[ih] The History of Protocol R&D?

[Craig Partridge]

Hi Jack:

Some quick answers.

>    - "How do researchers now do protocol R&D, and validate a new idea by
>    measurements in the live Internet?"

The answer depends on whether you are trying to measure stuff on the current
Internet or trying to innovate new protocols for the Internet.  If you are
measuring in the current network, measurements are done much as they always
have been, by instrumenting boxes and end systems.  The challenge is that
fewer folks have open access to the boxes and end systems and access is
often limited by confidentiality agreements.  This sometimes leads to
situations where a researcher has access to a valuable data set but doesn't
know what questions to ask of it (i.e. right data, wrong researcher).

Most of this kind of measurement work is published at the Internet Measurement
Conference.

If you are trying to innovate new protocols, the community has developed
some large-scale test infrastructure: PlanetLab is an example, as is GENI.
Some of these infrastructures allow you to run repeatable experiments, others
do not.

>    - "What have been the results over the life of The Internet so far?"

You'd have to narrow the question -- the volume of what has been learned
is large.  And we'd probably search for the answer in the IMC proceedings.

Thanks!

Craig