Group tackles IP routing protocols for embedded networks
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New IETF working group formed to create IP routing standards for low-powered networks.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has chartered a new working group to standardize IP routing protocols for embedded networks connecting devices with limited power, memory and processing resources.
The Routing Over Low-power and Lossy Networks (ROLL) working group will define interoperable protocols that will let disparate networks be tied together and managed using IP routers rather than protocol translation gateways and proxies. The architectural framework will be based on IPv6, the new generation of Internet Protocols that is expected to dramatically expand the reach of IP networks and the types and numbers of devices connected to them.
The U.S. government has mandated that agencies make their backbones capable of handling IPv6 traffic by next month.
'IPv6 was mean to accommodate the millions of things that don't look like computers,' said David Culler, chief technology officer at Arch Rock, of San Francisco, a wireless-sensor networking company, and co-chairman of the ROLL working group. 'That's what this addresses.'
Jean-Philippe Vasseur, distinguished engineer at Cisco Networks, is the group's other co-chairman.
The new working group will build on previous IETF work to standardize IP over low-power wireless links. ROLL will focus on extending interoperable routing.
'We already have a body of routing protocols' suited to different environments, such as backbones or campus networks, but they work together, Culler said. Many new routing protocols address high-bandwidth, high-speed and high-capacity environments, but ROLL will look in the opposite direction, toward small devices with constrained networks. When the Internet goes from its current 1 billion networked devices to the expected 10 billion with IPv6, most of those new devices will be the small ones on so-called lossy networks. 'Their needs are very different from the backbone, but they have to work together.'
The working group will focus on four networking areas:
- Industrial instrumentation, measurement and controls.
- Building controls, such as automated lighting and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
- Home networks, including security and utility metering.
- Connected urban environments providing municipal infrastructure and delivering services.
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