Criticism
Critics of dumb network architecture posit two arguments in favor of "intelligent" networks. The first, that certain users and transmission needs of certain applications are more important than others and thus should be granted greater network priority or quality of service. An example is that of real time video applications that are more time sensitive than say, text applications. Thus video transmissions would receive network priority to prevent picture skips, while text transmissions could be delayed without significantly affecting its application performance. The second is that networks should be able to defend against attacks by malware and other bad actors.
The dumb network (and the end to end principle) was conceived of as an antithesis to the idea of a centralized intelligent computer network in which all applications were under central network control. A synthesis is taking place in the context aware networks. These networks allow intelligent devices to setup end to end applications as in the dumb network. However they are aware of application needs and in the social and enterprise context in which the applications are being used. Thus the network can make decisions on resource allocation conflicts in light of the collective needs of all users and the purposes (social and enterprise) that guide them.
Read more about this topic: Dumb Network
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)