From: Katie Everitt (everitt@eecs.berkeley.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 05 2004 - 22:22:55 PDT
V.G. Cerf and R.E. Kahn, "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection,"
IEEE Transactions on Communications, 22(5):637-48, May 1974.
Review: Katherine Everitt
This paper discussed the choices made when interconnecting packet switched
networks. The fundamental problem addressed was that different kinds of
networks have differing constraints on packet size, throughput, time delay,
and packet structure and meta-information.
This paper’s main strength was the explanation of the major issues involved
in designing a protocol to link packet switched networks. I felt the most
important of these were assigning responsibility to the different parts of
the interconnected network (i.e. the concept of gateways), addressing
packets correctly given that they may need to be split up, and confirming
correct delivery efficiently (i.e. the windowing system). Secondary issues
such as segment and packet formats were related but those choices followed
from the primary decisions.
As this was a seminal survey paper, it is short on weaknesses, but I felt
more concrete examples of applications, networks and their specific
constraints would have served to motivate this paper better.
Although this work is 30 years old, it is very relevant to the present
because it succinctly expresses very basic concepts that we use in
networking today and clearly identifies the roles of various parts of the
network, which help with understanding where bottlenecks are and how current
networks are structured.
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