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Karen R. Sollins

Bio: Karen R. Sollins is an academic researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: The Internet & Network architecture. The author has an hindex of 19, co-authored 39 publications receiving 1840 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The position is that accommodating this tussle is crucial to the evolution of the network's technical architecture and some technical design principles that take it into account are offered.
Abstract: The architecture of the Internet is based on a number of principles, including the self-describing datagram packet, the end-to-end arguments, diversity in technology and global addressing. As the Internet has moved from a research curiosity to a recognized component of mainstream society, new requirements have emerged that suggest new design principles, and perhaps suggest that we revisit some old ones. This paper explores one important reality that surrounds the Internet today: different stakeholders that are part of the Internet milieu have interests that may be adverse to each other, and these parties each vie to favor their particular interests. We call this process "the tussle". Our position is that accommodating this tussle is crucial to the evolution of the network's technical architecture. We discuss some examples of tussle, and offer some technical design principles that take it into account.

390 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
19 Aug 2002
TL;DR: The position is that accommodating this tussle is crucial to the evolution of the network's technical architecture and some technical design principles that take it into account are offered.
Abstract: The architecture of the Internet is based on a number of principles, including the self-describing datagram packet, the end to end arguments, diversity in technology and global addressing. As the Internet has moved from a research curiosity to a recognized component of mainstream society, new requirements have emerged that suggest new design principles, and perhaps suggest that we revisit some old ones. This paper explores one important reality that surrounds the Internet today: different stakeholders that are part of the Internet milieu have interests that may be adverse to each other, and these parties each vie to favor their particular interests. We call this process "the tussle". Our position is that accommodating this tussle is crucial to the evolution of the network's technical architecture. We discuss some examples of tussle, and offer some technical design principles that take it into account.

364 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
09 Apr 2010
TL;DR: This position paper identifies four key challenges, namely information-centrism of applications, supporting and exposing tussles, increasing accountability, and addressing attention scarcity, that it believes an information-centric internetworking architecture could address better and would make changing such crucial part of the Internet worthwhile.
Abstract: The current Internet architecture focuses on communicating entities, largely leaving aside the information to be exchanged among them. However, trends in communication scenarios show that WHAT is being exchanged becoming more important than WHO are exchanging information. Van Jacobson describes this as moving from interconnecting machines to interconnecting information. Any change of this part of the Internet needs argumentation as to why it should be undertaken in the first place. In this position paper, we identify four key challenges, namely information-centrism of applications, supporting and exposing tussles, increasing accountability, and addressing attention scarcity, that we believe an information-centric internetworking architecture could address better and would make changing such crucial part worthwhile. We recognize, however, that a much larger and more systematic debate for such change is needed, underlined by factual evidence on the gain for such change.

179 citations

01 Aug 2004
TL;DR: An effort to understand how the Internet might be designed today if the authors could make a fresh start and to offer long-term directions to help guide the evolution of the Internet in response to these requirements.
Abstract: : This report describes an effort to understand how the Internet might be designed today if we could make a fresh start. The goal is to understand the current set of requirements that drive the Internet, and to offer long-term directions to help guide the evolution of the Internet in response to these requirements.

110 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Jan 2009

102 citations


Cited by
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01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: A global center for commercial innovation, PARC, a Xerox company, works closely with enterprises, entrepreneurs, government program partners and other clients to discover, develop, and deliver new business opportunities.
Abstract: A global center for commercial innovation, PARC, a Xerox company, works closely with enterprises, entrepreneurs, government program partners and other clients to discover, develop, and deliver new business opportunities. PARC was incorporated in 2002 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX).

1,072 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Three new directions for IS research are proposed: theories of the nature of digital infrastructure as a separate type of IT artifact, sui generis; digital infrastructures as relational constructs shaping all traditional IS research areas; and paradoxes of change and control as salient IS phenomena.
Abstract: Since the inauguration of information systems research (ISR) two decades ago, the information systems (IS) field's attention has moved beyond administrative systems and individual tools. Millions of users log onto Facebook, download iPhone applications, and use mobile services to create decentralized work organizations. Understanding these new dynamics will necessitate the field paying attention to digital infrastructures as a category of IT artifacts. A state-of-the-art review of the literature reveals a growing interest in digital infrastructures but also confirms that the field has yet to put infrastructure at the centre of its research endeavor. To assist this shift we propose three new directions for IS research: (1) theories of the nature of digital infrastructure as a separate type of IT artifact, sui generis; (2) digital infrastructures as relational constructs shaping all traditional IS research areas; (3) paradoxes of change and control as salient IS phenomena. We conclude with suggestions for how to study longitudinal, large-scale sociotechnical phenomena while striving to remain attentive to the limitations of the traditional categories that have guided IS research.

937 citations

01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: A super-peer is a node in a peer-to-peer network that operates both as a server to a set of clients, and as an equal in a network of super-peers.
Abstract: A super-peer is a node in a peer-to-peer network that operates both as a server to a set of clients, and as an equal in a network of super-peers. Super-peer networks strike a balance between the efficiency of centralized search, and the autonomy, load balancing and robustness to attacks provided by distributed search. Furthermore, they take advantage of the heterogeneity of capabilities (e.g., bandwidth, processing power) across peers, which recent studies have shown to be enormous. Hence, new and old P2P systems like KaZaA and Gnutella are adopting super-peers in their design. Despite their growing popularity, the behavior of super-peer networks is not well understood. For example, what are the potential drawbacks of super-peer networks? How can super-peers be made more reliable? How many clients should a super-peer take on to maximize efficiency? we examine super-peer networks in detail, gaming an understanding of their fundamental characteristics and performance tradeoffs. We also present practical guidelines and a general procedure for the design of an efficient super-peer network.

916 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
06 Oct 2005
TL;DR: This work advocate a complete refactoring of the functionality and proposes three key principles--network-level objectives, network-wide views, and direct control--that it believes should underlie a new architecture, called 4D, after the architecture's four planes: decision, dissemination, discovery, and data.
Abstract: Today's data networks are surprisingly fragile and difficult to manage. We argue that the root of these problems lies in the complexity of the control and management planes--the software and protocols coordinating network elements--and particularly the way the decision logic and the distributed-systems issues are inexorably intertwined. We advocate a complete refactoring of the functionality and propose three key principles--network-level objectives, network-wide views, and direct control--that we believe should underlie a new architecture. Following these principles, we identify an extreme design point that we call "4D," after the architecture's four planes: decision, dissemination, discovery, and data. The 4D architecture completely separates an AS's decision logic from pro-tocols that govern the interaction among network elements. The AS-level objectives are specified in the decision plane, and en-forced through direct configuration of the state that drives how the data plane forwards packets. In the 4D architecture, the routers and switches simply forward packets at the behest of the decision plane, and collect measurement data to aid the decision plane in controlling the network. Although 4D would involve substantial changes to today's control and management planes, the format of data packets does not need to change; this eases the deployment path for the 4D architecture, while still enabling substantial innovation in network control and management. We hope that exploring an extreme design point will help focus the attention of the research and industrial communities on this crucially important and intellectually challenging area.

805 citations