Expert Cricket Liu: Integration of Internet protocols; A critical year for the IETF |
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By Cricket Liu
20 Dec 2004 | SearchNetworking.com |
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This year, more infrastructure services will migrate to appliances. This is the continuation of a trend that began years ago with the router. Since then, network storage and Internet firewalls have moved from general-purpose platforms to appliances. In 2005, we'll see more critical network infrastructure services move to appliances, including DNS, authentication and logging.
We will also see further integration of Internet protocols. Gluing together Internet protocols can produce compelling functionality. Today, RADIUS and LDAP can be combined to enable network devices to authenticate users against an LDAP user database. And DHCP clients and servers can automatically update zone data on name servers when leases are issued. In 2005, we will see further integration. For example, a combination of DHCP and RADIUS can provide long-sought-after authenticated DHCP services. Other combinations of services like this can provide new functionality, enhancing an enterprise's Network Identity Infrastructure (NII).
2005 is a critical year for the IETF. Many people have become frustrated by the Internet Engineering Task Force, specifically in the difficulty of getting important standards work done. However, the IETF is still widely respected in the Internet community. It has embarked on an effort to reform, and 2005 will determine if that effort succeeds—or if organizations, in true Internet tradition, begin to "route around" the IETF. I hope to see the IETF successfully adapt, if only to spare the Internet community the chaos and uncertainty that a widespread loss of faith in the IETF would cause.
Cricket Liu is the co-author of all of O'Reilly & Associates Nutshell Handbooks on the Domain Name System, DNS and BIND, DNS on Windows 2000, DNS on Windows Server 2003, and the DNS & BIND Cookbook, and was the principal author of Managing Internet Information Services.
Cricket Liu is Infoblox's vice president of architecture and serves as a liaison between Infoblox and the DNS user community. He worked for Hewlett-Packard for nearly ten years, where he ran hp.com, one of the largest corporate domains in the world, and helped found HP's Internet consulting business. Cricket later co-founded his own Internet consulting and training company, Acme Byte & Wire. After Network Solutions acquired Acme Byte & Wire and later merged with VeriSign, Cricket became director of DNS Product Management.
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