RFC 1477 (rfc1477) - Page 2 of 13

IDPR as a Proposed Standard

RFC 1477                         IDPR                          July 1993


   Internet connectivity has increased along with the number of
   component networks.  Internetworks proliferate through
   interconnection of autonomous, heterogeneous networks administered by
   separate authorities.  We use the term "administrative domain" (AD)
   to refer to any collection of contiguous networks, gateways, links,
   and hosts governed by a single administrative authority that selects
   the intra-domain routing procedures and addressing schemes, specifies
   service restrictions for transit traffic, and defines service
   requirements for locally-generated traffic.

   In the early 1980s, the Internet was purely hierarchical, with the
   ARPANET as the single backbone.  The current Internet possesses a
   semblance of a hierarchy in the collection of backbone, regional,
   metropolitan, and campus domains that compose it.  However,
   technological, economical, and political incentives have prompted the
   introduction of inter-domain links outside of those in the strict
   hierarchy.  Hence, the Internet has the properties of both
   hierarchical and mesh connectivity.

   We expect that, over the next five years, the Internet will grow to
   contain O(10) backbone domains, most providing connectivity between
   many source and destination domains and offering a wide range of
   qualities of service, for a fee.  Most domains will connect directly
   or indirectly to at least one Internet backbone domain, in order to
   communicate with other domains.  In addition, some domains may
   install direct links to their most favored destinations.  Domains at
   the lower levels of the hierarchy will provide some transit service,
   limited to traffic between selected sources and destinations.
   However, the majority of Internet domains will be "stubs", that is,
   domains that do not provide any transit service for any other domains
   but that connect directly to one or more transit domains.

   The bulk of Internet traffic will be generated by hosts in the stub
   domains, and thus, the applications running in these hosts will
   determine the traffic service requirements.  We expect application
   diversity encompassing electronic mail, desktop videoconferencing,
   scientific visualization, and distributed simulation, for example.
   Many of these applications have strict requirements on loss, delay,
   and throughput.

   In such a large and heterogeneous Internet, the routing procedures
   must be capable of ensuring that traffic is forwarded along routes
   that offer the required services without violating domain usage
   restrictions.  We believe that IDPR meets this goal; it has been
   designed to accommodate an Internet comprising O(10,000)
   administrative domains with diverse service offerings and
   requirements.




Steenstrup