Understanding Information Infrastructure

design principles meets the real world The main reason, IAB argued, why it favoured CLNP was that it was necessary for the Internet to find a solution very soon (IAB 1992, p. 14). CLNP is a protocol which “is already specified, and several implementations exist” so it “will avoid design of a new protocol from scratch, a process that would consume valuable time and delay testing and deployment.” (ibid., p. 10). The concern for practical experience is deep and the CLNP solution of the IAB appealed to this. Furthermore, it paves the road for interoperability, another key principle in Internet. Interoperability is recognised to be the end-result of a process of stabilisation: I think that relying on highly independent and distributed development and support groups (i.e., a competitive product environment) means that we need a production, multi-vendor environment operating for awhile, before interoperability can be highly stable. It simply takes time for the engineering, operations and support infrastructure to develop a common understanding of a technology.