Network monitors and contracting systems

Abstract

Today's Internet industry suffers from several well-known pathologies, but none is as destructive in the long term as its resistance to evolution. Rather than introducing new services, ISPs are presently moving towards greater commoditization. It is apparent that the network's primitive system of contracts does not align incentives properly. In this study, we identify the network's lack of accountability as a fundamental obstacle to correcting this problem: Employing an economic model, we argue that optimal routes and innovation are impossible unless new monitoring capability is introduced and incorporated with the contracting system. Furthermore, we derive the minimum requirements a monitoring system must meet to support first-best routing and innovation characteristics. Our work does not constitute a new protocol; rather, we provide practical and specific guidance for the design of monitoring systems, as well as a theoretical framework to explore the factors that influence innovation.

Notice of Retraction: Building global view with log files in a distributed/network system

“…Accountability has been suggested as an avenue through which to accomplish practical security [9], to nurture healthy competition and innovative work in the Internet [10][11], and even has been considered to be a common objective of design for reliable networks [12]. However, the issue of whether accountability can be realized in an efficient and practical way still exists [13].…”

Subsidization Competition

“…Ma et al [28] advocated the use of the Shapley profit-sharing mechanism for multi-lateral ISP settlements and studied bilateral implementations [29]. Laskowski [25] identified that the network's lack of accountability is an obstacle to implement desirable contracting systems for the Internet. Because accounting of traffic towards the end-users is feasible for access ISPs, our subsidization mechanism can be regarded as a contracting system between the CPs and access ISPs, even through they might not be directly connected to each other.…”

Pricing, competition and innovation: A profitable business model to resolve the tussle involved in peer-to-peer streaming applications

“…This line of works mostly focuses on handling the free-riding behaviors in P2P networks [14]. Other recent works that worth noting are [15] [16]. In [15], economic models were introduced to analyze the dynamic interactions between an incumbent and an entrant.…”

“…In [15], economic models were introduced to analyze the dynamic interactions between an incumbent and an entrant. The work in [16] studied the issue that is related to accountability, contracts, competition, and innovation in the specific context of network monitoring and contracting system.…”