Networking
Creating new networking architectures that are flexible, content-aware, secure, and seamless for people to use

Since PARC’s early contributions to developing the Ethernet, the sheer number of networked devices and users has changed dramatically – and numerous wired and wireless resources have become available.

However, there are still many challenges to seamlessness, since the network’s overall performance is limited by its reliance on connection-oriented services and contention-based access of wireless media.

PARC Approach

[AUDIO] Listen to PARC Research Fellow Van Jacobson explain the vision for content-centric networking in this recent presentation.

PARC researchers are developing new networking architectures that abstract users from the network “plumbing” – for various devices, applications, and networking protocols.

In wired and wireless environments, PARC’s efforts utilize available processing, storage, and communication resources within the network to enable media-rich, mobile, and low-latency applications.

Focus Areas

PARC’s rich legacy of network innovation includes inventing the Ethernet and PUP; pioneering client-server and peer-to-peer concepts; advancing IP multicast and Mbone; and co-designing Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Current focus areas include:

• Content-centric Networking — A new paradigm for networking focused on content – named “chunks" of data – as the new glue of the Internet, rather than connectivity to hosts or networks
   
• Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networking — solutions to wireless networking problems – caused by the shortcomings of legacy technologies designed for wired environments and their reliance on centralized approaches to sharing available bandwidth