Why the Internet was designed to be the way it is, and how it could be
different, now and in the future.
How do you design an internet? The architecture of the current Internet
is the product of basic design decisions made early in its history. What
would an internet look like if it were designed, today, from the ground
up? In this book, MIT computer scientist David Clark explains how the
Internet is actually put together, what requirements it was designed to
meet, and why different design decisions would create different
internets. He does not take today's Internet as a given but tries to
learn from it, and from alternative proposals for what an internet might
be, in order to draw some general conclusions about network
architecture.
Clark discusses the history of the Internet, and how a range of
potentially conflicting requirements--including longevity, security,
availability, economic viability, management, and meeting the needs of
society--shaped its character. He addresses both the technical aspects
of the Internet and its broader social and economic contexts. He
describes basic design approaches and explains, in terms accessible to
nonspecialists, how networks are designed to carry out their functions.
(An appendix offers a more technical discussion of network functions for
readers who want the details.) He considers a range of alternative
proposals for how to design an internet, examines in detail the key
requirements a successful design must meet, and then imagines how to
design a future internet from scratch. It's not that we should expect
anyone to do this; but, perhaps, by conceiving a better future, we can
push toward it.
