Intelligent Design Enables Architectural Evolution #

Looking at the Internet’s development over the last decades, we have seen plenty of innovation on the access and application layer. In contrast, the address (IP) and transport layer (UDP/TCP) have seen practically none. The only noteworthy development is the still-ongoing and painful switch from IPv4 to IPv6. This lack of innovation is why the address and transport layer is frequently referred to as “ossified.” The ossification—or architectural rigidity—prevents us from addressing emergent needs that the original designers of TCP/IP could not foresee, such as security and mobility. Some research has started to propose future Internet architectures that avoid these very issues by being evolvable. So far, these proposals were not straightforward.