---
title: "The problem with the current layered model of the Internet"
author: "Dimitri Staessens"

date:  2020-04-06
weight: 1
description: >

---

```
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of
thinking.
  -- John Kenneth Galbraith
```

Every engineering class that deals with networks explains the
[7-layer OSI model](https://www.bmc.com/blogs/osi-model-7-layers/)
and the
[5-layer TCP model](https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/cloud_and_networking/9781789349863/1/ch01lvl1sec13/tcp-ip-layer-model).

Both models have common origins in the International Networking
Working Group (INWG), and therefore share many similarities.  The
TCP/IP model evolved from the implementation of the early ARPANET in
the '70's and '80's. The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model was the
result of a standardization effort in the International Standards
Organization (ISO), which ran well into the nineties. The OSI model
had a number of useful abstractions: services, interfaces and
protocols, where the TCP/IP model was more tightly coupled to the
Internet Protocol (IP).

### A birds-eye view of the OSI model

{{<figure width="40%" src="/docs/concepts/aschenbrenner.png">}}

Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) defines 7 layers, each providing an
abstraction for a certain *function*, or _service_ that a networked
application may need. The figure above shows probably
[the first draft](https://tnc15.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/locked-in-tour-europe/)
of the OSI model.

From top to bottom, the layers provide (roughly) the following
services.

The __application layer__ implements the details of the application
protocol (such as HTTP), which specifies the operations and data that
the application understands (requesting a web page).

The __presentation layer__ provides independence of data representation,
and may also perform encryption.

The __session layer__ sets up and manages sessions (think of a session
as a conversation or dialogue) between the applications.

The __transport layer__ handles individual chunks of data (think of them
as words in the conversation), and can ensure that there is end-to-end
reliability (no words or phrases get lost).

The __network layer__ forwards the packets across the network, it
provides such things as addressing and congestion control.

The __datalink layer__ encodes data into bits and moves them between
hosts. It handles errors in the physical layer. It has two sub-layers:
Media access control layer (MAC), which says when hosts can transmit
on the medium, and logical link control (LLC) that deals with error
handling and control of transmission rates.

Finally, the __physical layer__ is responsible for translating the
bits into a signal (e.g. laser pulses in a fibre) that is carried
between endpoints.

The benefit of the OSI model is that each of these layers has a
_service description_, and an _interface_ to access this service. The
details of the protocols inside the layer were of less importance, as
long as they got the job -- defined by the service description --
done.

This functional layering provides a logical order for the steps that
data passes through between applications. Indeed, existing (packet)
networks go through these steps in roughly this order.

### A birds-eye view of the TCP/IP model

{{<figure width="25%" src="https://static.packt-cdn.com/products/9781789349863/graphics/6c40b664-c424-40e1-9c65-e43ebf17fbb4.png">}}

The TCP/IP model came directly from the implementation of TCP/IP, so
instead of each layer corresponding to a service, each layer directly
corresponded to a (set of) protocol(s). IP was the unifying protocol,
not caring what was below at layer 1. The HOST-HOST protocols offered
a connection-oriented service (TCP) or a connectionless service (UDP)
to the application. The _TCP/IP model_ was retroactively made more
"OSI-like", turning into the 5-layer model, which views the top 3
layers of OSI as an "application layer".

### Some issues with these models

When looking at current networking solutions in more depth,
things are not as simple as these 5/7 layers seem to indicate.

#### The order of the layers is not fixed.

Consider, for instance, __Virtual Private Network__ (VPN) technologies
and SSH __tunnels__. We are all familiar enough with this kind of
technologies to take them for granted. But a VPN, such as openVPN,
creates a new network on top of IP. In _bridging_ mode this is a Layer
2 (Ethernet) network over TAP interfaces, in _routing_ mode this is a
Layer 3 (IP) network over TUN interfaces. In both cases they are
supported by a Layer 4 connection (using, for instance Transport Layer
Security) to the VPN server that provides the network
access. Technologies such as VPNs and various so-called _tunnels_
seriously jumble around the layers in this layered model.

#### How many layers are there exactly?

Multi-Protocol Label switching (MPLS), a technology that allows
operators to establish and manage circuit-like paths in IP networks,
typically sits in between Layer 2 and IP and is categorized as a
_Layer 2.5_ technology. So are there 8 layers? Why not revise the
model and number them 1-8 then?

QUIC is a protocol that performs transport-layer functions such as
retransmission, flow control and congestion control, but works around
the initial performance bottleneck after starting a TCP connection
(3-way handsake, slow start) and some other optimizations dealing with
re-establishing connections for which security keys are known. But
QUIC runs on top of UDP. If UDP is Layer 4, then what layer is QUIC?

One could argue that UDP is an incomplete Layer 4 protocol and QUIC
adds its missing Layer 4 functionalities. Fair enough, but then what
is the minimum functionality for a complete Layer 4 protocol? And what
is a minimum functionality for a Layer 3 protocol? What have IP, ICMP
and IGMP in common that makes them Layer 3 beyond the arbitrary
concensus that they should be available on a brick of future e-waste
that is sold as a "router"?

#### Which protocol fits in which layer is not clear-cut.

There are a whole slew of protocols that are situated in Layer 3:
ICMP, SNMP... They don't really need the features that Layer 4
provides (retransmission, ...). But again, they run on _top of Layer
3_ (IP). They get assigned a protocol number in the IP field, instead
of a port number in the UDP header. But doesn't a Layer 3 protocol
number indicate a Layer 4 protocol? Apparently only in some cases, but
not in others.

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) performs (inter-domain)
routing. Routing is a function that is usually associated with Layer
3. But BGP runs on top of TCP, which is Layer 4, so is it in the
application layer? There is no real concensus of what layer BGP is in,
some say Layer 3, some (probably most) say Layer 4, because it is
using TCP, and some say it's application layer. But the concensus does
seem to be that the BGP conundrum doesn't matter. BGP works, and the
OSI and TCP/IP models are _just theoretical models_, not _rules_ that
are set in stone.

### Are these issues _really_ a problem?

Well, in my opinion: yes! These models are pure [rubber
science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_science). They have no
predictive value, don't fit with observations of the real-world
Internet most of us use every day, and are about as arbitrary as a
seven-course tasting menu of home-grown vegetables. Their only uses
are as technobabble for network engineers and as tools for university
professors to gauge their students' ability to retain a moderate
amount of stratified dribble.

If there is no universally valid theoretical model, if we have no
clear definitions of the fundamental concepts and no clearly defined
set of rules that unequivocally lay out what the _necessary and
sufficient conditions for networking_ are, then we are all just
_engineering in the dark_, progress in developing computer networks
condemned to a sisyphean effort of perpetual incremental fixes, its
fate to remain a craft that builds on tradition, cobbling together an
ever-growing bungle of technologies and protocols that stretch the
limits of manageability.

Not yet convinced? Read an even more in-depth explanation on our
[blog](/blog/2022/02/12/what-is-wrong-with-the-architecture-of-the-internet/),
about the seperation of concerns design principle and layer violations
and about seperation of mechanism & policy and ossification.
