomena Remove

• While much of the discussion involves the large ISPs that constitute the “Internet”, large content providers and private networks, such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, DISA, etc., have built their own backbones over leased private lines or dark fiber. Although the last-mile networks remain a critical component of the Internet, will tier-1 networks become irrelevant or at least unimportant.

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Questions/Challenges1. Economics While critical questions and challenges (such as security,

functionality, characterization of the Internet as a system, QoS, measurement of its health and performance) need to be explored, because of the independent, commercial architecture into which the Internet has evolved, these questions cannot be analyzed disjointly from economic models, such as cost constraints and impacts and financial health of the major ISPs who constitute the Internet.

2. Economics We need to better understand the economic incentives that spur innovation, such opportunities for computer networking innovation, vis-a-vis and the assessment of impact of disruptive architectures, such as pathways to implementation and complexity of management, operational procedures. Also, how do we gracefully evolve to new architectures, given embedded infrastructures and reliability objectives

3. Privacy What should individuals, online services, regulators, and policymakers do to ensure our privacy is protected in this age of Internet data? As more user information is tracked (often for purposes of marketing and advertising), how do we prevent or control data mining by third parties to profile individuals in detail?

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Questions/Challenges5. Security Focus this question on private packet networks. What should be

done to better to secure the Internet’s connections to power grids, transportation systems, and financial systems? Particularly in the context of cyber warfare. The Internet has not proved to be able to properly deliver large-scale synchronized data. Is there a solution for this and what are the impacts to cost and performance

6. Economics The cost and revenue of the Internet is dominated by the last mile or “access network” to get to the end users ("eyeballs”). The edge is where the “action” is; applied all the way to the edge and coordinated in a heterogeneous (end-to-end) way, plus support emerging end-user needs in context-computing,] and content based management.

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Questions/Challenges10.Economics What should be the role of emerging CoS (and associated

QoS) as a deployed technology in the commodity Internet vs. cost containment objectives, pricing models (such as flat-rate pricing plans, as well as the price structure for access that cuts through the tariffs constraints and issues), and security issues.

11.Methodology What are the similarities or differences between the types of problems and economic constraints of power grids and those of the Internet? Are there methodologies that apply similarities and synergies for the research & engineering community to exploit?

12.Policy Reword A potential role for government and research community is assess how the current decoupled structure of the Internet (where each carrier optimizes its own subnetwork, CoS/QoS, and cost structure, perhaps at the expense of other carriers or their users) compares to a structure where the Internet is optimized as a whole, i.e., from the overall societal advantage. What is that role? How does this relate to objectives/notions such as net neutrality and cyber security? What should be the role of the government and Internet (in the context of independent, multi-carrier, commercial architecture into which it has evolved) with regard to social issues, such as Adopt (broadband) America Fund for rural access. How we can build-out and operate high capacity reliable networks at much lower cost (esp. to rural) areas?

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Questions/Challenges13.Reliability and performance, prediction Reword What objectives and

approaches are used to provide network reliability and performance for example: Lack of exposure and control of independent peering/transit (including pricing) agreements can lead to instability. How do we analyze and try to solve this? (mitigating the impact of component outages and network maintenance and upgrading) vs. survivability (outages due to natural disasters, acts of war, outside traffic impacts, such as peering changes leading to surges, and deliberate attacks). E.g., We need to better understand the propensity for cascading failures and now to mitigate them.

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Questions/Challenges

18.Methodology How can the Internet carriers provide usage data, internal cost models, traffic considerations, architectures, and implementation constructions to the academic and govt research community so that they can better participate in its evolution and optimization?

19.Methodology Vincent and Muriel rewrite What is the role of SDN leading to more complex/powerful users with more complex (context-dependent) demand. How does this trade-off with security mandate.

20.To make networks more cost effective, lower power consumption and more reliable, futhre networks will likely be more agile in adaptiung to exogenious traffic and dynamic changes in network states. This will put tremendous stress on the control plane. Not all network states can be sensed and used for control in theh complx network of the future. The challenge is to make Network Mangement and Control (NM&C) a science so the architecture can be optimized and not make NM&C eoither comainted the cost or limit network performance.

© 2012 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved.16