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•
Information services for various federal agency backbone networks were provided by
the sponsoring agencies. NASA, for example, provided NSI information services.
•
Internet registration services were provided by DISA NIC, operated by Government
Services, Inc. (GSI).
•
Information services for campus-level providers were provided by NSFNET mid-level
network organizations.
•
Information services for NSFNET mid-level network providers were provided by
Merit, Inc.
Under the new solicitation, NIS managers should provide services to end-users and to campus
and mid-level network service providers. They should also coordinate with other mid-level
and network organizations, such as Merit, Inc.
Creation of the InterNIC
In response to NSF's solicitation for NIS managers, in January 1993 the InterNIC was
established as a collaborative project among AT&T, General Atomics, and Network
Solutions, Inc.
[]
It was to be supported by three five-year cooperative agreements with the
NSF. During the second-year performance review, funding by the NSF to General Atomics
stopped. AT&T was awarded the Database and Directory Services, and Network Solutions
was awarded the Registration and NIC Support Services.
Directory and Database Services
The implementation of this service should utilize distributed database and other advanced
technologies. The NIS manager could coordinate this role with respect to other organizations
that have created and maintained relevant directories and databases. AT&T was providing the
following services under the NSF agreement:

•
Directory services (white pages):
This provides access to Internet White Pages information using X.500, WHOIS, and
netfind systems.
The X.500 directory standard enables the creation of a single worldwide directory of
information about various objects of interest, such as information about people.
The WHOIS lookup service provides unified access to three Internet WHOIS servers
for person and organization queries. It searches the InterNIC directory and Database
Services server for nonmilitary domain and non-Point-of-Contact data. The search for
MIL (military) domain data is done via the DISA NIC server, and the POC data is
done via the InterNIC Registration Services server.
Netfind is a simple Internet white pages directory search facility. Given the name of an
Internet user and a description of where the user works, the tool attempts to locate
information about the user.


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•
Database services:
This should include databases of communications documents such as Request For
Comments (RFCs), Internet Drafts (IDs), IETF Meeting Minutes, IETF Steering
Group (IESG) documents, and so on. The service could also contain databases
maintained for other groups with a possible fee.
AT&T also offered a database service listing of public databases, which contains
information of interest to the Internet community.
•
Directory of directories:
This service points to other directories and databases, such as those listed previously.
This is an index of pointers to resources, products, and services accessible through the

Internet. It includes pointers to resources such as computing centers, network
providers, information servers, white and yellow pages directories, library catalogs,
and so on.
As part of this service, AT&T stores a listing of information resources, including type,
description, how to access the resource, and other attributes. Information providers are
given access to update and add to the database. The information can be accessed via
different methods, such as Telnet, ftp, e-mail, and World Wide Web.
Registration Services
The NIS manager was required to act in accordance with RFC 1174, which states the
following:
The Internet system has employed a central Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
[]

for the allocation and assignment of various numeric identifiers needed for the operation of
the Internet. The IANA function is performed by the University of Southern California's
Information Sciences Institute. The IANA has the discretionary authority to delegate portions
of this responsibility and, with respect to numeric network and autonomous system identifiers,
has lodged this responsibility with an Internet Registry (IR).
The NIS manager would become either the IR or a delegate registry authorized by the IR. The
Internet registration services included the following:
•
Network number assignment
•
Autonomous system number assignment
•
Domain name registration
•
Domain name server registrations
From 1993 to 1998, NSI was the only provider of domain name registration services for the
.com, .net, and .org top-level domains, following the Cooperative Agreement with the U.S.

Government. The agreement was amended in 1998, and NSI is now working to develop
software supporting a "Shared Registration System" for these top-level domains.
Today the U.S. Government has begun to privatize the management of domain name space in
hopes of introducing competition in order to benefit the global Internet community.
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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
[]
is responsible for
overseeing this process. ICANN is responsible for the registrar accreditation process. It also
assumes responsibility for certain Internet domain name system functions, as set forth by the
U.S. Government. ICANN is a nonprofit international organization.
NIC Support Services
The original solicitation for "Information Services" was granted to General Atomics in April
1993 and was taken away in February 1995. At that time, NSI took over the proposal, and it
was renamed NIC Support Services.
The goal of the service was to provide a forum for the research and education community,
Network Information Centers (NICs) staff, and the academic Internet community, within
which the responsibilities of the InterNIC may be defined.
Other Internet Registries
With the privatization of registration services came a change in the way IP space and AS
numbers are allocated. Currently, three Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) provide
registration services to all regions around the globe: American Registry for Internet Numbers
(ARIN), Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Center (RIPE NCC), and Asian Pacific
Network Information Center (APNIC).
ARIN
In late 1997, IANA transferred responsibility for IP number administration from Network
Solutions, Inc. to ARIN
[]
. ARIN officially opened for operation on October 22, 1997.

ARIN is responsible for the allocation of Internet Protocol (IP) numbers in the following
geographical areas:
•
North America
•
South America
•
The Caribbean
•
Sub-Saharan Africa
ARIN currently manages allocation and registration services for IP numbers, AS numbers,
IN-ADDR.ARPA, and IP6.INT inverse mappings. They also provide routing registry services
where network operators can register, maintain, and retrieve router configuration information
and WHOIS services to view specific information associated with a given allocation.
ARIN is a nonprofit organization. It recovers the costs of administration and management of
IP numbers by charging fees for registration, transfer, maintenance, and membership.
RIPE NCC
Created in 1989, RIPE
[]
is a collaborative organization that consists of European Internet
service providers. It aims to provide the necessary administration and coordination to enable
the operation of the European Internet. RIPE acts as an RIR for Europe and surrounding areas.
Internet Routing Architectures, Second Edition
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RIPE distributes Internet numbers, coordinates the Domain Name System (DNS), and
maintains a network management database with information on IP networks, DNS and IP
routing policies, and contact information. They also provide an Internet software repository, a
RIPE document store, routing registry services, and interactive information services.
Like ARIN, RIPE is a nonprofit organization and obtains funding from fees associated with
its services.

APNIC
APNIC
[]
was created in 1993 and provides registration services similar to ARIN. APNIC
provides these services to the Asian Pacific region, including 62 countries/regions in South
and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Indochina, and Oceania.
APNIC is currently not involved in the administration of DNS services, although it does work
with others in the region involved with these services. APNIC provides other services,
including training and education, policy development, and regional networking activities.
Notably, APNIC helped found APRICOT (Asian Pacific Regional Internet Conference on
Operational Technologies), which is now the premier regional forum for network operators
and policy makers.
Internet Routing Registries
With the creation of a new breed of ISPs that want to interconnect with one another, offering
the required connectivity while maintaining flexibility and control has become more
challenging. Each provider has a set of rules, or policies, that describe what to accept and
what to advertise to all other neighboring networks. Sample policies include determining
route filtering from a particular ISP and choosing a particular path to a specific destination.
The potential for various policies from interconnected providers to conflict with and
contradict one another is enormous.
Internet Routing Registries (IRRs) also serve as a public database for accessing routing
contact information used for coordination and troubleshooting.
To address these challenges, a neutral routing registry (RR) for each global domain had to be
created. Each RR maintains a database of routing policies created and updated by each service
provider. The collection of these different databases is known as the Internet Routing Registry
(IRR).
The role of the RR is not to determine policies, but rather to act as a repository for routing
policy and administration information. This should provide a globally consistent view of all
policies used by all providers all over the globe. A large number of network operators use
routing information obtained from the routing registries to dynamically generate routing

policies.
Autonomous systems (ASs) use Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGPs) such as BGP to work
with one another. In complex environments, there should be a formal way of describing and
communicating policies between different ASs. Maintaining a huge database containing all
registered policies for the whole world would be cumbersome and difficult. This is why a
more distributed approach was created. Each RR maintains its own database and must
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coordinate extensively to achieve consistency between the different databases. Here are some
of the different IRR databases in existence today:
•
RIPE Routing Registry (European Internet service providers)
•
Cable & Wireless Routing Registry (C&W customers)
•
CA*net Routing Registry (CA*net customers)
•
JPRR Routing Registry (Japanese Internet service providers)
•
Routing Arbiter Database (public)
•
ARIN Routing Registry (public)
Each of the preceding registries serves a specific service provider's customer base, with the
exception of the Routing Arbiter Database (RADB) and ARIN, which provide registration
services to anyone. As mentioned earlier, the RADB is part of the Routing Arbiter project.
Because of the flexibility and benefits of maintaining a local registry, other companies such as
Qwest, Level(3), and Verio have developed RRs as well.
The Once and Future Internet
Surprisingly enough, although commercialization of the Internet has resulted in a phenomenal
rate of growth over the past 10 years, it hasn't hindered innovation. Instead, it has inspired it.

Development of new technologies by the commercial sector, as well as research and
educational organizations, is occurring at an astounding rate. New technologies can no longer
be immediately deployed in the now "production" Internet; they need to be thoroughly
debugged and optimized for realistic conditions. Testbeds were created for early adoption of
new technologies.
Next-Generation Internet Initiative
The federally funded Next-Generation Internet (NGI) Initiative
[]
is a multiagency U.S. federal
research and development program that is developing advanced network technologies and
revolutionary applications and demonstrating these capabilities on testbeds that are 100 to
1,000 times faster end-to-end than today's Internet.
The NGI initiative began October 1, 1997, with the following participating agencies:
•
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
•
DoE (Department of Energy)
•
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
•
NIH (National Institute of Health)
•
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
•
NSF (National Science Foundation)
The NGI initiative is managed by individual agency program managers and is coordinated by
the Large-Scale Networking Working Group of the Subcommittee on Computing,
Information, and Communications (CIC) R&D of the White House National Science and
Technology Council's Committee on Technology.


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NGI goals include the following:
•
Conduct R&D in advanced end-to-end networking technologies
•
Establish and operate two testbeds
•
Conduct R&D in revolutionary applications
Conduct R&D in Advanced End-to-End Networking Technologies
The NGI is fostering early deployment of new technologies that will one day be an integral
part of the commercial Internet. These technologies are focused on enhancing many aspects of
computer networking, to include the following:
•
Reliability
•
Robustness
•
Security
•
Quality of service/differentiation of service (including multicasting and video)
•
Network management (including allocation and sharing of bandwidth)
Establish and Operate Two Testbeds
Ensuring availability of capable testbeds is key to accomplishing the goals of the NGI. Two
testbeds, referred to loosely as the "100x" testbed and the "1000x" testbed, will be developed
for this purpose.
The "100x" testbed will connect at least 100 sites—universities, federal research institutions,
and other research partners—at speeds 100 times faster end-to-end than today's Internet.
The testbed will be built on the following federal networks:

•
NSF's very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS)
•
NASA's Research and Educational Network (NREN)
•
DoD's Defense Research and Education Network (DREN)
•
DoE's Energy Sciences network (ESnet)
The "1000x" testbed will connect about 10 sites with end-to-end performance at least 1,000
times faster than today's Internet. The "1000x" testbed will be built upon DARPA's SuperNet.
These testbeds will be used for system-scale testing of advanced technologies and services
and for developing and testing advanced applications.
Conduct R&D in Revolutionary Applications
NGI research and development will focus on enabling applications and technologies such as
these:
•
Collaborative technologies
•
Digital libraries
•
Distributed computing
•
Privacy and security
•
Remote operation and simulation
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It will also focus on disciplinary applications such as these:
•
Basic science

•
Crisis management
•
Education
•
The environment
•
Federal information services
•
Health care
•
Manufacturing
Internet2
Internet2
[]
is a project of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development
(UCAID). It was announced in October 1996 by 34 research universities with a mission of
helping to sustain U.S. leadership in development, deployment, and operation of next-
generation network applications and infrastructure. The primary role of Internet2 is to provide
focus on fostering the growth of advanced Internet applications and networking protocols that
will strengthen the work of universities in their research and education roles. With the
exponential growth of the Internet, commercial networks controlled by service providers are
deploying bandwidth and technologies as rapidly as research and education networks. One of
the primary goals of Internet2 is to re-create the leading-edge capabilities of testbed networks
and then facilitate transfer of these technologies to the global Internet.
Internet2 is now a collaborative effort of more than 160 U.S. universities in partnership with
more than 50 major corporations. UCAID's member universities and corporations fund
Internet2. Many of the member institutions receive funding through competitively awarded
grants from the NSF and other federal agencies participating in the NGI initiative. Funding is
also made available through other initiatives such as the NSF's Knowledge and Distributed

Intelligence (KDI) program.
Internet2's goal is not to replace the Internet, but rather to enhance it by making available
technologies and experiences developed by Internet2 members. Member universities will still
require commodity Internet connections from commercial service providers, and utilization of
those connections will continue to grow.
Abilene
Abilene
[]
is another project of UCAID. It's complementary to Internet2 in the sense that the
main goal of Abilene is to provide a primary backbone network for the Internet2 project.
UCAID, in partnership with Qwest Communications, Nortel Networks, and Cisco Systems,
has developed the Abilene network. Abilene provides the high-performance interconnect
services among the Internet2 regional aggregation points. The primarily OC48c (2.5 Gbps)
POS (Packet Over SONET) Abilene network became operational in January 1999 and
provides OC3 and OC12 access services.
Much like the vBNS, Abilene will continually explore emerging Internet technologies, but
because of the importance of network stability, Abilene will develop a separate high-
performance test network for support of applications that cannot yet be deployed on the
leading-edge-but-stable Abilene network. Internet2 working groups are in the process of
hashing out Abilene deployment details, focusing on native multicast services, optimizing
Internet Routing Architectures, Second Edition
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routing configurations and policies, IPv6, and QoS. Abilene provides native multicast services
and is planning deployment of IPv6 and QoS.
Figure 1-8 represents the current Abilene network.
Figure 1-8. Abilene Network: Peering Map

Looking Ahead
The decommissioning of the NSFNET in 1995 marked the beginning of a new era. The
Internet today is a playground for thousands of providers competing for market share.

Research networks such as Abilene and vBNS are struggling to stay ahead of the curve, as an
evolving multibillion-dollar industry continues to exceed all expectations. For many
businesses and organizations, connecting their networks to the global Internet is no longer a
luxury, but a requirement for staying competitive.
The structure of the contemporary Internet has implications for service providers and their
customers in terms of access speed, reliability, and cost of use. Here are some of the questions
organizations that want to connect to the Internet should ask:
•
Are potential providers (whether established or relatively new to the business) well
versed in routing behaviors and architectures?
•
How much do customers of providers need to know and do with respect to routing
architectures?