[CII] End2End (was) terms and conditions

[tvest at eyeconomics.com]

On Nov 29, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Barry Raveendran Greene wrote:

>> one of the often misunderstood attributes of an IP network
>> is the basic attribute of the End2End principle.  e.g.
>> the network can and perhaps should be decomposed on a periodic
>> basis...  there is nothing sacrosanct about any given IP network
>> or set of interconnects between any set of IP networks.
>
> Given that this comment was lost, I think it is worth bringing up and
> highlighting. My personal experience working "CII" with Government  
> Policy
> Makers in US and Asia exposed to me just how too few people  
> understand the
> End2End principle.
>
> Q. Do you, when you work with "CII" activities, weave the End2End  
> principle
> into your work?
>
> I know this was a major shift to my architectural practices for
> high-resilient systems. I'm wondering if is the same for anyone else.

Hi Barry,

Actually, I would slightly restate and say that e2e is the primary  
factor that makes the Internet a candidate for "critical  
infrastructure" status.

When attempting to convey this distinction to policy makers and other  
non-operators, I would suggest using the following illustrative  
parallel(s):

The failure of any single, enterprise-specific payment mechanism  
(e.g., a department store credit card), or even of a single bank can  
be a major problem for the its current customers/users, employees, and  
investors. But thanks to the flexibility and basic inter-institutional  
neutrality of the monetary economy, customers can move their deposits  
elsewhere and find other ways to send and receive payments, workers  
can find other places or means to earn money, and investors can find  
other opportunities where their capital resources can yield more  
stable returns.  So long as that capacity for dynamic readjustment is  
preserved, no single element or arrangement of elements within the  
monetary economy is sacrosanct, and no single atomic or aggregate- 
level element within the system would necessarily qualify as a  
"critical infrastructure." Given that flexibility, the overall pattern  
of system elements can (and perhaps should) be decomposed thoroughly  
from time to time.

That said, the one undeniably "critical" feature within a monetary  
economy is precisely that capacity to support locally initiated  
dynamic readjustments, at almost any level (e.g., individual,  
institutional, jurisdictional, etc.), whenever a change is required,  
or recommended, or merely preferred over the status quo. This element  
is responsible not only for the system's resilience to constant  
localized (and occasional system-wide) shocks, but also for the  
system's tendency to spawn surprising new developments, some of which  
regularly turn out to be beneficial/profitable/adaptive, i.e.,  
"innovations." In a well functioning monetary economy, the capacity  
for and frequency of such innovations is limited only by the extent of  
the system itself (ala Adam Smith).

Although there's no good, widely used term for this feature of the  
monetary system (some monetary economists describe it as an aspect of  
money's role as a "medium of exchange"), in the Internet it's usually  
invoked by reference to its enabling technical conditions, the  
shorthand name for which is e2e.

Although this can come across as a tough sell for some career network  
engineers, it seems to work fairly well with some other audiences,  
esp. economic policy makers and financial industry types.

Regards,

TV