A Dynamic Recursive Unified Internet Design (DRUID)

The Dynamic Recursive Unified Internet Design (DRUID) is a future Internet design that unifies overlay networks with conventional layered network architectures. DRUID is based on the fundamental concept of recursion, enabling a simple and direct network architecture that unifies the data, control, management, and security aspects of the current Internet, leading to a more trustworthy network. DRUID’s architecture is based on a single recursive block that can adapt to support a variety of communication functions, including parameterized mechanisms for hard/soft state, flow and congestion control, sequence control, fragmentation and reassembly, compression, encryption, and error recovery. This recursion is guided by the structure of a graph of translation tables that help compartmentalize the scope of various functions and identifier spaces, while relating these spaces for resource discovery, resolution, and routing. The graph also organizes persistent state that coordinates behavior between individual data events (e.g., coordinating packets as a connection), among different associations (e.g., between connections), as well as helping optimize the recursive discovery process through caching, and supporting prefetching and distributed pre-coordination. This paper describes the DRUID architecture composed of these three parts (recursive block, translation tables, persistent state), and highlights its goals and benefits, including unifying the data, control, management, and security planes currently considered orthogonal aspects of network architecture.