Infranet

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The Infranet is a prospective architecture for the Internet and future packet-based telecommunications networks. Currently the Internet's architecture is largely the result of the emergent behavior of the interacting protocols on the Internet and the business practices of telecommunications providers. The Infranet can be thought of as the result of reforming existing networking practices by starting with the question "What services are required?" rather than "What do the protocols and equipment provide?".

This top-down approach to network design is substantially different from the bottom-up practices used by most of the successful Internet standards distributed by the IETF.

[edit] History

The infranet concept was first proposed by Juniper Networks, but has since gathered a wide base of industry support called the Infranet Initiative. The Infranet Initiative Council is a professional organization tasked with furthering the deployment and development of technologies and policies required for the achievement of the Infranet vision. Members of the IIC include several telecommunications companies, such as British Telecom, Lucent, and Qwest, as well as several large computer application and service companies including IBM, HP and Oracle Corporation.

[edit] Critics

Some competitors of Juniper Networks, such as Cisco Systems, initially claimed that the Infranet was nothing more than vaporware and marketing fluff. However under strong pressure from the service provider community, Cisco Systems along with Alcatel joined the Infranet Initiative Council in June 2005, and the body was rechristened the IPSphere Forum.