Abstract—. As the network technology and applications continue
to evolve, computer networks become more and more important.
However, network users can attack the network infrastructure
(such as domain name service and routing services, etc.). The
networks can not provide the minimum required quality of
service for control. Network situation can not be aware in a
timely manner. And network maintaining and upgrading are not
easy. We argue that one root cause of these problems is that
control, management and forwarding function are intertwined
tightly. We advocate a complete loosing of the functionality and
propose an extreme design point that we call “3N”, after the
architecture’s three separated networks: forwarding network,
control network and management network. Accordingly, we
introduce four network entities: forwarder, controller, manager
and separators. In the 3N architecture, the forwarding network
mainly forwards packets at the behest of the control network and
the management network; the control network mainly perform
route computation for the data network; and the management
network mainly learn about the situation of the data network and
distribute policies and configurations, and the three networks
working together to consist a efficient network system. In this
paper we presented a high level overview of 3N architecture and
some research considerations in its realization. We think the 3N
architecture is helpful to improve network security, availability,
manageability, scalability and so on.