Identifier Network
The Identifier Network[1] [2] [3] was first proposed by Professor Hongke Zhang, a highly respected scientist in Chinese National Basic Research Program (“973” project). The Identifier Network is famous for “two layer”,“three mappings” and “four identifiers”.
Different from the traditional OSI (Open System Interconnection) 7 layers network model, the Identifier Network includes two layers：the infrastructure layer and the pervasive service layer. The infrastructure layer is used to complete all kinds of network terminal access, forwarding and switching routing of data information in network, providing unified communication platform for network services such as data, voice, video and so on. The pervasive service layeris used to complete unified management of service data resource and unified control of network connections, so as to structure pervasive network service architecture and meet the requirement of different network.
The "three mappings" include: 1.the recolution mapping of SID, 2.the resolution mapping of CID, 3.the resolution mapping of AID.
The "four identifiers" include: 1.Routing Identifier (RID), 2.Access Identifier (AID), 3.Connecting Identifier (CID), 4.Service Identifier(SID).
The infrastructure layer introduces virtual access component (VAC) and virtual backbone component (VBC). VAC achieves the pervasive access by introducing the concept and scheme of AID. Users could communicate with each other at anytime, anywhere and share the most popular services. VBC uses RID to solve the problems of routing and management of location. In contrast, VBC realizes the resource configuration and coordination at the core networks by introducing the concept and scheme of RID. The resolution mapping of AID achieves the mapping between AIDs and RIDs and supports four operation modes: one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one and many-to-many.
User locates in the VAC, in which the AID represents the identity information of terminal or subnet, being only used in VAC. While the RID in the VBC represents the location information of terminal or subnet, being only used in VBC. The access router realizes the mapping from AID to RID through resolution mapping of AID. By this way, we could implement the separation between indentity information and location information.
The pervasive service layer introduces virtual service component (VSC) and virtual connect component(VCC). VSC is the foundation for realizing the pervasive service. It not only provides the universal description and presentation of various services, but also provides a system to control and manage the services. By introducing SID, various services could be sorted and described in a unified way. The resolution mapping of SID connects the VSC and VCC together and establishes communication tunnels for many kinds of services. VCC introduces the CID as identification of both connection and user. A CID identifies a connection which is used to achieve a service. If a user changes his location,the system only updates the mapping between AID and RID, but the CID and AID both remain invariant. And only the users authorized by the CID could use this connection, other users could not use the connection of this CID unless pass the authentication of this CID. Therefore, VCC could efficiently support mobility and security. In pervasive service layer, the resolution mapping of SID and CID are also employed. Similar with the resolution mapping of AID, both of them support four operation modes: one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one and many-to-many.
Over the course of ten years of investigation, a variety of theoretical models have been studied and applied to industrial and civilian applications, which demonstrated that Identifier Network provides great help to solve the problems of today’s Internet, offering impressive flexibility, security, mobility and manageability.