some highly
selective internet
history

with apologies to the
many key people i left out

benjamin black
b@b3k.us

part 1: packet
switching

Paul Baran

RAND

1960-1962

On Distributed
Communications

communications
networks

surviving nuclear
war

packet-switching

1965

Donald Davies

1962

Leonard
Kleinrock

Information Flow
in Large
Communication
Nets

theoretical basis
for packet-
switching

packet-switching

invented
3 times
3 places
3 reasons

we are on the
right track

1969

ARPANet

part 2: ip

Vint Cerf

Bob Kahn

1973

tcp/ip

simple & open

separation of
concerns

ip - global routing

tcp - reliable
delivery

decoupled from
hardware

application
presentation
COMPLEXITY
session
transport
network
data link
physical

independent
administrative
domains

federated

addressing
routing
policies

“network of
networks”

part 3: protocol
wars

meanwhile,
outside
academia...

explosion of
communication
demand

explosion of
communication
protocols

mainframe &
mini

sna
decnet

telco

x.25
frame relay
atm

pc

ip
ipx/spx
appletalk
ethernet
...

complexity down
the stack

expensive
(opex & capex)

upgrades mean
forklifts

proprietary
incompatible

no value-add for
protocol proliferation

what we needed:

simple & open

separation of
concerns

decoupled from
hardware

federated/
hierarchical

ip

now:

ip over *

ethernet
frame relay
tdm
...

* over ip

ipsec and ssl vpn
voip
web
email
...

part 4: partly
cloudy

cloud computing
2008

packet-switching
1968

it won’t take 40
years this time

less than 10

we can expect:

wild proliferation
of protocols

complexity will
move up the stack

...into the apps.

and then...

rapid convergence
of protocol

Baran’s diagrams

apps for the cloud
will follow these
models

winning protocol
features?

simple & open

separation of
concerns

decoupled from
hardware

federated/
hierarchical

[this slide intentionally left blank]

benjamin black
b@b3k.us