Recursive Internetwork Architecture: Difference between revisions

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The '''Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA)''' is a new computer [[network architecture]] proposed as an alternative to the architecture of the currently mainstream [[Internet protocol suite]]. The principles behind RINA were first presented by [[John Day (computer scientist)|John Day]] in his 2008 book ''Patterns in Network Architecture: A return to Fundamentals''.<ref name="PNA">''Patterns in Network Architecture: A Return to Fundamentals'', John Day (2008), Prentice Hall, {{ISBN|978-0-13-225242-3}}{{pn|date=October 2023}}</ref> This work is a startfresh afreshstart, taking into account [[#Background|lessons learned]] in the 35 years of [[TCP/IP]]’s existence, as well as the lessons of [[OSI model|OSI]]’s failure and the lessons of other network technologies of the past few decades, such as [[CYCLADES]], [[DECnet]], and [[Xerox Network Systems]]. RINA's fundamental principles are that [[computer network]]ing is just [[Inter-Process Communication]] or IPC, and that layering should be done based on scope/scale, with a single recurring set of protocols, rather than based on function, with specialized protocols. The protocol instances in one layer interface with the protocol instances on higher and lower layers via new concepts and entities that effectively [[Reification (computer science)|reify]] networking functions currently specific to protocols like [[BGP]], [[OSPF]] and [[Address Resolution Protocol|ARP]]. In this way, RINA claims to support features like mobility, [[multihoming]] and [[quality of service]] without the need for additional specialized protocols like [[Real-time Transport Protocol|RTP]] and [[User Datagram Protocol|UDP]], as well as to allow simplified network administration without the need for concepts like [[Autonomous system (Internet)|autonomous systems]] and [[Network address translation|NAT]].

{{POV|date=November 2016}}

The '''Recursive InterNetwork Architecture (RINA)''' is a new computer [[network architecture]] proposed as an alternative to the architecture of the currently mainstream [[Internet protocol suite]]. The principles behind RINA were first presented by [[John Day (computer scientist)|John Day]] in his 2008 book ''Patterns in Network Architecture: A return to Fundamentals''.<ref name="PNA">''Patterns in Network Architecture: A Return to Fundamentals'', John Day (2008), Prentice Hall, {{ISBN|978-0-13-225242-3}}{{pn|date=October 2023}}</ref> This work is a start afresh, taking into account [[#Background|lessons learned]] in the 35 years of [[TCP/IP]]’s existence, as well as the lessons of [[OSI model|OSI]]’s failure and the lessons of other network technologies of the past few decades, such as [[CYCLADES]], [[DECnet]], and [[Xerox Network Systems]]. RINA's fundamental principles are that [[computer network]]ing is just [[Inter-Process Communication]] or IPC, and that layering should be done based on scope/scale, with a single recurring set of protocols, rather than based on function, with specialized protocols. The protocol instances in one layer interface with the protocol instances on higher and lower layers via new concepts and entities that effectively [[Reification (computer science)|reify]] networking functions currently specific to protocols like [[BGP]], [[OSPF]] and [[Address Resolution Protocol|ARP]]. In this way, RINA claims to support features like mobility, [[multihoming]] and [[quality of service]] without the need for additional specialized protocols like [[Real-time Transport Protocol|RTP]] and [[User Datagram Protocol|UDP]], as well as to allow simplified network administration without the need for concepts like [[Autonomous system (Internet)|autonomous systems]] and [[Network address translation|NAT]].

==Overview==

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Saltzer took his model from operating systems, but the RINA authors concluded it could not be applied cleanly to internetworks, which can have more than one path between the same pair of nodes (let alone whole networks). Their solution is to model routes as sequences of nodes: at each hop, the respective node chooses the most appropriate attachment point to forward the packet to the next node. Therefore, RINA routes in a two-step process: first, the route as a sequence of node addresses is calculated, and then, for each hop, an appropriate attachment point is selected. These are the steps to generate the forwarding table: forwarding is still performed with a single lookup. Moreover, the last step can be performed more frequently to exploit multihoming for load balancing.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

With this naming structure, mobility and multihoming are inherently supported<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ishakian |first1=Vatche |last2=Akinwumi |first2=Joseph |last3=Esposito |first3=Flavio |last4=Matta |first4=Ibrahim |title=On supporting mobility and multihoming in recursive internet architectures |journal=Computer Communications |date=July 2012 |volume=35 |issue=13 |pages=1561–1573 |doi=10.1016/j.comcom.2012.04.027 |s2cid=3036132 |hdl=2144/3809 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> if the names have carefully chosen properties:

# application names are ___location-independent to allow an application to move around;

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===1981: Watson's fundamental results ignored===

Richard Watson in 1981 provided a fundamental theory of reliable transport<ref name="watson1981a">{{cite journal | first = Richard W | last = Watson | title = Timer-based mechanism in reliable transport protocol connection management | journal = Computer Networks | volume = 5 | issue = 1 | pages = 47–56 | year = 1981 | doi = 10.1016/0376-5075(81)90031-3 }}</ref> whereby connection management requires only timers bounded by a small factor of the Maximum Packet Lifetime (MPL). Based on this theory, Watson et al. developed the Delta-t protocol <ref name="deltat">{{cite report |last1=Watson |first1=R.W. |title=Delta-t protocol specification: working draft |date=4 December 1981 |doi=10.2172/5542785 |doi-access=free }}</ref> which allows a connection's state to be determined simply by bounding three timers, with no handshaking. On the other hand, TCP uses both explicit handshaking as well as more limited timer-based management of the connection's state.

===1983: Internetwork layer lost===

[[File:INWG-arch.png|thumb|350px|Figure 7. The Internet architecture as seen by the INWG]]

Early in 1972 the [[International NetworkingNetwork Working Group]] (INWG) was created to bring together the nascent network research community. One of the early tasks it accomplished was voting an international network transport protocol, which was approved in 1976.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |doi=10.1109/MAHC.2011.9 |title=INWG and the Conception of the Internet: An Eyewitness Account |date=2011 |last1=McKenzie |first1=Alexander |journal=IEEE Annals of the History of Computing |volume=33 |pages=66–71 |s2cid=206443072 }}</ref> Remarkably, the selected option, as well as all the other candidates, had an architecture composed of three layers of increasing scope: data link (to handle different types of physical media), network (to handle different types of networks) and internetwork (to handle a network of networks), each layer with its own address space. When TCP/IP was introduced it ran at the internetwork layer on top of the [[Network Control Protocol (ARPANET)|Host-IMP Protocol]], when running over the ARPANET. But when [[Network Control Protocol (ARPANET)|NCP]] was shut down, TCP/IP took the network role and the internetwork layer was lost.<ref name="lostlayer">{{cite book |doi=10.1109/NOF.2011.6126673 |chapter=How in the Heck do you lose a layer!? |title=2011 International Conference on the Network of the Future |date=2011 |last1=Day |first1=John |pages=135–143 |isbn=978-1-4577-1607-2 |s2cid=15198377 }}</ref> This explains the need for autonomous systems and NAT today, to partition and reuse ranges of the IP address space to facilitate administration.

===1983: First opportunity to fix addressing missed===

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===BU Research Team===

The [http://csr.bu.edu/rina RINA research team at Boston University] is led by Professors Abraham Matta, John Day and Lou Chitkushev, and has been awarded a number of grants from the [[National Science Foundation]] and EC in order to continue investigating the fundamentals of RINA, develop an [https://github.com/ProtoRINA/users/wiki open source prototype implementation over UDP/IP for Java] <ref>{{cite conference |first1=Flavio |last1=Esposito |first2=Yuefeng |last2=Wang |first3=Ibrahim |last3=Matta |first4=John |last4=Day |title=Dynamic Layer Instantiation as a Service |conference=USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI ’13) |date=April 2013 |url=https://www.usenix.org/system/files/nsdip13-paper11.pdf }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wang |first1=Yuefeng |last2=Matta |first2=Ibrahim |last3=Esposito |first3=Flavio |last4=Day |first4=John |title=Introducing ProtoRINA: a prototype for programming recursive-networking policies |journal=ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review |date=28 July 2014 |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=129–131 |doi=10.1145/2656877.2656897 |s2cid=1007699 |doi-access=free }}</ref> and experiment with it on top of the GENI infrastructure.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1109/GREE.2013.26 |chapter=Demonstrating RINA Using the GENI Testbed |title=2013 Second GENI Research and Educational Experiment Workshop |date=2013 |last1=Wang |first1=Yuefeng |last2=Esposito |first2=Flavio |last3=Matta |first3=Ibrahim |pages=93–96 |isbn=978-0-7695-5003-9 |s2cid=6735043 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1109/GREE.2014.11 |chapter=Experimenting with Routing Policies Using ProtoRINA over GENI |title=2014 Third GENI Research and Educational Experiment Workshop |date=2014 |last1=Wang |first1=Yuefeng |last2=Matta |first2=Ibrahim |last3=Akhtar |first3=Nabeel |pages=61–64 |isbn=978-1-4799-5120-8 |s2cid=16799199 }}</ref> BU is also a member of the Pouzin Society and an active contributor to the FP7 IRATI and PRISTINE projects. In addition to this, BU has incorporated RINA concepts and theory in their computer networking courses.

===FP7 IRATI===

[http://irati.eu IRATI] is an [[Seventh Framework Programme|FP7]]-funded project with 5 partners: i2CAT, Nextworks, iMinds, Interoute and Boston University. It has produced an [https://irati.github.io/stack open source RINA implementation for the Linux OS on top of Ethernet].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vrijders |first1=Sander |last2=Staessens |first2=Dimitri |last3=Colle |first3=Didier |last4=Salvestrini |first4=Francesco |last5=Grasa |first5=Eduard |last6=Tarzan |first6=Miquel |last7=Bergesio |first7=Leonardo |title=Prototyping the recursive internet architecture: the IRATI project approach |journal=IEEE Network |date=March 2014 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=20–25 |doi=10.1109/MNET.2014.6786609 |hdl=1854/LU-5730910 |s2cid=7594551 |url=https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/5730910 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1109/GLOCOM.2014.7037104 |chapter=Experimental evaluation of a Recursive InterNetwork Architecture prototype |title=2014 IEEE Global Communications Conference |date=2014 |last1=Vrijders |first1=Sander |last2=Staessens |first2=Dimitri |last3=Colle |first3=Didier |last4=Salvestrini |first4=Francesco |last5=Maffione |first5=Vincenzo |last6=Bergesio |first6=Leonardo |last7=Tarzan-Lorente |first7=Miquel |last8=Gaston |first8=Bernat |last9=Grasa |first9=Eduard |pages=2017–2022 |hdl=1854/LU-5955523 |isbn=978-1-4799-3512-3 |s2cid=13462659 |url=https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/5955523 }}</ref>

===FP7 PRISTINE===

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* The Pouzin Society website: http://pouzinsociety.org

* RINA Education page at the IRATI website, available online at http://irati.eu/education/

* RINA document repository run by the TSSG, available online at http://rina.tssg.org {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180922195131/http://rina.tssg.org/ |date=2018-09-22 }}

* RINA tutorial at the IEEE Globecom 2014 conference, available online at http://www.slideshare.net/irati-project/rina-tutorial-ieee-globecom-2014