Dynamic Characteristics of k-ary n-cube Networks for Real-time Communication

Overlay topologies are now popular with many emerging peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, to efficiently locate and retrieve information. In contrast, the focus of this work is to use overlay topologies for transporting real-time streams on an Internet-scale. We aim to build an overlay communication system, for routing real-time data to potentially many thousands of subscribers with their own quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. In past work, we have analyzed the use of k-ary n-cube topologies for routing QoS-sensitive data. The basis for our work stems from the interconnection networks found in parallel communication architectures, such as the SGI Origin 2/3000. However, overlay networks addressed by our work are more scalable and dynamic than those found in traditional parallel computing platforms. We must address the issue of end-hosts joining and leaving the system at arbitrary times. While we have previously analyzed the optimal size and shape of an overlay, given the number of physical hosts in the system, this paper investigates the overheads of dynamically reconfiguring k-ary n-cubes to deal with system membership changes. Specifically, we study the control message exchanges needed to maintain a globally-consistent snapshot of the system configuration, given dynamic joins and departures of physical hosts. A cost model, capturing the lagged response in adapting the overlay to its optimal topology is derived

Dynamic Characteristics of k-ary n-cube Networks for Real-time Communication

Overlay topologies are now popular with many emerging peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, to efficiently locate and retrieve information. In contrast, the focus of this work is to use overlay topologies for transporting real-time streams on an Internet-scale. We aim to build an overlay communication system, for routing real-time data to potentially many thousands of subscribers with their own quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. In past work, we have analyzed the use of k-ary n-cube topologies for routing QoS-sensitive data. The basis for our work stems from the interconnection networks found in parallel communication architectures, such as the SGI Origin 2/3000. However, overlay networks addressed by our work are more scalable and dynamic than those found in traditional parallel computing platforms. We must address the issue of end-hosts joining and leaving the system at arbitrary times. While we have previously analyzed the optimal size and shape of an overlay, given the number of physical hosts in the system, this paper investigates the overheads of dynamically reconfiguring k-ary n-cubes to deal with system membership changes. Specifically, we study the control message exchanges needed to maintain a globally-consistent snapshot of the system configuration, given dynamic joins and departures of physical hosts. A cost model, capturing the lagged response in adapting the overlay to its optimal topology is derived. 1