Abstract
A discussion of “names”, “addresses”, and their relation to each other from first principles is provided. We put this discussion into the context of the structure of communication systems, where we compare layered schemes vs. functionally complete ones. We identify the need for namespaces with proper information hiding and how to relate such namespaces to each other by a correctly interpreted name resolution concept. It turns out that this approach simplifies a number of aspects of communication system design; for example, it turns out that name resolution and neighbor discovery are essentially the same thing. A basic view is given on names, addresses, and compartments. Name resolution is presented as the centerpiece of the problem.
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- 1.
We note in passing that we deviate here considerably from the NIPCA architecture. Day writes, e.g.,
The addresses must be large enough to name all elements that can be communicated without relaying at the layer above. [2]
Hence, he regards names and addresses as fairly interchangeable concepts. In the terminology presented here, a phrase like “an address names something” would not be considered correct.
- 2.
In principle, any shared compartment (not necessarily a node compartment) enables address binding. The practical cases for such bindings turn out to be rather esoteric, so we ignore them for the present discussion.
- 3.
We ignore here the degenerate case of an entity obtaining an address from another entity inside its own namespace.
- 4.
The only other type of such compartments are those that directly represent physical communication, where neighborhood is realized by properties of physical signal propagation.
- 5.
In such a case, there would be a least two different assisting compartments involved (else, they would be neighbors); it is conceivable, however, that the forwarding steps can all take place over the same assisting compartment and yet the two entities engaged in communication are not considered as neighbors because of access control limitations. This is, however, a rather specific case, as in fact this would make the membership of the two communicating entities to the same originating compartment rather questionable.
- 6.
This does of course not mean that all IP entities themselves are neighbors. Clearly, the IP entities themselves are not all neighbors; rather, any entities E 1 and E 2 belonging to some compartment C and bot connected to IP are considered C neighbors with respect to IP, according to the definition of Sect. 5.2.4.4.
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Karl, H., Biermann, T., Woesner, H. (2011). Naming and Addressing. In: Correia, L., Abramowicz, H., Johnsson, M., Wünstel, K. (eds) Architecture and Design for the Future Internet. Signals and Communication Technology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9346-2_5
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