Proposal for an IRTF Network Virtualization Research Group
Network virtualization follows the same principle as any known computer
virtualization technology, such as virtual memory, virtual hard disk,
virtual screens, etc. It is always an abstraction from a real resource,
hiding the underlying complexity. But even if virtualization
is an integral part of today’s computing technology (which is
close to communication technology), it is still lacking a counterpart
in the Internet architecture. Current proposals discuss possible
virtualization techniques on top the today's Internet (also
past techniques such as MBONE and related), or more general on a
substrate. The clean slate approach also considers network
virtualization as an integral part of the future Internet.
However, all of these activities are bound to each local community, but
there is no larger, international discussion (apart from some smaller
meetings, e.g., between Ambient Network and GENI/FIND.
All of currently discussed ideas are somewhat heading towards different
directions (especially different between academia and industry
research).
The idea is to create an IRTF RG about network virtualization.
The first idea has been written in this call for participation and has led to the first informal meeting during the 71st IETF meeting in March 2008.
The meeting minutes are available here and the complete set of presentations is here.
For people who ask who a BAR BOF is: The informal version of a BOF.
Contact Martin Stiemerling (stiemerling (at) nw.neclab.eu) if you are interested in this.
Page last updated on 2008-05-05.