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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* 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