We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
We have mentioned the Internet many times so far, and all the previous chapters rely on its existence. It is about time to get into the architecture of the Internet, starting with these two chapters on the TCP/IP foundation of the Internet.
A Short Answer
We will be walking through several core concepts behind the evolution of the Internet, providing the foundation for the next four chapters. So the “short answer” section is going to be longer than the “long answer” section in this chapter.
It is tricky to discuss the historical evolution of technologies like the Internet. Some of what we would like to believe to be the inevitable results from careful design are actually the historical legacy of accidents, or the messy requirements of backward compatibility, incremental deployability, and economic incentives. It is therefore not easy to argue about what could have happened, what could have been alternative paths in the evolution, and what different tradeoffs might have been generated.
Packet switching
The answer to this chapter's question starts with a fundamental idea in designing a network: when your typical users do not really require a dedicated resource, you should allow users to share resources. The word “user” here is used interchangeably with “session.” The logical unit is an application session rather than a physical user or device. For now, assume a session has just one source and one destination, i.e., a unicast session.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
