The Internet routing infrastructure and domain name infrastructure are huge and highly dynamic systems. Understanding and predicting the functionality and behavior of these systems is highly complex. As is true in many cases, detailed modeling and simulation of complex systems can help in understanding their behavior, both in a predictive mode and in a reactive environment. With a high quality simulation model of such a system, one can predict the effect of proposed changes, and can understand causes of prior failures. Further, one can model disruptive actions in the simulated environment without affecting deployed systems.
This research is focused on the detailed study and analysis of the behavior of these systems, using newly developed high-performance simulation tools capable of modeling networks consisting of hundreds of thousands or millions of network elements. A large part of the effort will be focused on survivability analysis for these critical Internet infrastructure services, in the presence of either deliberate or accidental failures or mis-configurations. If this work succeds, the Internet will become more resilient to failures and more dependable for end users.
