Entwicklungslinien und trends des internets

The Internet is a key to the future development of our societies, and for innovation and for creation of added value in economy. Based on the Internet technology, the up to now service specific networks for voice, data and broadcasting services are more and more converging. This transformation process puts a number of new requirements on the architecture and technologies of the Internet These are e.g. increase of speed, ubiquitous mobility, high availability and security. The efficient and fast provisioning of new services, applications and digital content requires more system flexibility. The contribution gives an overview on current trends in Internet research and development. It describes the innovations of the lower layers (optical and wireless transport), decentralized networking and service architectures (Ad Hoc Networks, Peer-to-Peer communication and Grid Computing) and outlines concepts like Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture.