Future Internet

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The term "Future Internet" (Engl. Future - future ") summarizes various national and international research initiatives that attempt an internet of the future to develop.

Although the technical advancement of the Internet has been a research topic from the very beginning, various deficits have been identified. a. in the areas of performance, reliability, scalability , security and other categories, especially in social and economic terms, so that numerous “Future Internet” research initiatives have been founded since the mid-2000s. In particular, new approaches are being pursued, for example, better support for mobility, quality of service (Engl. Quality of Service involve) and safety from the beginning in the design of a new network architecture.

Due to the variety of technologies used on the Internet, the associated research topics are widely spread. In addition, the various approaches for a Future Internet range from small, incremental and evolutionary steps ( evolutionary approach ) to completely new designs ( revolutionary approach or clean-slate design ) with architectural principles in which the technologies used are not based on existing standards or dominant paradigms (such as the client-server model ) are limited. One such architectural restriction is represented by the dual function of today's IP addresses: An IP address simultaneously identifies an end system connected to the Internet and the location where the system is connected, i.e. i.e. it is an identifier and a locator in one unit. These overloaded semantics mainly create problems with mobile end systems and multi-homing , i.e. the connection of an end system or node via different connections at the same time. Completely new solutions are based on the experience that later additions to an original and established architecture are limited in their introduction and acceptance. Evolutionary approaches have meanwhile produced numerous extensions such as Mobile IP , IPSec , DiffServ , HIP , RSerPool , Shim6, etc., which were defined in the IETF standardization committee responsible for the further development of the Internet . Since the reliable functioning of the existing Internet is of primary interest to the IETF, only solutions are developed there - mainly in the form of new or improved protocols - which can be integrated into the existing Internet step by step and without disruptions.

The integration of such subsequently and additionally developed solutions for partial problems is sometimes quite difficult, so that more and more considerations in the direction of completely new solution approaches, i.e. H. regardless of compatibility with the existing Internet. Most of the clean slate design projects are, however, for the most part not yet completed or technically not fully developed, so that they are not explained here (both to avoid unequal treatment and to keep this entry stable). Central, abstract questions are, for example:

  • What are the requirements for a global network in 15 years?
  • From today's perspective, how would you develop tomorrow's network if you designed it from scratch?

Other non-technical aspects include socio-economic, business and environmental concerns. The OECD has launched activities under the heading “Future Internet” to develop and publish recommendations for the future of the Internet economy (see related links)

Since there is currently neither a technical consensus nor a standardization in the direction of a future internet, the term future internet should be used with appropriate caution; That is, it does not specifically refer to a specific technology, but rather refers to the numerous worldwide research activities in this direction. In addition, the term Future Internet also often includes projects that aim to provide experimental platforms with which new approaches can be tested and tried out in larger environments. The US-American GENI project is one of the best-known representatives, in Germany the German-Lab was founded at the end of 2008 as a national experimentation platform.

Examples of Future Internet Activities and Research Programs

Web links

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  1. ↑ M. Handley: Why the Internet only just works (PDF; 205 kB) BT Technology Journal, Vol 24, No 3, July 2006.