Re: [Privsec-discuss] [Stackevo] Consolidation

["Aaron Falk" <[e-mail]>]

Thanks for a provocative question!

On 29 Sep 2017, at 6:00, Jari Arkko wrote:

> So, do the folks in the different programs have advice to the IAB in 
> this topic? In particular:
>
> 1\. Do you see architectural issues within your own field that relates 
> to consolidation trends, and how those affect the Internet?
>

I’ll noodle on this but a question that comes to mind is since the 
Internet has consolidated nearly all other (public) data networks, I 
wonder how hard it would be to restore the major distributed systems 
services (e.g., electrical, BGP, DNS) service if some major subset of 
the network was unexpectedly brought offline.  I worry we have hidden 
dependencies and the only way to expose them is to test a large scale 
reboot.


> 2\. What potential new architectural structures might provide support 
> to either fighting the consolidation trend, or accelerating it?

When I started at Akamai I was stunned at the volume of traffic 
generated by CDN servers as proxies for the major global content 
providers and the trend has continued.  The large CDN footprint has 
found additional utility expanding the attach surface for clients.  I 
believe both of these have been good for creating a sense of 
dependability and high performance in the minds of many Internet users 
and is a good thing.  I wonder if the idea of large scale (commercial) 
proxies can be extended elsewhere.

>
> 3\. Are there research programs that you believe would be useful in 
> this space, but are currently not being pursued? Which ones?

Thinking…

—aaron