Recursive Internet Architecture
Miguel Ponce de Leon
Track 1: Internet/Network Architectures
3rd EU-Japan Symposium on the "Future Internet"
20 October 2010

RINA
• RINA: Recursive InterNetwork Architecture
– is a clean slate Internet architecture proposed
to resolve the challenges of today’s internet.
–Patterns in Network Architecture: A Return to Fundamentals by John Day, Published by Prentice Hall ISBN 0132252422

Networking is IPC
• RINA is based on the principle that
networking is Inter Process Communication
(IPC), it recurses the IPC service over
different scopes.
• Any two applications in different systems
are able to communicate using the services
provided by a Distributed IPC Facility (DIF)

Distributed IPC Facility (DIF)
• Processing at 3 timescales, decoupled by either a State
Vector or a Resource Information Base
– IPC Transfer actually moves the data
– IPC Control (optional) for error, flow control, etc.
– IPC Management for routing, resource allocation, locating
applications, access control, monitoring lower layer, etc.

DIFs are repeated making RINA
recursive.
– Distributed IPC Facilities may be stacked as required. The
number of layers in the stack may vary from hop to hop

InterProcess Communication
Two System Case

InterProcess Communication
MultiSystem Case

What does RINA Solve?
• Multihoming
– By adopting and extending Saltzer’s proposal for a naming and
addressing schema RINA names nodes as well as interfaces (Point of
Attachment (PoA)). Thus, it is able to identify a node by its name and
achieve multihoming.
• Mobility
– is a dynamic version of multihoming with controlled “link failures”, i.e., as
a wireless signal becomes weak, the link “fails”.
• Multicast
– All addressing (anycast, multicast) can be treated as a set of addresses
and a rule. The rule determines the number of members in a set that
satisfy the rule.

What does RINA Solve?
• Security
– RINA addresses security in that a DIF pro- vides a secure container.
Users of the DIF only see the destination application name and a local
handle. RINA does not use addressesand well- known ports.
• Policy Based Configuration
– With RINA, policy and mechanism are separated. By using policies in
con- junction with the common mechanisms, RINA can be configured to
meet the different requirements of applications.
• A detailed overview of RINA innovations and features can
be found the Pouzin Society (PSOC) website
[http://www.pouzinsociety.org/].

Implementing RINA
• OpenTinos
– http://www.opentinos.org
– OpenTinos is an open source project that applies the
software principles of component based architecture
(CBA) in the redesign of virtual network architectures
and protocols.
– CBA helps refine network components, their
relationships and their functionalities, and helps with
the real-time development and deployment of the
virtualised network.

Implementing RINA
– CBA helps refine network components, their
relationships and their functionalities, and will help with
the real-time development and deployment of the
virtualised network.

Implementing RINA
– Through the support of the Pouzin Society
• Developing open implementation of RINA within
OpenTinos
• Experimental Sandbox / Testbed
– OpenTinos has it origins as a prototype in the EU FP7
research project ICT 4WARD,

Miguel Ponce de Leon
Research Manager
TSSG, WIT
miguelpdl@tssg.org
+353 51 302952 (w)
www.tssg.org/people/miguelpdl
twitter: miguelpdl