Shaking the foundations of computing
Joab Jackson reports in Government Computer News that the Defense Advanced Reseach Project Agency (DARPA) is challenging the very roots of today's approach to computing and networking. DARPA wants to make revolutionary changes in IP, the OSI model, and the very basic standard architecture of a computer. DARPA wants to "radically redefine computer architecture" to attack the issues of reliability and vulnerability of the standard approaches in use today. A lot of what is emerging today as disruptive technology is stretching the limits of the standards like IP and the OSI model, particularly with respect to mobile computing.
This assessment is long overdue. As we have driven the techology to swallow new operational concepts such as complete wireless access, the old models have been stretched far beyond what they were intended to handle. Much of the elegance derived from the simplicity of standards like the Internet Protocol emerged from the far simpler model of systems connected over wires and more particularly using synchronous connections. It is indeed time for a fresh look at what is needed to take us into the next stage of ubiquity in computing.
What is most interesting about this drive from DARPA is that DARPA has an enormous influence on where the computing field goes. As it sponsors research and development to serve the needs of the military, DARPA often ends up driving the rest of the world as well. Remember that the predecessor of the internet was ARPAnet, built by the earlier version of this agency for defense purposes and look how they shook the world up. The results of these studies will be very interesting to anyone who wonders about the future of computing.
Read Jackson's article for the full story.
9:13:05 PM 
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