05-14

Building a Strong Foundation for the Future Internet

The Internet is unquestionably a tremendous success---a research experiment that truly escaped from the lab. However, the Internet faces many technical challenges that, while deeply rooted in early design decisions, have grown even more complex as the network has evolved into a world-wide commercial infrastructure.

In this talk, we argue that perhaps the most important goal for a future Internet is the ability to define, model, and analyze it precisely, so we can make stronger statements about its basic properties. Using Internet routing as a driving example, we discuss the research challenges in designing protocols that are simultaneously programmable (so they are flexible and can evolve over time) and perform well in a competitive economic environment (where different parts of the system are controlled by parties with different, sometimes conflicting, objectives).

We believe that answering these fundamental questions presents a wonderful opportunity for theoretical research in computer science, electrical engineering, economics, and mathematics. _______________________________________________