Subject: RE: Active networks

From: "Rakers, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 23:29:06 -0400

That depends on your definition of an "active" network.  If you consider an
active network to be a network able to recover from errors and equipment
failure automatically, block unwanted traffic, and provide dynamic updates
of the best routes available....those active networks are here today.  

jason

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Ayman Malek Kaheel [SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Sent:	Saturday, August 26, 2000 4:05 PM
> To:	[email-masked]
> Subject:	Active networks
> 
> Hello,
>  
> I'm a graduate student and I'm currently starting my research, and I'm
> trying to get some insight about the future of active networks, how long
> do you think it would be before an AN would become a part of the Internet
> (if ever), specially that up tell now there is no ietf working group for
> AN?
>  
>  Thanks and regards,
>  Ayman.
>  
>

---

From: "Angelos D. Keromytis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 01:51:00 -0400

In message <[email-masked]>, "Rakers, Jason" w
>of the best routes available....those active networks are here today.  

Active networking is still a research topic, although there exist a few
companies (mostly startups AFAIK) these days that are trying to incorporate
similar technology in their products. If you ask 10 researchers, you'll get
12 definitions of active networking, all of them containing strong notions
of on-the-fly programmability of network elements (no, updating the Cisco IOS
via tftp or what-have-you doesn't count :-)
-Angelos