A future internet architecture that supports cloud computing

Abstract

Cloud computing has become a reality. Cloud companies are already advertising services to the general public, and it appears the trend will continue to expand. Whether the majority of computing will eventually migrate to a cloud-based model is an economic question that cannot be answered easily. For purposes of this paper, however, we make an assumption and ask a broad question: "assuming cloud infrastructure becomes dominant, what Internet architecture would best support the communication needed?" The paper describes a world of cloud computing, presents an Internet architecture, and discusses some of the network requirements.