Abstract:

The size of the Internet and the applications used on it, much of which were unforeseen when the IP protocol was designed, have exposed limitation on the TCP/IP stack.
The networking community has been able to respond with new protocols and modifications to the existing ones, yet few have been deployed in the global Internet.

The nature of the Internet, a combination of networks under distinct administrative control, makes global coordinated efforts for protocol upgrade very difficult or impossible.
Some protocols require new software to be installed on all the end-nodes while others require it be installed on all the routers.

The realisation that protocol upgrades are not more than software installations has prompted the Programmable Networks research area, which proposes that routers be dynamically and continually upgraded by running user supplied code.
Its most extreme approaches defend the use of code carrying packets, processed at each router, instead of today’s data carrying packets.

While programmable networks strive to provide a future proof evolution path, they will need to be integrated into the current Internet infrastructure in order to be successful.
This progressive integration may be accomplished using an overlay network.

The overlay may be managed using an Peer-to-Peer algorithm which will be network topology aware by integrating with inter-domain and intra-domain routing algorithms.

This work consists in the definition of a global scale active networking framework, named Overlay Active Network (OAN), which will provide APIs for passive traffic integration with active applications.
QoS, accounting and security support is included, reflecting the needs of the different stack-holders.

Several innovative network services are defined, allowing their implementation, in the form of active applications, to be used to test the proposed framework.

Date: 2006-Jan-30     Time: 15:00:00     Room: INESC – Auditório Alfa 9º piso

For more information:

• susana.costa@inesc.pt
• 213100338