Multi-Modal Routing and Switch Node Architecture
James P. G. Sterbenz, Rajesh Krishnan · 2001
As the Internet increases in size, heterogeneity, and ubiquity of access, a number of longheld assumptions and characteristics are changing in fundamental ways, including the utility of conventional address-based forwarding and routing. Research in a variety of routing techniques (name, location, characteristics) is underway to better serve the needs of the future Internet. We argue that no one contact mode is capable of efficiently serving the needs of all application flows, and that individual packets may need support for multiple simultaneous modes. Furthermore, substantial performance benefits may be obtained by providing native support for multiple modes in the network layer. We then present the high level architecture of a network switching node capable of supporting multiple modes. 1. Changing Assumptions As the Internet increases in size, heterogeneity, and ubiquity of access, a number of long-held assumptions and characteristics are changing in fundamental ways. We will focus on two broad categories of these changes: overall network architecture and individual node addressing and identity.