RE: Some Comments on ID/Loc Separation Proposals

["J. Noel Chiappa" <jnc@ginger.lcs.mit.edu>]

    > From: <Margaret.Wasserman@nokia.com>

    >>> The use of the term "Identifier" or "ID" sweeps an important issue
    >>> under the rug in some cases: Is this a host ID or an interface ID?

    >> or a 'stack id' or an 'endpoint id'? and what do these mean,
    >> precisely.

    > Noel .. referred to a host/endpoint/stack ID as though a host, an
    > endpoint and a stack are all the same thing. But are they really the
    > same thing? Is there even a 1:1:1 correlation between these things?

I was being a little loose there, for which I apologize. Let me expand a bit
on that "host/endpoint/stack" thing.


"stack" is a term that gained increased prominence in the NSRG, which used it
to name some new "thing" that they might name. I don't think there was rough
consensus there on what a "stack" might be; I don't even think there was RC
on whether it was below the transport layer, or what - I'd have to look at my
notes from the NSRG meeting to see (if anyone cares).

"endpoint" is a term I have been using for a long time now (defined in this
note - http://users.exis.net/~jnc/tech/endpoints.txt) to name a class of
entities I thought we should explicitly add to the architecture; they are the
things that do end-end communications like TCP (fate-sharing regions, in
other words).

I'm not sure if there is a significant difference between "stack" and
"endpoint", but that might depend on who you talked to, and what the term
"stack" meant to them.


"host" I assume means a physical computer. I just threw that one in in case
people were confused by the stack/endpoint terminology. Most people have a
pretty good handle on what a "host" is.

In a simple model, the kind we mostly have now (modulo things like the IBM
web server farm), a host is an endpoint.

If we included endpoints as first-class objects, presumably you could do
things like have multiple endpoints in a particular host, and probably allow
them to move from host to host. But that's all just architectural sketches.

	Noel