| File | Published | Author | Details |
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Jan 7, 2009 | Henning Schulzrinne | Networking - Civil engineering for the 21st century
Computer networks, as the largest interdependent engineering artifact, now form one of the four core foundation of modern societies, along with energy, water/sanitation and transportation. No country can hope to develop if one of these foundations is brittle or lacking depth. As networking researchers, we have a unique responsibility to improve the capabilities, performance, security and reliability of this infrastructure. In many cases, such improvements offer the greatest hope of improving the other three infrastructures.
In this talk, I will try to highlight what I see as the challenges facing networks and networking research. There seems to be a disconnect between the amount of effort expended on research on topics of marginal potential impact and the real problems faced by network users, architects and providers. The number of papers on a topic, from QoS to sensor networks, often exceeds the number of users; standardization and research are often disconnected. I will argue that, just as for energy and transportation, reliability, cost and safety should be core concern driving our research and standardization efforts. This includes designing system for long-term evolution and manageability, as well as recognizing that most users have no interest in the technology itself. As illustrations, I will describe efforts to simplify end user fault diagnosis, to bridge network disconnections and to modernize emergency calling systems. |