[e2e] Survivability

[Craig Partridge]

In message <4.3.2.7.2.20030728143742.00a9d100 at pop.interlap.com.ar>, Fernando Go
nt writes:

>"Despite the fact that survivability is the first goal in the list, it is 
>still second to the top level goal of interconnection of existing networks. 
>A more survivable technology might have resulted from a single multimedia 
>network design".

I know just enough to say something stupid here, but I believe the reasons
were:

    (a) the military was experimenting with a wide range of networks and it
	was already clear when the TCP/IP effort started that different
	types of media had different strengths -- and the military didn't
	want to risk picking the wrong one.  (An impression perhaps
	reinforced part way through the TCP/IP research effort by the
	Autodin II effort -- which did pick one network, which the
	contractor then was not able to deliver).

    (b) long military refit cycles -- I spent a few years at the start
       of my networking career figuring out how to attach new TCP/IP networks
       in shipboard command centers to 15+ year old equipment already on
       the ships.  Expressed another way: the network you choose now will
       be installed sometime in the next 10 years and then will be on that
       ship another 20 years -- how is it going to interact (as it often
       must) with equipment that's already there (and has what was then
       the latest and greatest comms technology) and the technology that
       is to come?

Craig