NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
Support for this project was provided by core funds of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. Core support for the CSTB is provided by its public and private sponsors: the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Library of Medicine, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, and Time-Warner Cable.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
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Institute of Medicine
National Research Council
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COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH HORIZONS IN NETWORKING
DAVID A.PATTERSON,
University of California at Berkeley,
Chair
DAVID D.CLARK,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ANNA KARLIN,
University of Washington
JIM KUROSE,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
EDWARD D.LAZOWSKA,
University of Washington
DAVID LIDDLE,
U.S. Venture Partners
DEREK McAULEY,
Marconi
VERN PAXSON,
AT&T Center for Internet Research at ICSI
STEFAN SAVAGE,
University of California at San Diego
ELLEN W.ZEGURA,
Georgia Institute of Technology
Staff
JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer
MARJORY S.BLUMENTHAL, Executive Director
JANET BRISCOE, Administrative Officer
MARGARET HUYNH, Senior Project Assistant
DAVID PADGHAM, Research Assistant
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
DAVID D.CLARK,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Chair
DAVID BORTH,
Motorola Labs
JAMES CHIDDIX,
AOL Time Warner
JOHN M.CIOFFI,
Stanford University
ELAINE COHEN,
University of Utah
W.BRUCE CROFT,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
SUSAN L.GRAHAM,
University of California at Berkeley
JUDITH HEMPEL,
University of California at San Francisco
JEFFREY M.JAFFE,
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
ANNA KARLIN,
University of Washington
MICHAEL KATZ,
University of California at Berkeley
BUTLER W.LAMPSON,
Microsoft Corporation
EDWARD D.LAZOWSKA,
University of Washington
DAVID LIDDLE,
U.S. Venture Partners
TOM M.MITCHELL,
WhizBang! Labs Inc.
DONALD NORMAN,
UNext.com
DAVID A.PATTERSON,
University of California at Berkeley
HENRY (HANK) PERRITT,
Chicago-Kent College of Law
BURTON SMITH,
Cray Inc.
TERRY SMITH,
University of California at Santa Barbara
LEE SPROULL,
New York University
MARJORY S.BLUMENTHAL, Executive Director
HERBERT S.LIN, Senior Scientist
ALAN S.INOUYE, Senior Program Officer
JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer
LYNETTE I.MILLETT, Program Officer
CYNTHIA PATTERSON, Program Officer
JANET BRISCOE, Administrative Officer
MARGARET HUYNH, Senior Project Assistant
SUZANNE OSSA, Senior Project Assistant
DAVID DRAKE, Project Assistant
DAVID PADGHAM, Research Assistant
BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Office Assistant
Preface
This report is the result of a new approach by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council to developing research agendas in key areas of information technology. Typically, only the members of a particular research community participate in defining an agenda for their future research activities. CSTB convened a small workshop in which more than half of the attendees were researchers in other fields. The premise behind this approach was that working together with a smaller number of network research insiders, these outsiders—people whose primary research interests were not in networking but who represented instead additional subdisciplines of computer science, as well as other disciplines such as Earth science, economics, and information studies—would function much like a visiting committee, providing a fresh perspective on research topics and directions and helping to stimulate development of a strategic view of future research directions. CSTB picked networking as the subject of this board-initiated project—the first in a planned series of workshops—since it is a field that has enjoyed both success and great attention due to its most visible creation, the Internet. As this report illustrates, it is also a compelling field in which to explore alternative research visions because that very success has constrained some avenues of research.
The presence of outsiders was critical to the dialogue at the January 2001 workshop. To kick off the discussion, both insiders and outsiders were asked to identify near-term and long-term research topics, as well as topics that should probably be deemphasized, at least for a while (Box P.1). In the discussions that followed, outsiders posed provocative questions that challenged conventional wisdom and suggested different research approaches drawn from their own research communities. They also brought the perspectives of experienced network users to the discussion and repeatedly expressed frustrations about the inadequacies of the Internet from their user perspective.
Workshop participants noted but did not elaborate on a number of topics that are of current interest in the network community. In some cases, topics were explicitly taken off the table. A shared sense among outsiders and insiders that topics other than network performance were at least as important and receiving less attention in the research community meant that workshop participants paid little attention to the issue of how to build higher-speed networks. Limitations of time and expertise precluded an in-depth examination of the implications of wireless and optical technologies, but participants did observe that such examination would be an important activity for the research community. In other cases, subjects arose in discussions but were not ultimately identified as areas meriting greater attention by networking researchers (e.g., last-mile access links). Other topics provoked mixed reactions; for example, some felt that multicast continues to be important while others felt that it should be abandoned as a research topic.
The workshop proved educational for everyone involved. The outsiders learned about some surprising characteristics of networking culture. For example, the research community is protective of the Internet; reviewers often reject papers that make proposals perceived as potentially deleterious to the Internet. Also, even when confidentiality is not at issue, network researchers are reluctant to identify by brand name specific products or services with features they find undesirable. The insiders, in turn, were surprised to hear that the outsiders were not very interested in seeing great efforts expended on more research to improve raw network performance (distinct from work on better characterizing network performance, which was of interest to some participants). There were other surprises: For example, outsiders were surprised by how mistakes made by a few people in the configuration of routing tables could bring a significant portion of the Internet to its knees.
BOX P.1 Questions Posed in Advance to Workshop Participants
This report does not provide answers to these specific questions—the questions were posed as a way of stimulating discussions at the workshop. |
The report that follows was written by the Committee on Research Horizons in Networking, composed of six networking researchers and four researchers from other areas in computer science, based on the 2 days of discussions among a larger group of workshop participants that was dominated by outsiders. The committee met immediately following the workshop and conducted a series of discussions by e-mail to formulate a fresh look at networking research, drawing on the workshop experience.
The report is organized around the three major themes, closely connected to the process of networking research, that emerged at the workshop—measuring, modeling, and creating and deploying disruptive prototypes. It is not a report that seeks to lay out a detailed research agenda per se. The issues raised in this report, which reflect in large part the concerns of the outsiders, would certainly require further consideration by the network research community to be translated into an actual research agenda that would help meet the needs of network users. For example, while outsiders bring a valuable fresh perspective, they can also miss obstacles that insiders see. The intent of this report is to stimulate such an examination.
David A.Patterson, Chair
Committee on Research Horizons in Networking
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Craig Partridge, BBN Technologies,
Larry Peterson, Princeton University,
Scott Shenker, AT&T Center for Internet Research at ICSI, and
James P.G.Sterbenz, BBN Technologies.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Jerome H.Saltzer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, appointed by the NRC’s Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, who was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.