The Real Internet Architecture

"This book offers a description of the architecture of the Internet as it actually exists now. It is a revolutionary description, based on a completely new model of network architecture, explaining how the Internet has evolved from its origins and how it is still evolving, and exposing previously unarticulated patterns and trends in network architecture. Essentially all discussion of the Internet is still dominated by the "classic" (five-layer) model put forth by its originators. This model is so outdated that it is a hindrance to understanding Internet evolution, as well as to teaching and doing effective research on networking. This book replaces it with a new model of networking called "compositional network architecture." This model has been formalized, but the book does not use the formal model; rather, the book relies on the model's accuracy and precision as a foundation for a convincing informal explanation, accessible to a much broader audience than a formal model would be (the formal model will be available on a companion website, along with teaching material). Many scholars and practitioners, seeing the Internet only through the lens of the classic Internet architecture, complain that the Internet has not evolved past its original architecture. Compositional network architecture is a general model for describing many architectures, and it shows clearly how the Internet has evolved since the early 1990s, and how it continues to evolve. Though the book is based on a conceptual model and is therefore a relatively abstract treatment, it is illustrated with hundreds of contemporary Internet examples, so there is no lack of concrete detail or grounding in reality. Compared to older works on networking, the book is also more concerned with network services-how a network helps users communicate. This is a natural outgrowth of the Internet as subject matter. Performance and scalability are the usual themes of Internet literature, as they were certainly the most important challenges of the Internet's early years. Since the 1990s, however, progress on performance and scalability has been steady and incremental. The major motivation for Internet evolution since then has been the need for enhanced services, including mobility, multicast, security, privacy, reliability, and support for content distribution, and the book will engage with these themes. It will serve as a reference for anyone dealing with internet architecture, and as a graduate textbook for networking courses"--