Freeing the IP Internet Architecture from Fixed IP Addresses

The IP Internet architecture is such that applications must bind fixed IP addresses and ports before any other operations can be executed. These early bindings cause bottlenecks, reliability issues, and force applications and protocols to manage complex lower-layer issues. This poses a big challenge to the future of the IP Internet, given the large and growing numbers of nomadic Internet users, the shift in Internet usage from centralized servers to peer-to-peer content sharing, and the popularity of service replication and virtualization. To address these issues, we introduce and evaluate HIDRA (Hidden Identifiers for Demultiplexing and Resolution Architecture), a novel architecture that creates indirection between layers of any network stack. HIDRA enables sockets and protocols to evolve with the IP Internet by hiding all mobility, multihoming, and multiplexing issues from applications, does not induce significant overhead in the protocol stack, preserves backwards compatibility with today's Internet and applications, and does not require or preclude any additional identifiers or protocols to be used in the protocol stack.