---
date: 2022-02-12
title: "What is wrong with the architecture of the Internet?"
linkTitle: "What is wrong with the architecture of the Internet?"
description: "A hard look at the root cause of most problems"
author: Dimitri Staessens
---

```
There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. -- Tony Hoare
```

## Introduction

There are two important design principles in computer science that are
absolutely imperative in keeping the architectural complexity of any
technological solution (not just computer programs) in check:
[separation of concerns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns)
and
[separation of mechanism and policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_mechanism_and_policy).

There is no simple 2-line definition of these principles, but here's
how I think about them. _Separation of concerns_ allows one to break
down a complex solution into *different subparts* that can be
implemented independently and in parallel and then integrated into the
completed solution. _Separation of mechanism_ and _policy_, when
applied to software abstractions, allows the *same subpart* to be
implemented many times in parallel, with each implementation applying
different solutions to the problem.

Both these design principles require the architect to create
abstractions and define interfaces, but the emphasis differs a
bit. With separation of concerns, the interfaces define an interaction
between different components, while with separation of mechanism and
policy, the interfaces define an interaction towards different
implementations, basically separating the _what the implementation
should do_ from the _how the implementation does it_. An interface
that fully embraces one of these principles, usually embraces the
other.

One of the best known examples of separation of concerns is the
_model-view-controller_ design pattern:

{{<figure width="20%" src="/blog/20220212-mvc.png">}}

The model is concerned with the maintaining the state of the
application, the view is concerned with presenting the state of the
application, and the controller is concerned with manipulating the
state of the application. The keywords associated with good separation
of concerns are modularity and information hiding. The view doesn't
need to know the rules for manipulating the model, and the controller
doesn't need to know how to present the model.

As very simple example for separation of mechanism and policy is the
_mechanism_ sort - returning a list of elements in some order - which
can be implemented by different _policies_ quick-sort, bubble-sort or
insertion-sort. But that's not all there's to it. The key is to hide
the policy details from the interface into the mechanism. For sort
this is simple, for instance, sort(list, order='descending') would be
an obvious API for a sort mechanism. But it goes much further than
that. Good separation of mechanism and policy requires abstracting
every aspect of the solution behind an implementation-agnostic
interface. That is far from obvious.

## Trade-offs

Violations of these design principles can cause a world of hurt. In
most cases, they do not cause problems with functionality. Even bad
designs can be made to work. They cause development friction and
resistance to large-scale changes in the solution. Separation of
concerns violations make the application less maintainable because
changes to some part cascade into other parts, causing _spaghetti
code_. Violation of separation of mechanism and policy make an
application less nimble because some choices get anchored in the
solution, for instance the choice for a certain encryption library or
a certain database solution and directly calling these proprietary
APIs from all parts of the application. This tightly locked in
dependency can cause serious problems if these dependencies cease to
be available (deprecation) or show serious defects.

Good design lets development velocities add up. Bad design choices
slow development because progress that should be independent starts to
interlock. Ever tried running with your shoelaces knotted to someone
else's? Whenever one makes a step forward, the other has to catch up.

Often, violations against these 2 principles are made in the name of
optimization. Let's have a quick look at the trade-offs.

Separation of concerns can have a performance impact, so a choice has
to be made between the current performance, and future development
velocity. In most cases, code that violates separation of concerns is
harder to adapt and (much) harder to thoroughly _test_. My
recommendation for developers is to approach such situations by first
creating the API and implementation _respecting_ separation of
concerns and then after very careful consideration, create a separate
additional low-level optimized API with an optimized
implementation. Then the optimized implementation can be tested (and
performance-evaluated) against the functionality (and performance) of
the non-optimized one. If later on, functionality needs to be added to
the implementation, having the non-optimized path will prove a
timesaver.

Separation of mechanism and policy usually has less of a direct
performance impact, and the tradeoff is commonly future development
velocity versus current development time. So if this principle is not
respected by choice, the driver for it is usually time pressure. If
only a single implementation is used what is the point of abstracting
the mechanism behind an API? More often than not, though, violations
against mechanism/policy just creep in unnoticed. The negative
implications are usually only felt a long way down the line.

But we haven't even gotten to the _hardest_ part yet. A well-known
phrase is that there are 2 hard things in computer science: cache
invalidation and naming things (and off-by-one errors).  I think it
misses one: _identifying concerns_. Or in other words: finding the
_right_ abstraction. How do we know when an abstraction is the right
one?  Designs with obvious defects will usually be discarded quickly,
but most design glitches are not obvious. There is a reason that Don
Knuth named his tome "The _Art_ of Computer Programming". How can we
compare abstractions, can we quantify elegance or is it just _taste_?
How much of the complexity of a solution is inherent in the problem,
and how much complication is added because of imperfect abstraction?
I don't have an answer to this one.

A commonly used term in software engineering for all these problems is
_technical debt_. Technical debt is to software as entropy is to the
Universe. It's safe to state that in any large project, technical debt
is inevitable and will only accumulate. Fixing technical debt requires
investing a lot of time and effort and usually brings little immediate
return on this investment. The first engineering manager that happily
invests time and money towards refactoring has yet to be born.

## Layer violations in the TCP/IP architecture

Now what have this _software development_ principles to do with the
architecture of the TCP/IP Internet[^1]?

I find it funny that the wikipedia page uses the Internet's layered
architecture as an example for
[separation of concerns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns)
because I use it as an example of violations against it.
The _intent_ is surely there, but the execution is completely lacking.

Let's take some examples the common TCP/IP/Ethernet stack violates the
2 precious design principles. In a layered architecture (like computer
network architectures), they are called _layer violations_.

Layer 1: At the physical layer, Ethernet has a minimum frame size,
which is required to accurately detect collisions. For 10/100Mbit this
is 64 bytes. Shorter frames must be _padded_. How to distinguish the
padding from a packet which actually has zeros at the end of its data?
Well, Ethernet has a _length_ field in the MAC header. But in DIX
Ethernet that is an Ethertype, so a _length_ field in the IP header is
used (both IPv4 as IPv6). A Layer 1 problem is actually propagated
into Layer 2 and even Layer 3. Gigabit Ethernet has an even larger
minimum frame sizes (512 bytes), however, the padding is properly (and
efficiently!) taken care of at Layer 1 by a feature called Carrier
Extension.

Layer 2: The Ethernet II frame has an
[Ethertype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EtherType#Values),
which is also a layer violation, specifying the encapsulated
higher-layer protocol. 0x800 for IPv4, 0x86DD for IPv6, 0x8100 for
tagged VLANs, etc.

Layer 3: Similarly as the Ethertype, IP has a
[protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IP_protocol_numbers)
field, specifying the carried protocol. UDP = 17, TCP = 6. Other tight
couplings between Layer 2 and Layer 3 are, IGMP snooping and even
basic routing[^2].  One thing worth noting, and often disregarded in
course materials on computer networks, is that OSI's 7 layers each had
a _service definition_ that abstracts the function of each layer away
from the other layers so these layers can be developed
independently. TCP/IP's implementation was mapped to the OSI layers,
usually compressed to 5-layers, but TCP/IP _has no such service
definitions_.  The interfaces into Layer 2 and Layer 3 basically _are_
the protocol definitions. Craft a valid packet according to the rules
and send it along.

Layer 4: My favorite.
[Well-known ports](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers).
HTTP: TCP port 80, HTTPs: TCP port 443, UDP port 443 is now
predominantly QUIC/HTTP3 traffic. This of course creates a direct
dependency between application protocols and the network.

Explaining these layer violations to a TCP/IP network engineer is like
explaining inconsistencies and contradictions in the bible to a
priest. So why do I care so much, and a lot of IT professionals brush
this off as nitpicking? Let's first look at what I think are the
consequences of these seemingly insignificant pet peeves of mine.

## Network Ossification

The term _ossification of the Internet_ is sometimes used to describe
difficulties in making sizeable changes within the TCP/IP network
stack -- a lack of _evolvability_. For most technologies, there is a
steady cycle of innovation, adoption and deprecation. Remember DOS,
OS/2, Windows 3.1, Windows 95? Right, that's what they are: once
ubiquitous, now mostly memories. In contrast, "Next Generation
Internet" designs are mostly "Current Generation Internet +". Plus AI
and machine learning, plus digital ledger/blockchain, plus big data,
plus augmented/virtual reality, plust platform as a service, plus
ubiquitous surveillance. At the physical layer, there's the push for
higher bandwidth, both in the wireless and wired domains (optics and
electronics) and at planetary (satellite links) and microscopic
(nanonetworks) scales. A lot of innovation at the top and the bottom
of the 7-layer model, but almost none in the core "networking" layers.

The prime example for the low evolvability of the 'net is of course
the adoption of IPv6, which is now slogging into its third
decade. Now, if you think IPv6 adoption is taking long, contemplate
how long it would take to _deprecate_ IPv4. The reason for this is not
hard to find. There is no separation between mechanism and policy --
no service interface -- at Layer 3[^3]. Craft a packet from the
application and send it along. A lot of applications manipulate IP
addresses and TCP or UDP ports all over their code and
configurations. The difficulties in deploying IPv6 have been taken as
a rationale that replacing core network protocols is inherently hard,
rather than the symptom of an obvious defect in the interfaces between
the logical assembly blocks of the current Internet.

For application programmers, the network itself has so little
abstraction that the problem is basically bypassed alltogether by
implementing protocols _on top of_ the 7-layer stack. Far more
applications are now developed on top of HTTP's connection model and
its primitives (PUT/GET/POST, ...) resulting in so-called RESTful
APIs, than on top of TCP. This alleviates at least some of the burden
of server-side port management as it can be left a frontend web server
application (Apache/Nginx). It much easier to use a textual URI to
reach an application than to assign and manage TCP ports on public
interfaces and having to disseminate them accross the
network[^4]. Especially in a microservice architecture where hundreds
of small, tailored daemons, often distributed across many machines
that themselves have interfaces in different IP subnets and different
VLANs, working together to provide a scalable and reliable end-user
service. Setting such a service up is one thing. When a reorganization
in the datacenter happens, moving such a microservice deployment more
often than not means redoing a lot of the network configuration.

Innovating on top of HTTP, instead of on top of TCP or UDP may be
convenient for the application developer, it is not the be-all and
end-all solution. HTTP1/2 is TCP-based, and thus far from optimal for
voice communications and other realtime applications such as
aumented/virtual reality, now branded the _metaverse_.

The additional complexities in developing applications that directly
interface with network protocols, compared to the simplicity offered
by developing on top of HTTP primitives may drive developers away from
even attempting it, choosing the 'easy route' and further reduce true
innovation in networking protocols. Out of sight, out of mind. Since
the money goes where the (perceived) value is, and it's hard to
deprecate anything, the protocol real-estate between IP and HTTP that
is not on the direct IP/TCP/HTTP (or IP/UDP/HTTP3) path may fall into
further disarray.

We have experienced something similar when testing Ouroboros using our
IEEE 802.2 LLC adaptation layer (the ipcpd-eth-llc). IEEE 802.2 is not
used that often anymore, most 802.2 LLC traffic that we spotted on our
networks were network printers, and the wireless routers were
forwarding 802.2 packets with all kinds of weird defects. Out of
sight, out of mind. This brings us nicely to the next problem.

## Protocol ossification

Let's kick this one off with an example. HTTP3[^5] is designed on top
of UDP. It could have run on top of IP. The reason why it's not is
mentioned in the original QUIC protocol documentation,
[RFC 9000](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9000):
_QUIC packets are carried in UDP datagrams to better facilitate
deployment in existing systems and networks_. What it's basically
saying is also what we have encountered evaluating new network
prototypes (RINA and Ouroboros) directly over IP: putting an
non-standard protocol number in an IP packet will cause any router
along the way to just drop it. If even _Google_ thinks it's futile...

This is an example of what is referred to as
[protocol ossification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_ossification).
If a protocol is designed with a flexible structure, but that
flexibility is never used in practice, some implementation is going to
assume it is constant.

Instead of the IP "Protocol" field in routers that I used in the
example above, the usual examples are _middleboxes_ -- hardware that
perform all kinds of shenanigans on unsuspecting TCP/IP packets. The
reason why these boxes _can_ work is because of the violations of the
two important design principles. The example from the wikipedia page,
on how version negotiation in TLS1.3 was
[preventing it from getting deployed](https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-tls-1-3-isnt-in-browsers-yet/),
is telling.

But it happens deeper down the network stack as well. When we were
working on
[the IRATI prototype](https://irati.eu/),
we wanted to run RINA over Ethernet. The obvious thing to do is to use
the ARP protocol. Its specification,
[RFC826](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc826),
allows any protocol address (L3) to be mapped to a hardware address (L2).
So we were going to map RINA names, with a capped length of max 256 bytes
to adhere to ARP, to Ethernet addresses.
But in the Linux kernel,
[ARP only supports IP](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/net/ipv4/arp.c#L7).
I can guarantee that with all the architectural defects in the TCP/IP
stack, that "future" mentioned in the code comment will likely never
come. Sander actually implemented
[an RFC826-compliant ARP Linux Kernel Module](https://github.com/IRATI/stack/blob/master/kernel/rinarp/arp826.h)
when working on IRATI. And we had to move it to a
[different Ethertype](https://github.com/IRATI/stack/blob/master/kernel/rinarp/arp826.h#L29),
because the Ethernet switches along the way were dropping the RFC-compliant
packets as suspicious!

## A message falling into deaf ears

So, why do we care so much about this, why so many in the network
research community seem not to?

The (continuing) journey that is Ouroboros has its roots in EC-funded
research into the Recursive Network Architecture (RINA)[^6]. A couple
of comments that we received at review meetings or some peer reviews
from papers stuck with me. I won't go into the details of who, what,
where and when. All these reviewers were, and still are, top experts
in their respective fields. But they do present a bit of a picture of
what I think is the problem when communicating about core
architectural concepts within the network community[^7].

One comment that popped up, many times actually, is _"I'm no software
engineer"_. The research projects were very heavy on actual software
development, so, since we had our interfaces actually implemented, it
was only natural to us to present them from code. I'm the first to
agree that _implementation details_ do not matter. There surely is no
point going over every line of code. But, as long as we stuck to
component diagrams and how they interact, everything was fine. But
when the _interfaces_ came up, the actual primitives that detailed
what information was exchanged between components, interest was
gone. Those interfaces are what make the architecture shine. We spent
_literally_ months refining them. At one review, when we started
detailing these software APIs, there was a direct proposal from one of
the evaluation experts to "skip this work package and go directly to
the prototype demonstrations". I kid you not.

This exemplifies something that I've often felt. A bit of a disdain
for anything that even remotely smells like implementation work by
those involved in research and standardization. Becoming adept in the
_principles of separation and policy_ and _separation of concern_ is a
matter of honing ones' skill, not accumulation of knowledge. If
software developers break the principles it leads to spaghetti code.
Breaking them at the level of standards leads to spaghetti standards.
And there can't be a clean implementation of a spaghetti standard.

The second comment I recall vividly is "I'm looking for the juicy
bits", and it's derivatives "What can I take away from this
project?". A new architecture was not interesting unless we could
demonstrate new capabilities. We were building a new house on a
different set of foundations. The reviewers would happily take a look,
but what they were _really_ interested in, was knocking off the
furniture. Our plan was really the same, but the other way
around. Ouroboros (and RINA) aren't about optimizations and new
capabilities. At least not yet. The point of doing the new
architecture is to get rid of the ossification, so that when future
innovations arrive, they can easily be adopted.

## Wrapping up

The core architecture of the Internet is not 'done'. As long as the
overwhelming consensus is that _"It's good enough"_ that is exactly
what it will not be. A house built on an unstable foundation can't be
fixed by replacing the furniture. Plastering the walls might make it
look more appealing, and fancy furniture might even make it feel
temporarily like "home" again. But however shiny the new furniture,
however comfortable the new queen-sized bed, at some point in time the
once barely-noticeable rot seeping through the walls becomes ever
more apparent, ever more annoying, ever harder to ignore,
until the only remaining option is to move out.

When that realization comes, know that some of us have already started
building on a different foundation.

As always, stay curious.

Dimitri

[^1]: I use Internet in a restrictive sense,  meaning the
      packet-switched TCP/IP network on top of the (optical) support
      backbones, not for the wider ecosystem on top of (and including)
      the _world-wide-web_.

[^2]: How do IPv4 packets reach the default IP gateway? A direct
      lookup by L3 into the L2 ARP table! And why would IPv6 even
      consider including the MAC address in the IP address if these
      layers were independent?

[^3]: Having an API is of course no guarantee to fast paced innovation
      or revolutionary breakthroughs. The slowing innovation into
      Operating Systems Architecture is partly because of the appeal
      of compatibility with current standards. Rather than rethinking
      the primitives for interacting with the OS and providing an
      adaptation layer for backwards compatibility, performance
      concerns more often than not nip such approaches in the bud
      before they are even attempted. Optimization really is the root
      of all evil. But at least, within the primitives specified by
      POSIX, monokernels, unikernels, microkernels are still being
      researched and developed. An API is better than no API.

[^4]: As an example, you reach the microservice on
      "https://serverurl/service" instead of on
      "https://serverurl:7639/". This can then redirect to the service
      on the localhost/loopback interface on the (virtual) machine,
      and the (TCP) port assigned to the service only needs to be
      known on that local (virtual) machine. In this way, a single
      machine can run many microservice components and only expose the
      HTTPS/HTTP3 port (tcp/udp 443) on external interfaces.

[^5]: HTTP3 is really interesting from an architectural perspective as
      it optimizes between application layer requests and the network
      transport protocol. The key problem -- called _head of line
      blocking_ -- in HTTP2 is, very roughly, this: HTTP2 allows
      parallel HTTP requests over a single TCP connection to the
      server. For instance, when requesting an HTML page with many
      photographs, request all the photographs at the same time and
      receive them in parallel. But TCP is a single byte stream, it
      does not know about these parallel requests. If there is packet
      lost, TCP will wait for the re-transmissions, potentially
      blocking all the other requests for the other images even if
      they were not affected by the lost packets. Creating multiple
      connections for each request also has big overhead. QUIC, on the
      other hand integrates things so that the requests are also
      handled in parallel in the re-transmission logic. Interestingly,
      this maps well onto Ouroboros' architecture which has a
      distinction between flows and the FRCP connections that do the
      bookkeeping for re-transmission. To do something like HTTP3
      would mean allowing parallel FRCP connections within a flow,
      something we always envisioned and will definitely implement at
      some point, and mapping parallel application requests on these
      FRCP connections.  How to do HTTP3/QUIC within Ouroboros' flows
      + parallel FRCP could make a nice PhD topic for someone. But I
      digress, and I was already digressing.

[^6]: This is the [story all about how](/blog/2021/03/20/how-does-ouroboros-relate-to-rina-the-recursive-internetwork-architecture/).

[^7]: These are a few examples are to highlight what I think is a core
      difference in priorities between what we tried to achieve with
      the projects -- a flexible architecture in the long term --
      versus what most current research and development is targeted at
      -- fixes for urgent problems and improvements in the short
      term. I want to stress that we were never treated unfairly by
      any reviewer, and this section should not be read as a complaint
      of any sort.
