The Next Chapter in Networking Research: Evolutionary or Revolutionary?

Abstract

Starting with the invention of packet switching in 1960s, the networking research community has made tremendous contributions towards creation of the Internet and its continued growth on various fronts. Clearly the Internet has emerged to be a very critical infrastructure for all aspects of our modern society. However, the Internet also suffers from serious limitations for its expanding role in the society.

Success of the Internet and its continued limitations have been a double edged sword for the research community: it has led to numerous new research opportunities and challenges, and at the same time, the success has severely limited research community’s ability to influence Internet evolution during the past several years.

NSF and members of the research community have been inventing ways to continue the pace of network innovation to ensure continued evolution of Internet as well as to develop disruptive new networking technologies and solutions that would take us beyond Internet and serve the society for the next several decades.

In this talk, firstly a context for networking research will be provided and then several key NSF programs are outlined, that are aimed at keeping the pace of networking innovation high and enrich the next generation networking infrastructure.