Internet Routing Architectures, Second Edition

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)[] is responsible for overseeing this process. ICANN is responsible for the registrar accreditation process. It also assumes responsibility for certain Internet domain name system functions, as set forth by the U.S. Government. ICANN is a nonprofit international organization.

NIC Support Services

The original solicitation for "Information Services" was granted to General Atomics in April 1993 and was taken away in February 1995. At that time, NSI took over the proposal, and it was renamed NIC Support Services.

The goal of the service was to provide a forum for the research and education community, Network Information Centers (NICs) staff, and the academic Internet community, within which the responsibilities of the InterNIC may be defined.

Other Internet Registries

With the privatization of registration services came a change in the way IP space and AS numbers are allocated. Currently, three Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) provide registration services to all regions around the globe: American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Center (RIPE NCC), and Asian Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC).

ARIN

In late 1997, IANA transferred responsibility for IP number administration from Network Solutions, Inc. to ARIN[]. ARIN officially opened for operation on October 22, 1997.

ARIN is responsible for the allocation of Internet Protocol (IP) numbers in the following geographical areas:

•North America

•South America

•The Caribbean

•Sub-Saharan Africa

ARIN currently manages allocation and registration services for IP numbers, AS numbers, IN-ADDR.ARPA, and IP6.INT inverse mappings. They also provide routing registry services where network operators can register, maintain, and retrieve router configuration information and WHOIS services to view specific information associated with a given allocation.

ARIN is a nonprofit organization. It recovers the costs of administration and management of IP numbers by charging fees for registration, transfer, maintenance, and membership.

RIPE NCC

Created in 1989, RIPE[] is a collaborative organization that consists of European Internet service providers. It aims to provide the necessary administration and coordination to enable the operation of the European Internet. RIPE acts as an RIR for Europe and surrounding areas.

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RIPE distributes Internet numbers, coordinates the Domain Name System (DNS), and maintains a network management database with information on IP networks, DNS and IP routing policies, and contact information. They also provide an Internet software repository, a RIPE document store, routing registry services, and interactive information services.

Like ARIN, RIPE is a nonprofit organization and obtains funding from fees associated with its services.

APNIC

APNIC[] was created in 1993 and provides registration services similar to ARIN. APNIC provides these services to the Asian Pacific region, including 62 countries/regions in South and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Indochina, and Oceania.

APNIC is currently not involved in the administration of DNS services, although it does work with others in the region involved with these services. APNIC provides other services, including training and education, policy development, and regional networking activities. Notably, APNIC helped found APRICOT (Asian Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies), which is now the premier regional forum for network operators and policy makers.

Internet Routing Registries

With the creation of a new breed of ISPs that want to interconnect with one another, offering the required connectivity while maintaining flexibility and control has become more challenging. Each provider has a set of rules, or policies, that describe what to accept and what to advertise to all other neighboring networks. Sample policies include determining route filtering from a particular ISP and choosing a particular path to a specific destination. The potential for various policies from interconnected providers to conflict with and contradict one another is enormous.

Internet Routing Registries (IRRs) also serve as a public database for accessing routing contact information used for coordination and troubleshooting.

To address these challenges, a neutral routing registry (RR) for each global domain had to be created. Each RR maintains a database of routing policies created and updated by each service provider. The collection of these different databases is known as the Internet Routing Registry (IRR).

The role of the RR is not to determine policies, but rather to act as a repository for routing policy and administration information. This should provide a globally consistent view of all policies used by all providers all over the globe. A large number of network operators use routing information obtained from the routing registries to dynamically generate routing policies.

Autonomous systems (ASs) use Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGPs) such as BGP to work with one another. In complex environments, there should be a formal way of describing and communicating policies between different ASs. Maintaining a huge database containing all registered policies for the whole world would be cumbersome and difficult. This is why a more distributed approach was created. Each RR maintains its own database and must

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coordinate extensively to achieve consistency between the different databases. Here are some of the different IRR databases in existence today:

•RIPE Routing Registry (European Internet service providers)

•Cable & Wireless Routing Registry (C&W customers)

•CA*net Routing Registry (CA*net customers)

•JPRR Routing Registry (Japanese Internet service providers)

•Routing Arbiter Database (public)

•ARIN Routing Registry (public)

Each of the preceding registries serves a specific service provider's customer base, with the exception of the Routing Arbiter Database (RADB) and ARIN, which provide registration services to anyone. As mentioned earlier, the RADB is part of the Routing Arbiter project.

Because of the flexibility and benefits of maintaining a local registry, other companies such as Qwest, Level(3), and Verio have developed RRs as well.

The Once and Future Internet

Surprisingly enough, although commercialization of the Internet has resulted in a phenomenal rate of growth over the past 10 years, it hasn't hindered innovation. Instead, it has inspired it. Development of new technologies by the commercial sector, as well as research and educational organizations, is occurring at an astounding rate. New technologies can no longer be immediately deployed in the now "production" Internet; they need to be thoroughly debugged and optimized for realistic conditions. Testbeds were created for early adoption of new technologies.

Next-Generation Internet Initiative

The federally funded Next-Generation Internet (NGI) Initiative[] is a multiagency U.S. federal research and development program that is developing advanced network technologies and revolutionary applications and demonstrating these capabilities on testbeds that are 100 to 1,000 times faster end-to-end than today's Internet.

The NGI initiative began October 1, 1997, with the following participating agencies:

•DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

•DoE (Department of Energy)

•NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

•NIH (National Institute of Health)

•NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

•NSF (National Science Foundation)

The NGI initiative is managed by individual agency program managers and is coordinated by the Large-Scale Networking Working Group of the Subcommittee on Computing, Information, and Communications (CIC) R&D of the White House National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Technology.

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NGI goals include the following:

•Conduct R&D in advanced end-to-end networking technologies

•Establish and operate two testbeds

•Conduct R&D in revolutionary applications

Conduct R&D in Advanced End-to-End Networking Technologies

The NGI is fostering early deployment of new technologies that will one day be an integral part of the commercial Internet. These technologies are focused on enhancing many aspects of computer networking, to include the following:

•Reliability

•Robustness

•Security

•Quality of service/differentiation of service (including multicasting and video)

•Network management (including allocation and sharing of bandwidth)

Establish and Operate Two Testbeds

Ensuring availability of capable testbeds is key to accomplishing the goals of the NGI. Two testbeds, referred to loosely as the "100x" testbed and the "1000x" testbed, will be developed for this purpose.

The "100x" testbed will connect at least 100 sites—universities, federal research institutions, and other research partners—at speeds 100 times faster end-to-end than today's Internet.

The testbed will be built on the following federal networks:

•NSF's very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS)

•NASA's Research and Educational Network (NREN)

•DoD's Defense Research and Education Network (DREN)

•DoE's Energy Sciences network (ESnet)

The "1000x" testbed will connect about 10 sites with end-to-end performance at least 1,000 times faster than today's Internet. The "1000x" testbed will be built upon DARPA's SuperNet.

These testbeds will be used for system-scale testing of advanced technologies and services and for developing and testing advanced applications.

Conduct R&D in Revolutionary Applications

NGI research and development will focus on enabling applications and technologies such as these:

•Collaborative technologies

•Digital libraries

•Distributed computing

•Privacy and security

•Remote operation and simulation

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It will also focus on disciplinary applications such as these:

•Basic science

•Crisis management

•Education

•The environment

•Federal information services

•Health care

•Manufacturing

Internet2

Internet2[] is a project of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID). It was announced in October 1996 by 34 research universities with a mission of helping to sustain U.S. leadership in development, deployment, and operation of nextgeneration network applications and infrastructure. The primary role of Internet2 is to provide focus on fostering the growth of advanced Internet applications and networking protocols that will strengthen the work of universities in their research and education roles. With the exponential growth of the Internet, commercial networks controlled by service providers are deploying bandwidth and technologies as rapidly as research and education networks. One of the primary goals of Internet2 is to re-create the leading-edge capabilities of testbed networks and then facilitate transfer of these technologies to the global Internet.

Internet2 is now a collaborative effort of more than 160 U.S. universities in partnership with more than 50 major corporations. UCAID's member universities and corporations fund Internet2. Many of the member institutions receive funding through competitively awarded grants from the NSF and other federal agencies participating in the NGI initiative. Funding is also made available through other initiatives such as the NSF's Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence (KDI) program.

Internet2's goal is not to replace the Internet, but rather to enhance it by making available technologies and experiences developed by Internet2 members. Member universities will still require commodity Internet connections from commercial service providers, and utilization of those connections will continue to grow.

Abilene

Abilene[] is another project of UCAID. It's complementary to Internet2 in the sense that the main goal of Abilene is to provide a primary backbone network for the Internet2 project. UCAID, in partnership with Qwest Communications, Nortel Networks, and Cisco Systems, has developed the Abilene network. Abilene provides the high-performance interconnect services among the Internet2 regional aggregation points. The primarily OC48c (2.5 Gbps) POS (Packet Over SONET) Abilene network became operational in January 1999 and provides OC3 and OC12 access services.

Much like the vBNS, Abilene will continually explore emerging Internet technologies, but because of the importance of network stability, Abilene will develop a separate highperformance test network for support of applications that cannot yet be deployed on the leading-edge-but-stable Abilene network. Internet2 working groups are in the process of hashing out Abilene deployment details, focusing on native multicast services, optimizing

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