IRTF is rethinking the Internet' routing architecture to be prepared for the billions of users to come and to remain routing tables maintainable. On debate is how backbone routers operate. Recently, they're exchanging routing information via BGP, the Border Gateway Protocol. BGP routing tables are growing fast what will result in growing costs for everyone in the end. To strengthen its efforts, IRTF has revived the Routing Research Group. One of its interesting problems deals with IP addresses.

Toni Li, a well-know designer of routers at various network manufacturers, says:

The IP address has both the identification of the node and the location of the node. The question becomes: Can we separate the identification from the locator semantics, and can we still run an Internet with that kind of architecture?

In the meantime, two different routing proposals are discussed by the working group thus far:

• The Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) describes a method for splitting Internet addresses into endpoint identifiers and routing locators through the use of tunnel routers.


• The Six/One proposal proposes provider-dependent IP addresses given by service providers, while hosts would use addressing spaces from all providers on an interchangeable basis.

Another possibility is the Routing Research Group's complete jettisoning of BGP.
(Source)