Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!A.ISI.EDU!CERF
From: CERF@A.ISI.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  A network you can trust
Message-ID: <[A.ISI.EDU]28-Mar-88.13:34:15.CERF>
Date: 28 Mar 88 18:34:00 GMT
References: <mckenzie@LABS-N.BBN.COM>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 16

Alex,

I was trying to react to your single network language "engineer the network"
because the internet will involve many nets and administrations. To the extent
we are able to produce common engineering objectives and stick with them, this
need not be an impediment, but it is almost always harder to engineer a 
collection of systems than a single one.

I also believe that some form of end/end reliability will be needed, whether
it is explicitly visible to the host or process software or not. Even if
the reliability features are off-loaded on a peripheral controller board,
they'd still be part of the architecture. 

I'm not sure whether we are having a disagreement or not.

Vint