How the Internet Architecture Got its Hourglass Shape
Posted on August 19, 2011
by Tommy McGuire
And in other news, Constantine Dovrolis and Saamer Akhshabi at the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology "created an evolutionary model called EvoArch to study the emergence of the Internet’s hourglass structure,"as described by Staying in Shape: How the Internet Architecture Got its Hourglass Shape and What That Means for Future Internet Architectures.
In the model, the architecture of the network changed with time as new protocols were created at different layers and existing protocols were removed as a result of competition with other protocols in the same layer.
Unfortunately, I am too busy to appreciate the success of the work, wondering if anyone explained to them that the hourglass shape of the internet architecture was a deliberate design choice.
The authors of the GIT press release wrote that,
to ensure more diversity in the middle layers, EvoArch suggests designing protocols that are largely non-overlapping in terms of services and functionality so that they do not compete with each other.I wonder exact kind of diversity and non-overlapping services they have in mind, considering the IP layer essentially provides universal connectivity.
