An Architecture for Internet Data Transfer

This paper introduces an extensible data-oriented transfer (DOT) service that decouples application-specific content negotiation from generic data transfers. One motivation behind the DOT service is to optimize bandwidth usage by minimizing control overhead (e.g., from HTTP or SMTP messages). Moreover, this modular architecture not only eliminates the need for re-implementation for each new service but also enables more focused efforts to improve data transfer. The authors acknowledge that since the DOT service is essentially designed for bulk transfers, services that promise low round-trip latency (e.g., CDNs or Google web services) or those with small-sized transfers pose an inherent incompatibility issue. The solution offered here is to use traditional delivery mechanisms for such cases rather than compromise the advantages of DOT.

The concept proposed in this paper is already used in sectors of the Internet today; for example, real-time media can use a TCP-based control plane and RTP over UDP for bulk packet delivery. Even though several complications arise with the large-scale employment of a DOT-like service (many of them addressed in the paper), it seems worthy of further exploration nevertheless. The idea is not too far-fetched and somewhat feasible, even if not completely practical for the Internet.