On the Hourglass Model

TL;DR

This paper aims to formalize the hourglass model, a conceptual framework describing layered system designs like the Internet and Unix, to clarify its validity and facilitate broader application.

Contribution

It introduces a formal approach to analyze and validate the hourglass model, addressing previous informal and controversial arguments.

Findings

Provides a formal framework for the hourglass model

Clarifies the conditions for the model's validity

Facilitates application to other layered systems

Abstract

The hourglass model is a widely used as a means of describing the design of the Internet, and can be found in the introduction of many modern textbooks. It arguably also applies to the design of other successful spanning layers, notably the Unix operating system kernel interface, meaning the primitive system calls and the interactions between user processes and the kernel. The impressive success of the Internet has led to a wider interest in using the hourglass model in other layered systems, with the goal of achieving similar results. However, application of the hourglass model has often led to controversy, perhaps in part because the language in which it has been expressed has been informal, and arguments for its validity have not been precise. Making a start on formalizing such an argument is the goal of this paper.